Bob Dancer

Posted on June 13, 2023August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 14 Comments

I Almost Threw It Away

Bonnie and I have been married nine years now, and she turned 80 years old June 3. From the get-go, she knew I was a professional gambler, and it became clear to me early on that she had no potential to understand advantage gambling. But she enjoys the meals, cruises, and other traveling that my profession brings me, and my life works better with her in it.

One of the things we did early on was to insulate her from the gambling swings. The bulk of each of our assets are not commingled and file taxes separately. She had some assets of her own coming in — as had I. Our wills are set up that she gives her money to her heirs, and I give money to mine. We have a “Bob and Bonnie account” for household expenses and we each contribute to it.

Posted on June 6, 2023September 18, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 27 Comments

Hospitals Are No Fun

I missed my blog for May 30. Sometimes I have a number of blogs “in the bank,” but not at the moment. My cupboard was bare and I was too incapacitated to refill it. I thought I’d share with you what happened. It has nothing to do with gambling (although there was one AP move during triage), but perhaps you’ll find it interesting anyway. At a minimum, most of you have probably gone through your own version of hospitalization, and/or been close to others who have done so, and this blog might inspire all sorts of comments.

Posted on May 23, 2023August 29, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 14 Comments

Cutting it Close

Bonnie and I were staying at the Eldorado in Reno just before Mother’s Day. Through a combination of offers in both Reno and Lake Tahoe (about 60 miles from each other, reachable to and from the RNO airport by a $60-per-person-round-trip shuttle), it made sense for us to spend time at both casinos and fly back to Las Vegas on a 7:30 p.m. Saturday night flight.

Posted on May 16, 2023August 29, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 11 Comments

Which One is Better?

I’m going to present a case about a Caesars property with conditions that may not exist anywhere. I’m trying to address how I would figure things out if this property did exist. I know many of my readers would prefer I do all the calculations for their particular casino and tell them, “Just do this.” I can’t do that. There are thousands of casinos out there with a different game mix at each one. And the game mix is different for quarters than it is for dollars than it is for higher denominations. And to top it off, I have readers who insist on playing Double Double Bonus even if there are numerous superior games EV-wise.

Posted on May 9, 2023September 18, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 4 Comments

Maybe Not My Best Plan

Today’s story has nothing to do with gambling — video poker or otherwise. I’m on a cruise ship and have “checked out” from thinking about gambling. I’ll be back to talking about gambling next week. For those of you who read this despite it being outside of my normal subject matter, I hope you enjoy it.

Posted on May 2, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 11 Comments

Some Thoughts from a Cruise

As I type this, Bonnie and I are aboard the Norwegian Cruise Line Encore on a 15-day Miami-Panama Canal-Los Angeles cruise. We get highly discounted 7-day NCL cruises from Caesars because we have achieved Seven Stars status. But a Panama Canal cruise has been on our bucket list for a while, and here it is. Seven Stars players get “significant” discounts on all NCL cruises — even if those discounts are not as big as we get from 7-day cruises.

The Encore is a relatively new NCL ship — one of those with most of the restaurants and entertainment venues on levels six, seven, and eight. It is huge, holding up to 4,000 passengers. But passenger amenities are much less than we’ve experienced on other NCL cruises. Perhaps this is a major change in NCL policy. Perhaps it is unique to the Encore.

Posted on April 25, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 10 Comments

Hanging on to Points

At most casinos, you accumulate slot club points. Sometimes these are good for comps only. Sometimes you can redeem them for cash and/or free play.

When you redeem slot club points for cash or free play, this is taxable income. I know that many players “forget” to report this, but it’s taxable nonetheless.

Posted on April 18, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 18 Comments

It Goes Both Ways

In January, I had an incident at the Harrah’s Cherokee casino that I wrote about. I started my trip by taking a $20,000 marker, consisting of eight $2,500 TITO tickets and began to play $5 Deuces Wild. When I hit four deuces, I got two more of the same size . When I hit royals, I collected eight more.

It was a very successful trip and at the end, I had far more than eight of these tickets. I had signed for every one of them. At the end of the trip when I cashed out, the cage said one of the $2,500 tickets had been cancelled. They weren’t going to pay it until they figured it out.

Posted on April 11, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 8 Comments

She Don’t Know What She’s Doin’ but She Tries to Do Her Best

Author’s Note: I wrote a similar blog recently, with some readers requesting more information. I think there’s enough different between that piece and this one to make this one worthwhile.

The title of today’s blog comes from a mid-90s song “Baby Likes to Rock It” by the Tractors. I’ve liked that lyric since I first heard it when the song was new, and think that it’s a perfect fit for explaining Bonnie’s gambling.

Posted on April 4, 2023September 18, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 15 Comments

Betting With Bonnie

Bonnie and I’ve been together for about 10 years — with our ninth wedding anniversary coming up next month. We knew each other, more or less, for about five years before that in that we both belonged to the same square dance club. Bonnie would come with her husband Fred and I would be there with Shirley. There were about 100 “regulars” and we all knew each other. Each “square” consisted of eight dancers who would dance together for about five minutes, and then the squares would get shuffled and you’d dance with another group of dancers. While I thought Bonnie was a nice lady, I had no thoughts of us ever hooking up together. We were both married and I thought Shirley and I would be together so long as we both lived.

Author: Bob Dancer