Author: Bob Dancer

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I’m Playing the Wrong Game

Bob Dancer

Perhaps 10 years ago, I was playing $10 NSU Deuces Wild alongside “John,” a player I had known for quite a while. He was dealt four aces with a three, and complained bitterly, saying he’s playing the wrong game. He’d been playing $10 Double Double Bonus (DDB) not long before and that hand would have been worth $20,000. Playing NSU, it was worth $200, or maybe $800 if he could pick up a deuce after he threw away the three.

I commented that he’s lucky he wasn’t imagining he was playing Triple Double Bonus (TDB). In that game, he would have missed out on $40,000 instead of the measly $20,000 he missed out on while speculating his payout playing DDB.

He was not amused.

Later he ended up with AKQ of spades alongside two deuces. That was worth $1,250 in this game and wouldn’t have been worth anything had he been playing DDB or TDB. “Maybe the video poker gods are trying to make it up to you,” I teased.

John didn’t enjoy my mocking him, but he took it in stride. We had a relationship in which teasing the other was par for the course.

John was not a professional player. He had basic strategy down pretty well and didn’t bother with the fine points. He often played games returning less than 99% even if he played perfectly, which he didn’t. He owned his own business and even if he lost $50,000 or $100,000 a year gambling, it didn’t make a lot of difference to his lifestyle.

He believed that he was the unluckiest video poker player ever and periodically found evidence to support this belief. If he was playing Hundred Play and drew to three of a kind, he knew connecting on four separate quads was the average result. 

From here, it was a small step to believe he “deserved” four quads and whenever he ended up with three quads or fewer, he felt he was being cheated. Even when he drew five or more quads from this starting position, he felt it was a case of “too little too late.” In his mind, these occasions barely made a dent in his overall “unluckiness.”

These beliefs took the sting out if his losing sessions. After all, in his mind it wasn’t his fault! He was mostly playing correctly, and the machines weren’t cooperating.

While he had attended some of my classes, he didn’t want me correcting him while we were playing. Which was perfectly fine with me. He believed my strategies were developed for people with average luck, or better than average luck. 

He was correct, of course. The strategies I use and sell assume that every unseen card has an equal probability of being drawn next. The strategies also assume that all players have average luck over a long enough time period. We all have lucky days and unlucky days. Just because a person believes he or she is luckier or unluckier than average doesn’t make it so.

Convincing John of this was impossible, of course. His theories allowed him to continue to lose year after year and still believe it wasn’t his fault.

So, our teasing was mostly lighthearted. He always claimed that I was a “luck sack.” I’d counter with “luck favors the prepared.” While neither of us ever convinced the other, we remained friendly for decades.

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An Interesting New Year’s Eve Eve Promotion

Bob Dancer

I know I used the word “Eve” twice in the title. It was intentional. New Year’s Eve is December 31. This promotion happened on December 30. 

I go to Reno semi-regularly to play at the ROW, which is actually three connected casinos in the downtown area which all belong to the Caesars Rewards system. Players there learn to check the kiosks before they begin play, as many promotions require you to activate your account before you begin play.

In October, I noticed two icons for Mercedes NYE drawings. One icon gave you one drawing ticket every day you swiped your card. The other icon allowed you to earn entries for the drawing, based on your play — possibly with a multiplier. The multipliers there are often based on your tier level, with Seven Stars players earning bigger multipliers than Diamond players, who in turn earn bigger multipliers than lesser tier levels.

I figured the chances of me being in Reno for New Year’s Eve were pretty small, so I didn’t swipe these icons, nor did I read the exact rules of the promotion. In hindsight, this might have been a mistake. In general, if you’re not 100% sure you’re not going to be at a drawing, it’s probably a good idea to click on the icons daily. This preserves your options, “in case.”

In December, they began posting signs that read:

Drawing December 30, 2024 6 p.m.

Friday, December 27, 2024, 100x drawing tickets

Saturday, December 28, 2024, 75x drawing tickets

Sunday, December 29, 2024, 50x drawing tickets

Earn entries from October 1 to 5:45 p.m. December 30

Although I hadn’t earned any tickets so far, because I hadn’t activated the icons at the kiosk during my days there in October and November, I considered whether the rules made it worthwhile to play for the drawing.

They have $25 NSU Deuces Wild, among other games. What if I played $500,000 through one of those machines on Friday, December 27? Then left Reno and returned in time for the drawing three days later. Would that make any sense?

My calculations on this were made before I saw the exact rules. If I decided to seriously consider pursuing this, I’d read the rules carefully before I started.

Hypothetically, I assumed the car was worth $70,000 and there would be six additional winners for $5,000 each, making it a $100,000 promotion. (Again, this is speculation. I didn’t read the rules.)

The expected loss on $500,000 worth of NSU Deuces Wild is about $1,300 – with significant variance. Plus, there’s the expense of flying back and forth to Reno twice. The question becomes: Would I earn enough equity playing that much to make it worthwhile?

Equity comes in many forms. It includes the drawing itself. Surely that much play on a 100x day gives me a very decent chance at getting one of the prizes. 

I would also earn 50,000 Reward Credits, which is worth $500 worth of meals/room/comps or $250 worth of free play or $500 worth of bets in the sportsbook. Probably the sportsbook is the smartest bet. I’m just a recreational player there, so assuming I’m betting at a 5% disadvantage, that’s worth $475.

I would also earn 50,000 Tier Credits (plus a 10,000 daily bonus for earning 5,000 Reward Credits or more in a day). Since I was already way past the 150,000 Tier Credits required to Seven Stars status for the next year, what becomes important is the Seven Stars Experience Award — which are earned in increments of 250,000 Tier Credits each. There are options on what to do with these, but usually my choice is to convert them into $450 free play in either Las Vegas or Cherokee.

Before December 27, I’d know whether earning an additional 60,000 Tier Credits would push me over the threshold into another one of these awards.  While an extra 60,000 Tier Credits would be about one fourth of the amount needed for the $450 award, I would either cross a threshold or I wouldn’t. Earning 200,000 Tier Credits towards the next award before the end of the year isn’t worth anything.

Finally, monthly mailers at the ROW are based on average daily theoretical, among other things. Playing $500,000 in one day far exceeds my usual play. Surely my mailers would increase for three months or so.

So, adding it all up, does the equity earned exceed the expected loss of $1,300? I’m sure it does. By quite a bit. Now I wish I had clicked on those icons in October and November. While the entries earned would be dwarfed by what I earned on December 27, every little bit helps.

In the end, I decided against this play. There were SO many tickets in the virtual drum. I tend to avoid drawings where there are a lot of free entries given out. Even though it’s just one ticket a day per person who swiped at the kiosk, there were thousands of persons swiping every day. It adds up.

Although it’s a guess, maybe I could have earned 2% equity in the $100,000 drawing using the strategy indicated. While that’s worth $2,000 on average, there’s a ton of variance. By far the most likely result was not being called.

Even though I didn’t pull the trigger this time, thinking it through helps me figure out these things in the future.

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How Do You Figure?

Bob Dancer

A reader posed the following question, which I lightly edited: I came across a quarter pay table I have a question about. It’s a three-coin game, with progressives on the royal flush, straight flush, and four aces. It’s 9/6 Double Bonus, and the royal is currently at $1,122. I think it’s probably pretty positive, but how do I figure that out for sure?

I’ve never seen a three-coin quarter game, but I have played three-coin games for higher denominations. I invite my readers to try to figure it out before I explain how I would do this.

Before any of us get started, there are a couple of things to specify. Saying the game is 9/6 Double Bonus doesn’t tell us how much you get for the straight. One can find both 9/6/5 games (where the straight returns five-for-one) as well as 9/6/4 games (where the straight returns four-for-one). I’ll figure it out for both pay tables.

Second, the question said there were three progressives, but only provided the level for one of them. Presumably, this means that ethe other two progressives were currently close to their reset values, but surely that won’t always be the case. While the latter two progressives aren’t part of today’s problem set, I’ll outline at the end how you can include them in your calculations.

Once you have figured this out for both the 9/6/5 and the 9/6/4 games, then you can read the rest of this blog. As I frequently say when I ask you to figure something out yourself before reading on: Take as long as you like. I don’t mind waiting for you.

Here’s how I would attack this problem.

Video poker software is generally set up for five-coin games. The adjustment for three coins isn’t very difficult, but it’s not obvious to all players. Once you figure out, or are told, what the “trick” is, it’s pretty simple.

A three-coin quarter game costs 75¢ to play per hand. This makes it equivalent to a 15¢ game, played five coins at a time, which comes out to the same 75¢. While there are no actual 15¢ coins in the real-world United States, we can imagine such coins if that’s what it takes to figure this out. To calculate out how many of these 15¢ “coins” would be necessary to total the royal flush amount of $1,122, we simply divide $1,122 by $0.15. When we do this, we get that the royal flush is equivalent to 7,480 coins. This is almost a “double royal,” as royals typically return 4,000 coins.

So now we plug this into any video poker software. Doing so, I get 99.78% for the 9/6/5 pay table and 98.38% for the 9/6/4 pay table. Reset on the straight flush (250 x 15¢) is $37.50 and reset for four aces (800 x 15¢) is $120. If the existing progressive numbers are higher than these, simply divide the numbers by 15¢ and plug those values into the same computer software.

I suspect the game is more likely to be 9/6/4 than 9/6/5. Four-for-one is far more common for straights, and the original poster possibly would have noticed the “unusual” five-for-one had it been there. This leaves the game with a 98.38% return, which is nowhere near “pretty positive,” although in many casinos this would be the loosest game available for quarters or less.

So, those of you who were able to figure this out before I gave you my answer, congratulations!

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Encounter at Dotty’s

Bob Dancer

I was playing at a Dotty’s, a local chain of small casinos. The best game for me is 9/6 Jacks or Better. Without going through all of the slot club benefits and promotions, the one that is most relevant to today’s story is the “Big Bonus.”

In this promotion, all W2-Gs become drawing entries, and 10% of these entries get a 10% cash bonus. That is, if a $5,000 W2-G is drawn, the player who hit it will get a $500 reward if he collects it within a month.

Although the inventory of each Dotty’s varies, the most convenient Dotty’s for me has the game for $2, where you can bet anywhere from five to fifty coins and still get the full 99.54% return on the game. Since I want to get W2-Gs, I need to play for at least 24 coins ($48) per hand, yielding $1,200 for every quad, but I usually play for 25 coins ($50), yielding $1,250. I record the game on my gambling log as a $10 game.

The nature of 9/6 Jacks or Better is that you tend to lose during a session unless you hit a royal flush. 

Another promotion in effect at Dotty’s is the machine bonuses. For the stakes I play, these come around every five to ten minutes. The first five are always, in order, $1, $1, $1, $5, $2 — which are negligible amounts when you’re playing $50 per hand. These bonuses then increase to $10, $20 or $25 each time if you continue to play for more than an hour. These amounts are not so negligible. Suffice it to say, I usually play for at least a few hours when I come.

Most of the players in the place are playing for far smaller stakes than I am and very rarely, if ever, receive a $1,200-or-higher jackpot. Since I get them regularly, some players assume I’m killing the game, whereas in fact I’m usually losing. 

On this particular night, after I collected my fifth or sixth W2-G (and I was behind perhaps $2,000 after being paid), a lady approached me and asked if she could invest with me. She and her husband were homeless and playing keno hoping to strike it rich. Since I was obviously doing well, she wanted to pay me $200 for a share of my next jackpot.

I wanted no part of this particular arrangement. I told her that if they were indeed homeless, the last place they should be is in a casino, and the odds on the keno game they were playing were prohibitively in the house’s favor. I told her I was losing this night (I’m not sure she believed me) and many of the benefits I receive were deferred. I’m sure she understood I was telling her “No,” but I don’t believe she understood what I was talking about when I said “deferred benefits.” 

I was earning slot club points (which were cashed and mailed to me once a month), the Big Bonus drawing wouldn’t happen until next Wednesday, and the machine bonuses are paid in slot club points. The $40,000 royal flush was unlikely to be hit on this particular night. I had the bankroll to wait for it — but this lady didn’t.

I wanted to give her $20 or so to “go away,” but several other players were watching the exchange. If I started paying all players with a sob story, I would have been deluged with these stories. There are few winners at Dotty’s and the clientele tends to be less affluent than those players who play in the larger casinos. Paying players playing losing games and are always broke is a bottomless pit.

The lady and her husband went away and that was the end of this particular incident. The aftertaste of it remains with me, though. I’ve frequently been asked for money in casinos. I usually politely say “No,” and continue with what I am doing.

I know that most players lose in casinos, and many can’t afford their habit. And the ones I see don’t include the spouses and kids at home.  Yes, I’ve found a way to beat the casinos, but coming face to face with the ones who can’t, especially during the holidays, is a sobering experience.

Since I’ve been doing this for decades, I’m somewhat immune to these feelings. But not totally immune.

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It’s a Matter of Time

Bob Dancer

Timing is an important part of successful gambling. I include doing things in the right order. I’m going to list several examples. There are a lot more.

Some casinos require you to swipe your card at a kiosk before you play in order to get a multiplier or some other benefit. Some casinos don’t. Good players learn which is which.

Sometimes promotions begin or end at a particular time. If you’re going to start early, some casinos automatically activate your card once the magic time arrives. Others require you to remove and re-insert your card after that time in order to get the benefit.

If a promotion officially ends at a particular time, sometimes you will continue to get the benefit of that promotion so long as your card remains in the machine. 

Drawings universally have times associated with when you can earn entries, when you must activate your entries (if you must), and at old-fashioned drawings, by when do you have to have your tickets into the drum. Also, they usually have some sort of “must be present within so many minutes” should you be a lucky winner.

Casino slot clubs with tiers have time periods during which tiers must be earned. Being a few thousand points shy of the next tier is a shame if you just let the end of the earning period elapse without thinking about whether the higher tier had value for you.

Most players play at more than one casino. Often one or more of them will have some sort of time-related promotion going on. If you’re relatively indifferent between which casino to play at, you should play at the one whose benefits will expire soon.

It’s not exactly time-related, but frequently casinos have promotions where if you earn xxx points you get yyy. If you’re not interested in receiving the benefit, then it pretty much doesn’t matter whether you earn that many points or not. If you are interested, however, make it a point to collect that many points at least. If 5,000 points are required, for example, don’t be one of those people who earn 4,825 points and don’t check how close they are.

At some casinos, if 12 months (or some other time period) elapse since your last visit, all unredeemed comps and points disappear. To prevent this, some players zero out their points at the end of every trip. At casinos I visit regularly or sem-regularly I don’t do this, but I never let enough unredeemed points accumulate that it would be a real pain if I didn’t get back there in time. Even if my intention is to return to this casino every six months, for example, there will come a time that I don’t make it back. 

Some casinos have “next day free play,” where your play today earns free play starting at noon tomorrow and lasting 90 days. Let’s say the casino day ends at 6 a.m. and your free play becomes available at noon. If you’re not pretty sure you’re going to return with three months, don’t play after 6 a.m. the last day you’re there, and stick around until noon before you leave so you can redeem accumulated free play. 

Casinos will often have some sort of multipliers on a Monday or Tuesday, which tend to be the days where they have the fewest customers. If you can, arrange your trips so you can take advantage of this.

Casino restaurants, as do non-casino restaurants, often have happy hour specials where if you eat before the dinner rush you get discount pricing on several food or beverage items. If you’re flexible, your comp dollars will last longer if you take advantage of such specials.

Sometimes you can double dip on promotions timewise. I’ve seen cases where one promotion ended at 3 a.m. and a point multiplier started at midnight. For a three-hour window, both promotions were in effect. If you’re a “must be in bed by 10 p.m.” person, then you won’t be able to take advantage of this specific opportunity.

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What’s Good for the Goose

Bob Dancer

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.

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So Damn Cheap

Bob Dancer

Not long ago I wrote about a time I was in Reno when there was a power outage at the Eldorado, the hotel where I was staying and playing. After calling the Peppermill to make sure they were open, Bonnie and I, along with one other player, took a Lyft to that casino (maybe two miles away) and paid retail for a meal at Café Milano. I commented that it was a novel experience for me to pay for a meal in a casino.

One reader commented: “Does it bother you in the least that you’re so damn cheap that you won’t pay for a meal outside of a casino?”

Another reader came to my “rescue,” if that’s the appropriate term, but I thought the subject was worth exploring a bit. So here we are.

Since I moved to Las Vegas in 1993, I’ve received more than $1 million dollars in “free” food. I put the quotation marks around the word “free” because I always tip on meals, comped or not. 

This doesn’t mean I’ve saved $1 million dollars on food. On some of the more expensive meals, the tip was more than I would have paid for a meal that wasn’t comped. Still, I’m sure I’ve saved several hundred thousand dollars over that time period by this practice.

I don’t consider this “cheap.” (Or “damn cheap” or even “damned cheap,” which I believed is better English). I consider this as part of the slot club benefits that result from my decision to gamble at a particular game in a particular casino at a particular time. Food comps are part of the equation when I decide whether a game is positive enough to play.

There are times I pay for food in a casino. If I’m playing at the South Point on a Monday, I’ll often eat there using points because on Mondays, seniors get half price meals if they use their points. That makes their breakfast buffet cost $8 worth of points rather than $16 worth of cash.

I have essentially unlimited food comps at a casino 15 miles away from the South Point, but driving 30 miles roundtrip (and spending more than one extra hour traveling) to save $8 is a stupid type of economy, in my opinion.

Let’s say I have a $40 food comp at a casino. I check to see if the sales tax goes away when you use the comps. If I only want $20 worth of food and it’s a “use it or lose it” comp, I’ll sometimes take food home. Not always, though. If I’ll be driving around Las Vegas in the summertime and don’t have an ice chest in the car, I won’t take food to go because it will spoil before I arrive home.

If I spend more than the comp for a meal, I’ll usually pay with points (if I have them) in those casinos where sales tax disappears when you pay with comps and points.

When I’m playing and all food is free, it’s smart to take advantage of that food — saving both time and money. There are casinos I’ve played at where I don’t take advantage of food comps because the quality of the meals is sub-par. 

I play less in casinos than I used to, so Bonnie and I eat at home more than occasionally. I don’t usually have comps at grocery stores.

Near the end of the month, Bonnie and I take inventory of what unused food comps we have that will expire. Sometimes there’s no way we can use up all the comps. Often, we’ll go out to eat at casinos more in the last week of the month than the first week.

The original question asked if it bothers me in the least to be so damn cheap. The simple answer is no, it doesn’t bother me at all. One of the “secrets” of obtaining and keeping a bankroll is not to spend money on things I don’t need. And if I have food for free, I don’t need to pay for a meal somewhere.

But if Bonnie and/or I are hungry and no food comp is available, I pay for meals.

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A New Scam?

Bob Dancer

I recently received an authentic-looking text from the United States Postal Service. I was told that a letter addressed to me had the incorrect zip code. Please type “Y,” close the message, and then re-open it. I did.

I came across a link asking for me to fill out my name, address, zip code, and phone number. I was dubious. An unrequested message asking me for all of this information was a prescription for identity theft. I gave my correct address (post office box), and intentionally made some typos to my email address and phone number.

After I entered this information, the next screen told me there was a small charge for the redelivery. A charge of $0.3. It didn’t say $0.30, or 30 cents, but $0.3. And in order to pay this fund it asked for my credit card information.

Now I was more than 99% certain that this was not what it appeared to be. I closed the link and was glad I hadn’t given correct information previously.

When I closed the link, the original text message deleted itself. Very strange.

While I’m used to several scams, this was a new one, at least to me. If I’m getting these texts, probably some of you are too. It doesn’t have anything to do with gambling per se, but not losing money to identity theft counts as bankroll just as much as hitting a royal flush. 

Since my first “blog” this time was too short, I’m adding another short one.

A Certain Aptitude is Required

Bonnie and her daughter Susan went on a seven-day Mexican Riviera cruise aboard the Norwegian Bliss over Thanksgiving. Bonnie and I had gone on a five-day version of the same cruise aboard the same vessel about one month earlier.

Because she’s cruised a lot since we married 10 years ago, Bonnie has a Sapphire card. This is a tier level possessed by fewer than 10% of the passengers. And, just like in casinos, higher tier levels get more benefits than lower tier levels. Since Susan has not cruised a lot on Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) vessels, she gets fewer benefits. After Bonnie’s and my cruise, I emailed both ladies instructions as to how to work the NCL system. 

Even though she has been on a lot of cruises. Bonnie lets me do all the arranging on the cruises. She trusts that I will take care of her, which I do. Susan was an appropriate caregiver on the cruise but doesn’t have the experience to get the most benefits. She could wing it, and they’d have a good time, but my goal was to educate them on the ins and outs so they could have an even better time.

One of the benefits Bonnie is entitled to and Susan isn’t is a 90-minute “Behind the Scenes” tour that usually begins at 9 a.m. on the first sea day. It varies, but often includes the laundry, the galley, and dressing rooms backstage of the main theater. Bonnie and I both went a month previously and thought Susan would enjoy it. I think they offer a similar tour for everybody at $150 per person later in the cruise.

So, in my email I explained that when they boarded the ship they should go to the CruiseNext desk and sign Bonnie up for the tour. Once Bonnie presented herself at the CruiseNext desk on the day of the tour, they would give Bonnie a sticker to put on her shirt or jacket. Bonnie should take that sticker, go somewhere out of view of the people at the desk, and have Susan affix it to her own shirt or jacket. Then Bonnie can occupy herself for an hour and a half while Susan takes the tour. I told both ladies to make sure they had closed-toe shoes, which are required for the tour. I also told them how to sign up for specialty dinners, shows, and the officers’ dinner.

On the Sunday they got to the ship, they called me to let me know that they arrived, were aboard, and happily looking forward to their adventure. They told me they did everything I listed in my instructional email except they couldn’t get Susan on the tour.

“Why not?” I asked.

“When I asked them if I could get a sticker and then give it to Susan, they said ”No,” Bonnie replied.

“You weren’t supposed to ask them. You were just supposed to do it. That’s why I told you to give the sticker to Susan out of the sight of the employees at the desk.”

“I guess we didn’t completely understand that part.”

In casinos, I have “worked the system” for decades. It’s a necessary part of succeeding at gambling. While I’m sure my instructions would have been very clear to most readers of this blog, neither Bonnie nor Susan think like a winning player does. When in doubt, they simply tell the truth and ask permission for everything.  Oh well. Susan likes to sleep in on vacations, so she considered the loss of the tour to be no big deal.

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 Whose Chair Is It? Take Two

Bob Dancer

A few weeks ago, I described a situation on a cruise ship where I sat down at a machine just as a woman was sitting down at an adjacent machine. Her husband was about three feet behind the chair I now occupied, possibly headed toward the same machine I now controlled as I slid in from the side.

The woman told me her husband was aiming for the chair I now possessed because they wanted to play side by side. Would I please let him have it?

On this occasion I gave up the machine. I also wrote that I handled such situations on a case-by-case basis and sometimes I came to the opposite conclusion. Let me tell you about one of the times when I chose differently.

This happened at one of the casinos in downtown Las Vegas. I’ve experienced similar situations at the Fremont, Four Queens, and Golden Nugget in that part of town. I haven’t experienced it elsewhere, but I’ve spoken to other players who have.

As I was walking through the casino looking for machines to play, I see a “Green Bob” machine at the $6 level where the minor jackpot is at 35. This is a game where it’s a positive play if the minor jackpot is at 25. Suffice it to say, a higher meter is a better play. 

This is not a guaranteed win situation. Without going through the entire range of possible outcomes, in order to simplify this discussion, assume that starting from where the machine is now, the player has two equally likely results — plus $1,600 and minus $800. This means the game is worth, on average, $400 plus slot club benefits if you play with your card.

While this is exactly the sort of situation I look for, many players do not have the bankroll to handle swings like this. Their total assets might be less than $800. Or maybe they are living “off the grid” and a W2-G of $1,600 would create an awkward situation for them.

The machine wasn’t being played, but there was a woman sitting in front of it. It was at least possible that she just needed to rest for a minute and randomly sat down at that particular machine. So, I politely asked her if I could play that machine? Often in response to an inquiry like that the person will stand up right away and let me play.

Not this time. She didn’t say anything, but a man came up and said I could play the machine if I wanted, but they would be my partners.

“What does it mean to be partners?” I asked.

“If you win, we split. If you lose, you’re on your own.”

“What about the W2-G, if one comes?” I continued.

“That’s yours. But if you win at least $1,200, you can easily afford the taxes.”

There was no way in the world that I was going to accept such a situation. The 50% of the time I won, I’d collect $800 and have a tax form to deal with. The 50% of the time I lost, I’d lose $800. 

“I’ll give you $20,” I offered. I recognized this as a negotiation. And I calculated the game as being worth $400, so if I could get it for less than $100, I was interested. In our example, we’re assuming we know exactly how much a game is worth. In the real world, it’s a guestimate. And even if my calculation is correct, I could still lose a significant amount. I’m not interested in taking on risk without believing I have the best of it.

He countered with $500. I don’t know if he knew what the game was worth. I don’t know if he thought I did. It seemed clear that I wasn’t going to be able to strike a deal that I liked.

As it happened, a slot floor person was walking by. I spoke up. 

“Excuse me. I want to play this machine and these people insist that I pay them money if I want to play it.”

“They WHAT?”

She looked at the man and woman and it was clear she recognized at least the man. “John, you’ve been warned about this. Either play this machine or give it up. Or maybe you want to be kicked out for a week again?”

The two players left wordlessly and I sat down and I began to play. 

I’ve seen this man subsequently, trying to pull the same stunt with other players. I’ve left him alone. I realize that I interfered with his “business plan,” and if I continue to do this, he could take countermeasures I didn’t like. I’m not really afraid of him, but why tempt fate?

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A Cold Night in Reno

Bob Dancer

On Monday, November 11, Bonnie and I flew to Reno to play at the Eldorado, one of the three casinos that make up the ROW, which is the only Caesars Resorts property in Reno.

We go often enough to get monthly mailers, so those offers were part of the reason we chose to go then. Plus, Mondays in November offer mystery Reward Credit multipliers between 4 p.m. and midnight.

The multipliers don’t seem to be much of a mystery. It’s a frequent Monday promotion there and the last dozen or so times we’ve been there for this promotion, as Seven Stars video poker players, the multiplier has always been 7x and the limit is 30,000 Reward Credits. In the Caesars system, this means you get your original points plus 6x more — so 4,285 or more base points earn you an extra 25,715 Reward Credits. That’s $257.15 in comps (or sports bets) or half that amount if you convert it to free play. 

Slot players get bigger multipliers and higher limits than video poker players do, but you have to pick one or the other before you start. While I play both games there, I play mostly video poker, so that’s the one I pick. Our offers also entitled us to some Resort Credits, which basically means Bonnie got to go shopping. (Reward Credits and Resort Credits sound the same, but they’re not. You cannot convert Resort Credits to free play or sports bets, but you can use them for other things Reward Credits are good for.)

I went upstairs for a nap. I was tired and didn’t need to play until later in the day. I didn’t set an alarm. I knew I wouldn’t sleep all day and since I play $50-a-hand machines there, it doesn’t take long to maximize the promotion.

Around 4 p.m. I woke up shivering. Although Reno itself was around 30 degrees outside, I set the room temperature to where we like it before I started my nap. But it was much colder than that now. Maybe 55 degrees. 

There were a few lights in the room still on, but the other light switches wouldn’t work, and the thermostat seemed broken. We looked outside the room, and most of the lights in the hallway were out.

We decided to descend the stairs to the casino level. I figured that the casino would have its own generator and even if the hotel were blacked out, the casino itself was the cash cow of the organization. Surely the casino would still be going despite any city power outage. I was so confident in this that I left my heavy jacket in the room. Bonnie is 81 years old and I’m 77, but we figured going downstairs wouldn’t be a problem. Surely this issue would be fixed before long.

Down on the casino floor, nothing was working. There were a few lights on, including some slot machines, but none were operational. The slot machines provided some warmth, so we sat down next to some to wait things out. Nobody knew for sure what had happened, but the casino employees were pretty sure this was a blackout over a part of the city and not specific to the ROW properties. Slot techs and floor people were manually turning off machines one at a time, but we talked them into leaving the machines close to us turned on so as to provide warmth.

Restaurants were closed as well, of course. We needed to eat. The only restaurants I know about in Reno are in other casinos. 

I don’t have comps at any other casino in Reno, so I figured we’d pick a place a few miles away, call to verify they were open, and catch an Uber or Lyft. We’d have to pay retail for food in a casino (a novel experience for me), and maybe the lights would be on in a few hours and we could Lyft back. We hooked up with a player we knew and took a Lyft to the Peppermill. 

Even though it wasn’t far from the casino to the Lyft to the new casino, it was cold outside. I do wish I had brought my jacket with me.

Over dinner, we discussed where to sleep if the problem didn’t get resolved soon. The other guy with us was enough of a player at Atlantis (about a mile away from the Peppermill) that he was able to get the casino rate for two rooms at $80 per night. The host said she’d be there only until 11 and and since we needed her help to get the rooms at that rate, we shouldn’t wait until after that.

We called back to the Eldorado about 7 p.m. and the operator said the power was on in her area and she thought the entire problem was solved, so we headed back. 

When we looked into High Limit slots, there were players playing, so we figured we were okay. I sent Bonnie up to the room and got to work gambling. I was playing $10 NSU, and in 20 minutes hit a $1,250 wild royal. It took 20 minutes to be paid. Not all machines were totally connected to the player system, and on some, any cash out at all required a hand pay. So, the slot employees were slammed. I was having doubts that I could get in my play for the promotion before midnight. The only way to guarantee it was not to hit any more taxables, but that would mean a loss of $10,000 or so, which wasn’t very attractive either.

Eventually, machines opened up in the High Limit slot area and when I hit a W2-G, I could move over to an adjacent machine and continue my play while I waited to be paid. I shared the “extra” machine with another player, who was also using it for overflow purposes. Fortunately we didn’t hit our jackpots simultaneously.

I finished playing at 11:30 p.m. or so and headed up to the room. When I got there, it turned out that when I had gone to the high limit slots area leaving Bonnie to go to our room by herself, the elevators weren’t working yet. So, she walked up 11 stories! 

As she started her journey, she connected with a casino employee who walked with her. Bonnie is an octogenarian with a cardiac history. This walk could have turned out to be fatal for her, but everything turned out okay. She didn’t want to bother me with this information while I was playing, so I never knew. Afterwards we had a talk about priorities. Yes, taking the time to help her could have caused me to miss out on part of the promotion, but her safety is much more important than that.

I don’t blame the ROW for this blackout. It hit much of the downtown area. This was a Reno infrastructure problem. It’s a fairly rare occurrence, and it just happened to bite us when we were there. Other than not getting our Monday night meals comped, and throwing our schedule off a bit, there was no harm to us.