What’s Good for the Goose

I attended a wedding recently in Las Vegas. I’ve known the groom for about 25 years. We both were successful players at the MGM Grand during the time I was able to make $1 million there during a six-month period.

I was seated at the wedding reception next to a player I’ve known even longer. “Sam” now lives in California and mentioned he has some advantage plays in California, Oregon, and Washington. I asked him if there was anything he could tell me about the plays.

Sam told me he had partners and they were all sworn to secrecy. They believed the plays wouldn’t last if other pros started showing up. I understood.

Sam later asked me if I was still gambling. I told him yes. There were a few casinos who were “giving away the store,” so to speak, and I was managing to get my share of what they were giving away.

He pressed me for details and I gave him approximately the same answer as he had given me, which was that I had a partner and we believe that if too many pros know the exact details, the duration of the promotion would be limited.

But Sam pressed on. He told me that we’ve known each other “forever,” and that should count for something. Again, I demurred, he took the hint, and we began talking about something else.

The thing is, I do have friends with whom I share things. But those friends also share things with me. Currently, three of my best four regular plays came on a tip from somebody else. On one of them, when I got into the play and found out some extra things, I explained the “enhancements” I had found to the friend who told me about the play in the first place.

Is there a possible scenario when Sam and I start sharing with each other? Sure. But I’m going to need some useful information from him before I start sharing my “good stuff.” I’ve given him some hints in the past and so far, it’s not been reciprocated.

Once a player, “Tom,” told me he was willing to share a video poker play with me for single-line quarters where, including mailers and everything, the player had a 1½% advantage. 

I thanked him and told him I wasn’t interested. That play might be worth $15 per hour — including the time it took to drive back and forth. There was a time when I would have jumped at that play, but now I want to spend my time on plays that are more lucrative than that. I played a lot for quarters as I was beginning my video poker career, and I certainly don’t mean to put others down who are now in that position, but that’s no longer my thing.

If Tom were actually a quarter player, then my best plays would be beyond his means. But he could easily know players for whom the plays were not beyond their means. I didn’t want to have to give up plays for something that would be worthless to me.

I told Tom that if he found a good play on $5 or higher machines, I’d certainly be interested. I could trade information or give him a finder’s fee, whichever he preferred. But for me to pay, the information had to be useful.

A player recently told me about a play at a casino that was exceptionally lucrative. Unfortunately, it consisted of four-times-a-week drawings — at a casino well over 1,000 miles from Las Vegas. That information wasn’t going to be useful to me personally, but I’m still glad I know about it. That might be information that someday I could barter with someone else in order to obtain knowledge that was potentially profitable to me.

Another player, “Ulrich,” told me about a play that had been good, but the casino changed the promotion a week before I showed up. Ulrich later swore he didn’t know, but I wonder. There are players who will try to trade useless information in the hopes that they will receive something useful in return.  Ulrich swore he’d make it up to me. We’ll see. It’s been two years, and I haven’t heard from him since.