I received the following email. It requires more analysis than I normally do without charge for strangers, but since I can get a column out of it, why not?
Upcoming video poker excursion commencing Friday, leaving Saturday evening.
Playing exclusively $1 9/6 JOB 99.54%.
My Offers for this Trip:
1 night comp’d in the best tower on a Friday night, no taxes or resort fees.
- $50 Walmart Gift Card to pick-up (Friday)
- $50 Bonus Slot Play (not sure if this can be played on VP since I’m fairly new to the casino) – Saturday only
- 4x Tier Credits all day Saturday 7a-midnight – likely all of my play will be Saturday
How do I calculate whether I have an advantage or not, or is it even mathematically possible?
Okay. I wasn’t given enough information to completely analyze this, but let’s give it a shot. The following are things to consider in no particular order:
9/6 Jacks or Better does indeed return 99.544% — if you play it accurately. Many players do not play it accurately. You don’t automatically receive that return by showing up. So, how well do you play this game?
A free room is nice, and a nicer room is better than a standard room, but I don’t include this in my calculation as to whether or not I have an advantage. I have a place to stay at home that I’m paying for whether I’m there or not. Just because other people might be charged $200 to stay in that room doesn’t mean that me not paying for it adds $200 to my equity.
On the other hand, how much is it costing me to get to this casino? If it’s 15 miles away, I’m not taking that into consideration (other than for tax reasons.) If it’s 1,500 miles away and I have significant expenses to get there which are not being reimbursed by the casino, then that definitely should count as negative Expected Value.
If you view playing video poker as a hobby, and hobbies cost money, then it can be easy to justify an airfare expenditure as part of the cost of enjoying your hobby. But this does not mean that you’re gambling with an edge. It means you are, maybe, paying less than retail to enjoy your hobby.
I include the gift card and free play at face value. To be sure, I’d rather have $100 in cash than a $50 gift card and $50 free play, but it’s “close enough.” If it were a $50 Chevron card, however, that’s not worth so much to me. Nothing against Chevron. It’s just that I drive an electric car and don’t buy gas.
This letter stipulates that he picks up the gift card on Friday but isn’t going to play until Saturday. Are you going to spend the rest of Friday costlessly?
Picking up a gift but not playing on a particular day may or may not sit well with the casino. Doing this occasionally is no big deal. Making a practice out of it may well cause the casino to stop giving you these gifts. Remember, even though players generally see these gifts as a reward for past play, casinos generally see these rewards as an incentive to get you to come in and play more. If you collect the gift but do not play more, and do this regularly, some casinos will punish you by not giving you these rewards in the future.
Playing 9/6 Jacks or Better costs you, on average, $45.60 per $10,000 coin-in. It isn’t specified how much is going to be played. If you only play $1,000 that weekend, it’ll cost you $4.56 on average, but you’re not likely going to get these offers in the future. If you play $100,000 that weekend (not likely on a $1 single line game), your expected loss is $456, which swamps the offers you are scheduled to received.
The $50 in free play and the $50 gift card are “one time stock amounts.” The losing of $45.60 per $10,000 coin-in is a “recurring flow amount.” You can’t really add up stock amounts and flow amounts. If you say, I’m going to play $xxxx amount of coin-in, and that is going to cost me 0.00456 * $xxxx, then the Expected Value of what you’re going to play becomes a specific stock amount which can be offset by the other stock amounts. But so long as it’s a nebulous amount of play, the amounts are not addable.
You mention that you’ll receive 4x tier credits. That’s nice. That’s clearly better than 2x tier credits. But I have no idea what tier credits are worth at this casino to you. (I don’t know which casino or even in which state this casino is located.) Are you planning on playing enough to reach a particular tier level in the requisite time. (Usually, tiers are recalculated annually or semi-annually. January 1 through December 31 is perhaps the most typical time interval to calculate tiers, but it can be April 1 – September 30, or any other interval.)
If a free (actually “highly discounted”) cruise is part of your tier benefits, is this something of value to you? Some people like cruising. Some don’t. Some have a cruising partner. Others don’t and may not like taking a cruise unaccompanied. If a daily free buffet is a tier benefit, and you’re only going to be at this casino for four days the entire year, then this isn’t such a big deal. Even if you plan to be at this casino fifty or more times, eating at the same place so frequently gets to be rather tiresome. If free internet is a benefit but you’re wary of using free internet and always travel with your own secure hot spot, then this benefit isn’t worth anything to you. You get the idea. A list of benefits in a brochure is not the same as the value to you – which may very well be different than the value of the same tier level to me.
You mention tier credits. Do you earn other credits and how much are they worth? The Caesars system, for example, gives you Reward Credits as well as Tier Credits. You can spend these RCs for food, merchandise, and other things. You can even turn them into free play — discounted 50%. Is there anything similar to this at this particular casino?
Are there other benefits you didn’t mention? Perhaps drawing tickets for a new car at the end of the month? You’re not likely to earn enough tickets playing one day of single-line dollars to give you a meaningful shot at this, but if you’re going to be at this casino anyway when the drawing is going on, surely this drawing is worth something.
Finally, unless this is your last time at this casino ever (in which case your tier level is irrelevant), you’ll be earning benefits down the road for your play this time. You might get free play in the mail. You might get future offers similar to the current one. You can’t take this one weekend in isolation. It’s part of the overall package.
I go through this kind of calculation for every offer I get. I play at enough casinos that I frequently have choices of offers at more than one place. I use the process described here to rank these offers. Sometimes I can take advantage of two or more offers in the same time period, but usually they are mutually exclusive.
And whatever answer I come up with this weekend, next weekend I’ll go through the same process again to decide what to do then.
“Picking up a gift but not playing on a particular day may or may not sit well with the casino.” Agree with this, especially at Locals properties, especially if nothing happens on the adjoining days. With a travel-to casino, ratings are more typically evaluated on a trip basis. So, if I arrive on Friday, have dinner, get a freebie, go to sleep, then give adequate action on Saturday, no harm to the rating.
The casino in this example is Foxwoods, in Connecticut. The visit would have taken place two weekends ago when they had a Walmart gift card giveaway for invited guests on Friday (pickup times were 12 pm – 8 pm) and a 4x tier credit multiplier on Saturday. The $50 value on the gift card would have been for guests below $500 ADT. The term “bonus slot play” is something that Foxwoods uses, and their multipliers run from 7 am – 12 am on the days when they are active. The comped room would have been in the Grand Pequot tower, presumably a base-level room.
At Foxwoods, the tier period (benefit and earning) is six months, starting on April 1 and October 1. For video poker, you get 1 reward point for every $400 of coin-in. You get 4 tier credits for every base reward point earned. Each reward point earned is redeemable for either $1 of free play, $1 of resort spend, or 50 cents of cash back.
I consider the “sweet spot” tier at Foxwoods to be the Platinum tier (their second highest non-invite tier), which takes 2000 tier credits each period to achieve/maintain. The key benefits at the Platinum tier that are easy to use each and every visit include lounge access for yourself and up to one guest each day (and that can easily cover two full meals; I’d value it at $15-20 per visit per person, not counting available complimentary alcoholic beverages) and a 15% bonus on earned reward points. During golf season, the Platinum tier gets some free rounds of golf, but that’s seasonal and requires being into golf to get full value.
Without using tier credit multipliers, it would take $200k of VP coin-in every 6-month period to make/maintain Platinum. Foxwoods does 1-2 4x tier credit multipliers per month and often a day of 2x tier plus 2x reward points. I rarely play at Foxwoods outside of tier credit multiplier days.
On 9/6 JoB at Foxwoods, one gets about 54.8% of their theo back in reward point value without any tier-based bonus. On a 2x reward point multiplier day (during which tier-based bonuses are inactive), any VP game above 99.5% RTP turns positive based on reward points alone. Without a reward credit multiplier or bonus, if one can realize $80 of value from the lounge, 9/6 JoB is a positive play if the single-day coin-in is below $38800. That specific amount would take just under 10 hours of play on single-line if one can maintain a rate of 800 hands per hour.
From the major population centers in New England (and I’ll even throw in the NYC metro area), Foxwoods is a 1-3 hour drive from home. The emailer likely lives far enough away that it was worth it to stay the night before in order to get an early start on the gaming in the morning to take the fullest advantage of the tier credit multiplier. Also, I am guessing that the emailer either didn’t have a comped room available for Saturday night or just couldn’t stay the night for other reasons.
I mean that is extreme ! As a tourist, I certainly give value to free room and free food. If somebody lives in the neighborhood and has a place to sleep, then it’s a different story. Tourists like us appreciate a little extra service as the bankroll lasts a bit longer for that particular trip. Here’s the difference between professional gambling and fun seekers (casual player). Although we (tourists) want to win and try to play well, the final score is not match deciding.
And how many times are you down just 50 dollars more or less after a 10’000 dollar coin-in? That is purely theoretical. A more realistic scenario in my opinion must be in the range of rather -700/+400 most of the times. I did not even calculate that but that’s my rough estimate.
From Switzerland
Boris
search for “jazbo video poker probability distributions”
Thank you for sharing and for your time Bob. Very insightful and clears up some key factors of considerations and calculations needed for a more accurate assessment of my comps with my overall play, and if indeed I have an edge or not. Printed out and saved.
My current level of play has actually earned me far, far better offers from my home market of Atlantic City, rather than this road trip to New England, specifically Foxwoods in Ledyard, CT. Ditto for Pennsylvania, comps are horrible, almost non-existent for out-of-state visitors, even in some pretty remote areas.
In Atlantic City, 50% of the gaming revenue comes from only two casinos, Borgata and Hard Rock, so if you can find quality games in any of the other casinos that are left, chances are the comps and offers will be much richer than any others you are currently receiving (as of the current time).
Thank you Julian for the additional information.
I had a very poor overall experience at Foxwoods on my last trip and won’t be returning. It’s a 4 hour+ drive for me one way, including charging my electric car.
Upon my arrival 15 minutes prior to check-in time, they would not honor my preference of a non-smoking room. I said I will take either a King or 2 Queen beds, I didn’t care. None available at all they said. I found this to be highly unreasonable. I arrived before check-in and couldn’t reasonably believe that no non-smokers checked out by almost 5pm and since I arrived slightly prior to check-in, nobody should have taken my room had it been reserved. Seemed like they were intentionally holding rooms for the regulars or high rollers.
My only option was to switch to the Fox Tower, which was a nearly 30 minute walk from Grand Pequot, not including having to move my car. Plus it was supposedly spring break for the local school’s and the place was packed solid with kids everywhere. Apparently the outlets are a huge draw for the local kids to just hang out. Being that it was so crowded, they spilled over into the casinos as well.
Just an overall horrendous experience and not worth the trip back. Luckily AC has been going well, which is less than hour away.
Vegas was a two or three times a year trip but with airfare so high, that has been discontinued indefinitely. I can’t justify spending five hundred dollars + for roundtrip airfare plus a rental car (my preference) when Vegas has the same, if not worse, games than Atlantic City now. A few years ago, that was reversed, as I could still play 100.76 FPDW in Station casinos but those days are long gone. Shockingly I get mail offers fairly regularly from Sunset Station even though I live across the country (stayed there once, play was fairly low and was even contacted by a host once via email) for 3 nights comp’d plus 50 bucks or so FP, but I would never go back to Station since they pulled their buffet. Guess they are really hard up for every penny since they are building their new “Dream” casino on the Blvd.
I can partially agree to Marky Mark in terms of the recent changes that can’t be overseen in the Las Vegas market. Besides the inflationary pricing-up in the restaurants, many things have changed to the worse for the visitor.
What once was a great place to go for gambling and dining has turned into a mediocre at best place to go. Speaking about the Tuscany, the Boyd operated casinos, and last but not least Station Casinos.
I was shocked when I first ordered my regular stake at Marylin’s Coffee Shop at Tuscany which used to be around 14.95 or so and now costs about 10 dollars more. So if you want to pay with your comp dollars, it takes significantly more play to get the same thing that you’re used to.
Station and Boyd eliminated their popular buffets although it was something the people enjoyed to go. Mostly locals of course, as they cater to locals. Which brings up the fact that if people only visit a casino with the intention to go to eat at the low cost places and then disappear again, then of course if makes no sense for the operator to offer such a place.
The solution for that would be to offer a buffet at the cost of perhaps 22.95 for dinner or so, when paying cash, or give it at a whopping discount to gambling patrons when paying with points. That would be fair and definetely be something that could work out for everybody. A players’ buffet which is affordable and something that’s offered to non gambling patrons at a price that’s a bit higher but still attractive.
I brought this proposal to the management at Boyd by writing a comment card. I was never responded. It shows the person that read it was either without power to make things happen or they simply aren’t interested.
I used to have the president tier level at Station before covid and also was a heavy playing guest at Boyd before it all happened. Since they re-opened the markets for international tourists I have been visiting Vegas a couple of times but haven’t been gambling much at Boyd’s and Station’s casinos since. I frequent other places.
From Switzerland
Boris
Boris wrote, “I was shocked when I first ordered my regular stake at Marylin’s Coffee Shop at Tuscany which used to be around 14.95 or so and now costs about 10 dollars more.”
I was shocked that a coffee shop steak even cost $15.
In my time in Vegas — around 1987-2007 — graveyard shift coffee shop steak dinners were $2 all over the place. I don’t expect that price to exist 20 years later, but a coffee shop steak for $25???
When Vegas went so quickly from being the city with the most ridiculously cheap prices in the country to being a city with the most ridiculously high prices for what it offered and tacked on deceptive and predatory extra prices (resort fees etc.) to boot, Vegas lost its entire raison d’être for me which was a place to go where you could live it up for next to nothing.