Every year, the video poker bulletin board vpFREE asks its members to participates in various polls. One recent one was “What was your total lifetime VP profit or loss (include all cash or cash equivalents received) as of 31 DEC 2015?”
There are various categories you can check. One of boxes is “about even” and it gets a surprisingly large number of votes. I’m guessing many of the people who check that box do not keep good records.
In addition to (or perhaps in lieu of) entering his lifetime score in the poll, one guy, I’ll call him “Joe,” posted the figure of +$50,378. I found that curious. A rather precise number, but who knows how accurate it is?
To start with, let’s assume Joe is telling the truth. (I don’t know Joe, at least by name. Perhaps I’d recognize him if I saw him. I have no idea if assuming Joe is telling the truth is warranted or not. Later on we’ll relax this truth-teller assumption.) We’re going to assume that Joe keeps good records and has added up his net score for however many years he has been playing and it comes out to the number given.
Even with that assumption, I don’t know what his score is.
For example, let’s say he has collected $500 worth of Chevron gas cards. Does he count this as $500 in his score, or $0?
Let’s say that he earns free play and has $5,000 worth unredeemed. Does he count that as $5,000 or $0?
Let’s say he collected $6,000 in free play based on monthly mailers over the years. Each time he played it through once and cashed it out. Also assume the casino does not include this money on the win-loss statement at the end of the year. Does it show up on Joe’s records?
Let’s say he won two drawings and received $1,000 in cash (for which he received a 1099) and $1,000 in free play (for which no 1099 was issued). Do they show up on his score sheet equally?
Let’s say Joe plays twenty minutes of penny slots a month at each of the casinos he frequents in order to keep his welcome. The results of that are clearly related to gambling and need to be reported to the IRS. The poll, however, is supposed to be “video poker only.” The slots are not video poker, but he wouldn’t be playing slots if he weren’t a video poker semi-pro. Does he include these results or not?
Twice a year, Joe goes out with the guys to a small bar in Las Vegas that offers video poker and no slot club. There is no electronic record of his actually gambling there. If he wins $400 does that go in his records? How about if he loses $400?
Joe is married to Mary. Joe plays on both his card and his wife’s card. Are the results Joe reported his numbers when he plays on his card? His numbers when he plays on either card? His and Mary’s numbers when they play on either card?
Last time Joe hit a $4,000 royal flush, he tipped $20 to the casino personnel who brought him his money. He took home a net of $3,500 that day. Do his records say $3,500 or $3,520?
He was driving through Louisiana and played a little, hitting one taxable jackpot for $1,250. The casino withheld $75 because they withhold 6% there. Joe can get some or all of that back if he files a Louisiana state tax return. He decides it is too much bother for too little money. (If he had had thousands of dollars withheld over several jackpots, you can bet he would try to get the money back. But it’s too much work for “only” some fraction of $75, in Joe’s opinion.) Does that $75 get deducted from his gambling winnings?
Joe flies across the country to gamble. He has a bad trip money-wise and the casinos gave him $600 to cover his airfare as a consolation prize. Does that money show up anywhere in his records?
Joe’s buddy wanted a cheap Vegas weekend so he asked Joe to set him up. Joe got a nice room for three nights and show tickets for free from his host. Retail for the rooms and show was $650 and Joe charged his buddy $400 — who was very happy with the deal. If Joe weren’t a video poker player he wouldn’t have qualified for those things. Did that $400 show up in his records?
Joe knows of one casino where a form of card-pulling works. Without going into details here, let’s just say that his actual score is quite a bit different at that casino from what the casino thinks it is. Do is records reflect what actually happened or what the casino thinks happened?
If you want, you can contemplate the number Joe would report if he wanted to appear more successful than he actually was? Or less successful? People have a variety of motives.
At the risk of being repetitious, I don’t know Joe at all, have absolutely no bone to pick with him, and I certainly don’t know the details of how he arrived at +$50,378. I know how I would report each of these things but I don’t know how ANY OF YOU would answer these questions.
The administrator will tabulate the poll results sometime down the road, and report how the members did. But his tabulation will only be as good as the raw data — which to me will ALWAYS be highly suspect. And it’s a “some people provide results and some people don’t” situation. I suspect, but can’t prove, that people who win are more likely to enter their results than people who lose.
Is this poll a good exercise to go through? I don’t know. I don’t find the information useful at all but perhaps some people do. I did click the “$1,000,000+” box (the highest one offered) as a lifetime score for myself but don’t know or care how many others clicked that box or any other.