To figure out how to spend my gambling time, I estimate how much each promotion is worth on a dollars-per-hour basis. Let me give you a hypothetical example.
Assume I was playing NSU Deuces Wild (99.73%) and the slot club returns 0.70%. I regularly play $100,000 a month there. On a regular basis I receive weekly mailers for $60 of free play. Let’s add that all up.
It’s easy to add the 0.70% to 99.73% to come up with 100.43%. The mailer adds 0.24% (i.e. $240/$100,000 = 0.0024 = 0.24%). Add this in and we 100.67%. To turn this into a dollars-per-hour number we need to have an estimate of how many dollars per hour we put through the machine.
Keep in mind that even though the game plays 99.73% when played perfectly, it’s only appropriate to use that number in the calculations when your accuracy is really close to 100%. If your percentage accuracy is 98%, then you multiply 99.73% times 0.98 and you get 97.74%. With this level of accuracy, you’ll basically never have the advantage.
If you play 600 hands per hour, then you play $3,000 per hour on a $1 machine or $6,000 per hour on a $2 machine. If you play 1,000 hands per hour, the corresponding numbers are $5,000 and $10,000. I can’t tell you how fast you play. You’ll have to measure it yourself. But enough slot clubs are based on one point per dollar that you should have a choice of casinos where you can time yourself.
Let’s assume I can play 800 hands per hour and there’s a $2 machine I can play perfectly. Multiplying my advantage of 0.67% times the $8,000 in coin in yields an hourly rate of slightly more than $50.
Is this a good game to play? We can’t tell yet. How much can you earn at other casinos? If the best you can find elsewhere is $40 per hour, then yes this is a good game. If you can regularly find games worth $60 per hour or better, this game is not so good.
Keep in mind that I’m planning on playing $100,000 per month at this casino. That’ll take 12.5 hours on the machine and speed we’re talking about. Even if there are $60 per hour opportunities at other casinos, if $50 per hour is the best deal I suspect I’m going to get this month at the current casino, it might still be a good play in order to keep the mailers coming.
Unless these stakes are “chicken-feed” to you, there are bankroll considerations. NSU has a moderate variance. If playing a $2 machine is at the “edge” of your comfort zone, playing a $50 per hour promotion might make more sense than playing a $70 per hour promotion based on playing Double Double Bonus, which has a much higher variance. This is an important thing to talk about, but not today. Today I’m trying to discuss something else.
Let’s assume that our $50 per hour expectation is the one we choose to play. There will be players who play it for five hours and instead of winning the expected $250 actually suffer a $1,500 loss. What happened? How can we say something is worth a positive $50 if it turns out to cost us $300 per hour instead? Was something wrong with our methodology? Or perhaps we used the right methodology but our calculations were wrong?
No. Everything is just fine. When I calculate a promotion is worth $50 an hour, I’m assuming that if I play it the next 1,000 hours I’ll be ahead $50,000. There will be times during that 1,000 hours where I’m considerably ahead of my $50 per hour pace. And other times when I’ll be considerably behind. There’s a wide range over which my score in the next five hours could reasonably end up.
Collecting on four deuces (for $2,000) or a royal flush (for $8,000) doesn’t always happen like clockwork. At the speed I’m playing, I can expect to connect on deuces every 6-7 hours on average. And a royal every 53 hours or so. Since I hit neither of these jackpots over this particular 5-hour stretch, of course I’m down. It figures. There will be other 5-hour periods where I’ll be ahead many thousands of dollars rather than the $250 I predicted.
When I estimate $50 per hour, I’m using a long-term number to predict a short-term result. I know it’ll rarely turn out to be exactly correct over any specific time interval. But the same uncertainties will also be present on the $10 per hour game. And the $25 per hour games.
The reason I go through these calculations isn’t to accurately predict how much I’ll be ahead or behind by the time I go to sleep tonight. I simply don’t have that kind of crystal ball. The reason is to choose between promotions. I will pick a $50 opportunity over a $30 per hour opportunity. Over the course of a year (or several years, sometimes) my actual results tend to come out reasonably close to the predictions.
There are players who’ve heard me calculate a given promotion at $20 per hour who get really angry at me when they lose. It’s like I’ve led them astray. Somehow they interpret my prediction as some sort of a guarantee. It’s nothing of the sort.
I’m very comfortable living in the long run. I can’t define it exactly. But I’ve had good results for long enough that I really believe in it. My short run results don’t matter that much to me. Yes I prefer to be ahead two royals this month rather than down two royals, but neither score affects my lifestyle or my equanimity very much.
Many other players live and die by their daily scores. Their body language tells you whether they are ahead or behind today. I’m glad I’m not wired that way. It would make a gambling lifestyle much more stressful than it needs to be.