Author: Bob Dancer

I first started playing “big” in 1994 — which at the time meant playing $5 9/6 Jacks or Better with a 0.67% cash slot club, and juicy monthly promotions at Treasure Island and the Mirage. Other casinos had similar situations (Caesars Palace, Desert Inn, MGM Grand and the Golden Nugget, among others), but I didn’t find out about those until later.

I was 47 years old at the time — a fairly typical age for the customers of those casinos. For the most part, people in their 20s and 30s were still trying to buy a house and find a way to send the kids to college, so they generally didn’t have the funds necessary to gamble for sizeable stakes. 

I was engaged to Shirley and married her later that year. A significant number of the participants in these events were married and both spouses played — and the single ones were probably 80% men and 20% women.

I played these games and promotions for the next seven years — getting to know many of the players who played these promotions at most of the casinos and gradually increasing the denominations of the games I played. The monthly promotions were often on weekends, and there were more than four casinos having regular promotions, so we’d often double dip or triple dip the same weekend.

For a period of three or four years, enough casinos were having generous promotions that if you could afford to play $5 single line games and could play 9/6 Jacks or Better competently, you did very well. Shirley and I remained as frugal as when we didn’t have a lot of money, so our gambling bankroll grew significantly. This type of bonanza no longer exists. There are games you can beat, but not a lot of them.

I got to know two players, “Tom” and “Jerry,” —  one of whom died several years ago and the other I haven’t seen for a few years and may or may not still be an active player. They were gambling partners — not in any romantic sense but in a business sense. There were also teams, where one person put up the money and had several players playing progressives with the common bankroll, but this wasn’t the same as that.

Tom and Jerry both had been successful gamblers for years and both had a gambling bankroll. They just shared results, so if one hit a $100,000 royal flush, that windfall was split two ways. Same principle if one had a big loss.

I had several discussions with them, both separately and together, about what makes a good partner. First was absolute trust. Second, each had to bring something to the relationship the other one lacked. In this particular case, Tom was successful at poker and blackjack, in addition to video poker, while Jerry played progressives and flew all over the country to casino openings. 

A third feature was analytical skills. There were (and still are) a lot of positive gambling opportunities. Discussions needed to be had as to which were the best ones to attack — and how. Each promotion is a little bit different than the others, and sometimes there were arguments about which ones to approach and how. For me, this is a major benefit of having a trusted partner. I wouldn’t want a yes man. I would want someone who could challenge my ideas.

There were far fewer casinos nationwide then than there are now, and most of the brand-new ones had problems when they opened — which could be exploited by the knowledgeable player. Jerry liked doing that and was successful at it.

For me, Shirley was a gambling partner, of sorts, when we were married — but I was by far the driving force behind the decisions. She didn’t really like gambling very much, although she liked dancing at the events. When we became successful enough that she could quit, she happily did. That was a major contributing factor to us eventually getting divorced in 2012 — although her desire to move away from Las Vegas and her aversion to cigarette smoke were the dominant reasons for the breakup. I’d spend 60 hours a week on gambling-related activities, and she fended for herself. We just didn’t do enough things together.

After my marriage to Shirley broke up and I hooked up with Bonnie, I knew I had to do marriage differently for it to survive. Bonnie is a partner in life, but not so much a partner in gambling. She will never be a competent video poker player, but I play on both her card and mine, where allowed, and we go to out-of-town casino events together. 

We were in square dancing together for years, but when the pandemic shut things down, Bonnie decided she didn’t want to do that anymore. We might pick that back up if the recent tax bill remains unchanged and I quit gambling in a few months.

At one point along the way, I decided to have a gambling partner of my own. I’ll tell you about it, but not today.

For decades, the Four Queens in downtown Las Vegas has had dollar single-line 10-7 Double Bonus. A few years ago, they cut the slot club in half on those games (leaving players with a 0.16% cash and 0.3125% comps), along with monthly mailers and promotions. Still, with a game that started at 100.17%, it was a decent play for dollars. It was the only single-line dollar game I still played.

A few months ago, they downgraded the last four 10/7 machines to unplayable pay schedules. The highest returning video poker games they have now are single-line quarter and fifty cent 9/6 Jacks or Better — with full slot club benefits meaning 0.3125% cash back and 0.625% comps. They still have mailers. They still have promotions. There are some advantage slots there and sometimes I can find one that is playable.

The thing is, I’ve been playing games for $25 up to $125 a hand for a long time. Switching to a game that requires $1.25 or $2.50 a hand to play really doesn’t float my boat. I’ve heard it said that for gambling to be interesting, it has to hurt when you lose. There is no reasonable loss at fifty cents or lower which will affect my bankroll or well-being at all. 

So, will I still play there? 

Yes, but not for the reason you might think.

At the current time, Bonnie and I together have more than $6,000 comp dollars, which can be used at either Four Queens or Binion’s, located catty-corner across Fremont from the Four Queens. Magnolia’s is a decent-enough coffee shop for when I’m downtown, and Hugo’s Cellar is an excellent old-fashioned steak house where we enjoy taking friends. There are a few other food options and they are building more.

If I quit playing for six months (or possibly it’s for one year), our comp dollars will evaporate. But so long as I continue to ti give them some play, the comp dollars will last until we use them up. So, I will continue to play some.

This summer, for example, you could play 400 points ($3,200 coin-in on video poker; half that on slots), and get $40 in free play. You could do this up to four times at Four Queens each month, and four times at Binion’s, where the best game is $1 8/5 Bonus. This is a 1.25% promotion, which is decent, but it’s for low stakes. I earned some of the bonuses for Bonnie and me in June and July, but not all four at each place. In August, I’ll be out of town for almost half the month, so I’ll probably do similarly.

Although we currently each earn $80 per month in free play, that amount could be reduced or even disappear because I’m not playing as much as I used to when they had dollar 10/7. 

This is the one casino where I can say I’m not playing for the money — I’m playing for the comps. And it’s not so much to earn additional comps (which I will do to a minor degree), but mainly to retain the comps I earned previously.

Even if I give up gambling at the first of the year because of the new tax law, I’ll retain this play until the comps are gone — which could easily take three or more years.

I posted not so long ago that I lost about $150,000 gambling in 2024. In a later blog I remarked that using a coupon for a breakfast buffet at the South Point, incurring a $2 tip, was a good value. A reader, who posts under the name of “Mike,” in separate posts, called me out for the size of the tip and commented that after losing $150,000 in a year, worrying about spending a few dollars on a meal seemed ironic to him.  I took his posts as gentle teasing, but decided to respond.

On the matter of tipping, all I will say is that I generally tip modestly. If a buffet server only brings drinks, I do not tip the same as if they take and serve the food order as well. Everybody has their own rules for tipping and that’s how I do it. You can tease me about it if you want, but I’m unlikely to change. 

But finding it ironic that I was able to lose $150,000 and still “count pennies” in a different situation means Mike really doesn’t understand my methods.

Before calendar year 2024 began, I had every expectation that I would have a nice score during that year. The previous year was quite good, and I had a number of “good plays” in out-of-town casinos that I expected to be profitable. In the 32 tax years between 1993 and 2024 inclusive, I’ve had a positive score 26 of the 32 years. If I start having negative years back-to-back-to-back, I’ll conclude that I’ve lost my touch. There’s no doubt that I make more mistakes now than when I was younger, and the games are definitely tighter, but I still have enough skill and moxie to succeed. For how much longer this will be true, I don’t know. 

Author’s note: the previous sentence was written before I had any idea the new tax bill would drastically change things for gamblers. It is very possible I am near the end of my gambling days, not because of lack of success but because of the crippling tax law that is soon to be in effect.

Every day I gambled in 2024, possibly 280 or so, I was playing situations, both video poker and slots and a minor-yet-important amount of sports betting, where I believed I had the edge, all things considered. I managed my sleep as best I could, so I was at my best when I played. Every hand was played as well as I could (although undoubtedly, I made more mistakes than I used to.)

Frugal decisions have always been part of my methodology — whether I was ahead or behind for the day, week, or year. If I can eat healthily at comped restaurants, I do. If I can find nothing suitable to eat (which is true at some places), I’ll use real cash money to eat elsewhere.

I studied the mailers at the casinos I frequent so I could be at the place with the highest return. Every casino has at least something going on every day, but some days of the week or month are juicier than the others. Usually, the rules weren’t in the mailers, so I needed to make educated guesses some of the time. Sometimes I guessed wrong. Sometimes what was offered by the mailers wasn’t exactly how things turned out. Usually, I didn’t complain about this. After all, I’m a long-term winner at many of these places and complaining when everything doesn’t go my way is probably not the best way to keep my welcome.

The actual score of -$150,000 was just where it happened to be when the end of the year came along. It implies an average monthly loss of $12,500, but my monthly scores were never near that. I had winning months and a gruesome weekend where I lost $45,000. My low-point was at -$180,000 but I hit a $40,000 royal flush in late December to pull me back to “only” -$150,000. 

At the start of 2025, I was optimistic about having a good year. A “one in a row” bad year doesn’t mean the next year will be bad as well. Fortunately, on January 2, 2025, I connected on a $20,000 royal flush along with three additional jackpots of $5,000 each, and this has been a good year so far through the first six-and-a-half months.

I understand most of my readers have smaller gambling bankrolls than I do, and the ability to sustain a $150,000 annual loss and basically shrug it off is something that is never going to happen to them. Still, all of us go through swings. If I’m going to write honestly about my gambling career, which I believe is what most of my readers want me to do, I’m going to have to use real numbers.

My decision to use the buffet coupon and eat breakfast for the price of a modest tip was not a one-off event for me by any means. My annual score, whether this year, last year, or any other year, had nothing to do with that decision. Buffets are excellent places to eat healthily if you’re good at resisting the unhealthy-yet-very-attractive temptations. Usually, I’m good at that. Not always. I’m always looking for a bargain, although I don’t look as hard for bargains as I did when I had less of a bankroll. If Mike wants to consider that irony, so be it.

The winning process, whether in gambling or in any other endeavor, is in major part a mindset. My mindset is to almost always be looking for ways to succeed. If I shut off such a mindset after having a bad experience, I might never get back on the right track again.