Category: Advanced Strategy

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Spirited Response

Bob Dancer

As I wrote a few weeks ago, Bonnie and I were in New Orleans when Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida. We didn’t feel it at all in the Crescent City, which was 300 miles west of where the eye of the storm hit the mainland.

The following Sunday we flew to Atlanta, so as to continue our “play-cation” at Harrah’s Cherokee in North Carolina. When we fly from Vegas, we fly into Asheville — which is about one hour away from Cherokee. Although there are direct flights from Las Vegas to Atlanta, it’s a three-hour drive from Atlanta to Cherokee.

From New Orleans, however, flights to Asheville require plane changes and many hours. The flight into Atlanta took about an hour and a half, so that’s what we signed up for. Less flight time, and more drive time. We flew Spirit Airlines.

This turned out to be a fortunate play. Helene wreaked havoc on Asheville, to the surprise of essentially everybody. Had we planned to fly into Asheville, our flight would have been cancelled because the airport was closed for a few days while repairs were being made. Several weeks later, repairs are still being made to parts of Asheville.

On the flight, Bonnie somehow left her iPhone on the seat next to her when she left the plane. We didn’t discover this until we were in Cherokee — three hours away. The “Find My Phone” app said her phone was in the Atlanta airport (ATL), Concourse D. This, of course, was good news. It was likely in Spirit Airlines lost and found.

We called Spirit, hoping to make arrangements for them to ship the phone to our home. I was prepared to pay whatever the shipping charge would be. This has to be a fairly common occurrence.

But I couldn’t get through on the phone. The message said my wait was expected to be in excess of 90 minutes. I set it to speaker phone and put it next to me while I played video poker. Two hours later they still said the wait was expected to be in excess of 90 minutes. I finally left my number. They said they would call me back when they could. Since we were still in the aftermath of the hurricane, with airports still closed and Hurricane Milton approaching, it was understandable that the airline’s phone system was swamped. But they never returned my call.

On their app, they had a place where you could file a lost and found report. I did this. I also filed a lost and found report online for the Atlanta airport just in case Bonnie, perhaps, left her phone in a bathroom or somewhere after she departed the plane.

Our scheduled flight home left ATL on a Sunday at about 8 a.m. The lost and found office is open 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. My “plan” was to talk to somebody and agree to pay them $200 to be at the office on Sunday morning about 6 a.m. That is much cheaper than buying a new phone and, for the right person, a $200 bonus was something worth changing their schedule for.

But talking to somebody in lost and found proved impossible. Spirit has a chat feature in their app, but every person I chatted with, including at the supervisor level, followed the company line. Wait for the lost and found to respond to your request. They would not give me a direct number to the Spirit lost and found at ATL or the Spirit executive offices at ATL. 

The lost and found sent me an email saying they hadn’t located Bonnie’s phone yet but were still looking.

I was considering renting a car. It’s a long drive, and I didn’t want to spend my vacation that way, but, again, it would be cheaper than buying a new phone.

Out of the blue, another possible solution arose. A gambling friend who happened to be in Cherokee at the same time mentioned that girlfriend was flying into ATL from Tampa Thursday night and then driving to Cherokee. I asked if she was the helpful sort who might be willing to check the Spirit lost and found while she was there.

“Probably,” I was told, and he gave me her phone number. Through talking and texting, I gave “Mary” a description of the phone, my lost and found claim number, and the code that would unlock the phone. 

I asked her if she had a phone charging cord that would work on an iPhone 13. She did, but it was at home. She now had a newer iPhone which requires a different charge cord. By the time I called she was already at the Tampa airport. “Okay,” I told Mary. “Give it your best shot.”

A few hours later, Mary sent me a text with a picture of Bonnie’s phone on it. There was a distinctive mark on her case that I recognized.  “Yes,” I told her. “That’s Bonnie’s phone.” Turned out she didn’t need to show ID or have the claim number or see if she could open it. They just gave it to her. That strikes me as irresponsible, but Bonnie and I benefited from it this time.

“Disasters” don’t always work out okay. And after listening to all the horror stories of people’s houses being washed away in nearby Asheville, the possible loss of Bonnie’s phone clearly wasn’t a disaster at all. But it felt like one at the time.

I was not at all pleased with Spirit’s system for dealing with customer complaints.

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Found a New Game

Bob Dancer

Sometimes I play video poker at the Eldorado in Reno. The Eldorado, along with the interconnected Silver Legacy and Circus Circus, make up the ROW, and they are the only Caesars Total Rewards properties in Reno. Some of the machines at the Eldorado are pretty old, but gradually they are being replaced with newer model machines.

During a recent trip, I hit a jackpot in the high limit slots area and was waiting for an attendant to come deal with it. I went to a nearby bank of Triple Play/Five Play/Ten Play machines to check pay schedules. Although I checked them several months ago, new machines are being added at this casino all of the time.

The machines were multi-denomination, from quarters to Five Dollars, and the pay schedules varied by denomination — with the best pay schedules on the $5 machines. So those are the ones I checked. And I found a pay schedule too good to be true.

It was 10/6 Double Double Bonus Poker (DDB). This is a 100.06% game if the straight flush pays 50-for-1, and about a tenth of a percent tighter if the straight flush pays 40-for-1. This was the 50-for-1 version! Although the casino has looser-than-average games in their high limit room, a game requiring $75, $125, or $250 to fully load returning more than 100% is downright juicy!

I carefully checked to see that the royal paid 4,000 coins. I’ve seen pay schedules where you only get 2,500. I also checked three-of-a-kind to verify that it paid 15. I have seen games which were otherwise identical, only paying 10 instead of 15 for three-of-a-kind, and the difference is huge.

The Total Rewards slot club there adds significant value. In addition to the normal slot club, the ROW offers Reward Credit and Tier Credit multipliers more frequently than many other casinos in that system. Add this on top of a 100%+ game — now we’re talking!

I’ve played many versions of DDB and have the strategies on my computer, which was upstairs in my room. But not recently. It’s been a while since I’ve played this game and I’ve played several similar-but-not-identical games since, so I figured I needed a refresher course.

I went upstairs and spent perhaps an hour refreshing myself on 10/6 DDB. It’s a fairly simple game, and I’ve played it a lot during the past, but I especially wanted to refresh myself on all of the straight flush draws. I’ve recently been playing games that return 5-for-1 for the flush rather than 6-for-1, and the draws are different. I also reviewed the A versus a suited JT, and the unsuited AQJ. When I was comfortable with the idiosyncrasies of this game, I went downstairs to have a go at it. 

There were three identical machines in the high limit room, and one was taken by another player playing a different game. I decided to play $5 Triple Play. This was a $75-per-play game. This was more than I had planned to play this trip, but the game was looser than I knew existed, and I had a line of credit there in case things went badly. Which they can. Most of you know that DDB has a “heaven or hell” type of variance. Not as large of a variance as some other games, but if I fail to hit enough quads, especially the premium quads with kickers, I’m not going to like my score at all.

One of the “problems” with this game is that all quads are hand pays that range between $1,250 and $10,000. Each one requires the intervention of a slot person (or two, for the bigger jackpots). If I have two or more machines available to me, I can hop over to the “spare” while I’m waiting for any machine containing a jackpot to be reset.

I was stuck about $2,000 when I hit my first quad — which happened to be fives. I knew my machine would lock up with the $1,250 hand. Except it didn’t lock up!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

I examined things more closely and discovered I only received $1,000 for the jackpot rather than $1,250. The ‘only’ thing shorted in this pay schedule was quads between fives and kings, paying 200 coins rather than 250. This changes the pay schedule to about 98.5%. No thanks! That’s not a terrible return for most high limit video poker, but the Eldorado has some games better than that. I went back to the machine I was playing originally.

I had looked at the pay schedule closely — but missed this particular change. I was simply not aware that this pay schedule, with this one change from the “regular” pay schedule, even existed. It cost me $1,000 to “learn my lesson.” This was not a disaster, but I’m Bob Dancer and am supposed to see these pay schedules instantly. Well, I missed this one! But now I’m aware of it,. I won’t miss it again.

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What It Takes to Lose

Bob Dancer

I have a gambling partner, “Abe,” and, in 2024, we split gambling wins and losses 50-50. Our partnership encompasses video poker, slots, and occasionally other games. I am the stronger partner when it comes to video poker, although the difference between us is shrinking. He is stronger on slots, overall, but I am more knowledgeable about certain games.

Abe and I recently played at an out-of-Las Vegas casino, accompanied by our wives, and also accompanied by “Bo,” who is one of our slot gurus. Bo is a man who lives outside of Nevada, makes a very nice living playing slots, and sometimes shares information with us. We saw a new game at the casino. Bo had heard about it and had some good ideas about how to beat it.

The game needed to be played a lot by others before it was ready for us to play it. The right conditions didn’t happen at this casino, so we didn’t play.

When we returned to Las Vegas, we found that game in several casinos, but usually not in a beatable condition. Eventually we found a game that met our criteria. I took a picture and texted that to Bo. He agreed conditions were right. He said that if he were in town, he’d snap it up. Although he didn’t have data on this particular game, he believed that it was similar to other games he knew well and that we should hit the jackpot within the next six hours or so.

Over the next 18 hours, Abe and I played this game and proceeded to lose $27,000, at which point we “pulled the plug” and gave up on it. The top jackpot was still on the machine and not in our pockets. Possibly we’ll play this game in the future, once more data is obtained, but right now we’re not sure if it’s not as Bo believed it was, or if we were just plain unlucky. Either explanation could be correct.

Most players wouldn’t have lost that much on the game. To do that, you had to have the bankroll and a lot of confidence that you’re on the “right side.” Relatively few players have that combination of bankroll and knowledge, at least on this game at the present time.

The vast majority of slot players believe the house has the advantage on whichever game they’re playing. They might try a game, see how it goes, and leave before they’ve lost too much. They probably would never have played this game for the stakes we were playing simply because they were unfamiliar with the game and didn’t recognize what a profitable opportunity it presented.

The three of us, Abe, Bo, and me, are now analyzing what happened. Our current “best guess” is that we were on the right side of the game and got unlucky. Over time, we’ll collect more data and come to a more definite conclusion as to the profitability of this particular game under these conditions.

The knowledge and willingness to gamble that we have has served us well over time — just not this time. 

Oh well, we’ll shake it off and keep doing what we’re doing.

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A Visit to New Orleans

Bob Dancer

Through the years, I’ve been to Harrah’s New Orleans twenty times or more. They used to have dollar Triple Play, Five Play, and Ten Play NSU Deuces Wild, and if you played enough, you got nice mailers including food, free play, and airfare. The casino was within walking distance to the French Quarter and the Mississippi River, and it was an enjoyable city to visit. They had a Diamond Lounge where if you planned it right, you could easily consume a high proportion of your calories for free every day — and the menu varied from day to day.

So, a surprising number of Las Vegas video poker players regularly made the 2,000-mile journey to the Crescent City. Players from all over the country came as well.

 Almost a decade ago, the NSU games were removed. The loosest remaining video poker I knew about (other than 9/6 Jacks or Better at $150 a hand, or more) was what I called Pseudo NSU, and others called Airport Deuces — among many other names. It’s a 98.9% game that might be acceptable with the right promotion and slot club. Although occasionally I would go for a Seven Stars trip, the tighter games precluded me from attending regularly.

This summer, however, Bonnie and I both received too-good-to-pass-up mailers — so we didn’t. These offers were presumably based on our play at Harrah’s Cherokee — which is also in the Southeastern part of the country. In late September we booked a total of four days — two in my name, two in hers — into the hotel — immediately before a stay in Cherokee. New Orleans is, more or less, on the way to North Carolina from Las Vegas.

Although the hotel is still called Harrah’s New Orleans, the casino has become Caesars New Orleans. There is a new Caesars Hotel that will open in a few months that is slightly smaller than the existing Harrah’s Hotel (350 rooms compared to 400), with 50 of those rooms branded Nobu Hotel, which is a higher-end experience. I was told that the Harrah’s Hotel will be refurbished, possibly renamed, and will continue to be part of the casino-hotel complex there.

The casino itself was barely recognizable to me. Brand new carpet featuring Julius Caesar’s head over and over again covered the casino. When we were there, we saw plenty of empty floor space that will presumably be filled over time with slot machines. The buffet is gone, and a food court area now takes the place of where I think they used to have a theater. 

When I was there previously, I was not a slot player. Today, there are a number of good machines that are sometimes positive, and presumably more to come. Percentagewise, there are far fewer video poker machines than there used to be, although it’s possible that ratio will change when the additional machines are installed. While I didn’t do an exhaustive search, I did see some machines with pseudo NSU on them — which isn’t what it used to be but decent enough by today’s standards. 

Using your Reward Credits (RCs) for dining is a bit tricky. Your RCs are redeemed at one-for-one at the Steakhouse, Manning’s, and the food court. Most other restaurants are redeemed at two-for–one, except Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse is redeemed at three-for-one. This means a $100 check at Ruth’s Chris will cost you $300 in RCs.

There are a number of restaurants throughout the city where you can eat using RCs, at the two-for-one rate, only you have to redeem your RCs first and get a voucher. If your voucher isn’t big enough, you have to use cash or credit card to pay the rest. If your voucher is too big, you forfeit what you didn’t use.

The French Quarter retains its charm. One of my “go-to” stops every trip has been to attend an hour-long concert at Preservation Hall — a venue dedicated to playing New Orleans jazz music in its various forms. Preservation Hall itself is closed now for refurbishing, to add air conditioning among other things, but the Preservation Hall concerts still exist at the Toulouse Theatre, a few blocks away. 

There is a United States National Park on Decatur Street in the French Quarter. Every day that they were open, they used to have tours of the French Quarter at 10 a.m. I’ve been on several of them over the years — and each one was slightly different. They no longer have those, but they have free daily ranger talks about the history of New Orleans music — with each ranger giving his/her own take on it. We caught two of those — one from a lady using a piano to describe things and the second from an upright bass player who used that instrument in his talk. It was a surprise to me that the park rangers were experts on New Orleans Jazz. I thought park rangers were generally out-doorsy sorts who knew about forests and animals. But these folks know their music! The talks were enjoyable, informative, and free. 

Bonnie insisted on one snack consisting of beignets and chicory coffee. “The” place to have these snacks is Café Du Monde. This time, however, Café Beignet had no line, so we stopped there instead. Even after dusting off all of the powdered sugar that I could get off of one of these donuts, just being there caused me to ingest killer amounts of second-hand sugar. I ate one powder-free donut with a small chicory coffee to keep the peace. I’m grateful Bonnie didn’t want to go there more than once.

We’ll return to this casino — possibly just before or after a Harrah’s Cherokee trip — again. New Orleans is a unique place to visit — and one of our favorites. In my opinion, we stayed away too long.

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Knowing More Than One Video Poker Game

Bob Dancer

Presumably, the vast majority of my readers have a favorite video poker game. Or at least a “go to” video poker game that they play the most. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t spend their time reading a blog behind a paywall which primarily addresses video poker.

The reasons for knowing more than one game are multi-fold. In no particular order:

  1. Casinos change their inventory of games periodically. Always have. Always will. If your favorite game goes away, you’ll be in a lot better position to keep playing video poker if you have a back-up game.
  1. The conditions on the game you usually play might be less than ideal. There might be smokers, or sticky buttons, or chatterboxes, or something else that you’d rather avoid. If you only know one game, it’s sometimes a matter of putting up with bad conditions or going home.
  1. There are sometimes more players desiring a particular game than there are machines. This is especially true if you’re playing the loosest game in the house and there’s a special event going on bringing in more players than usual.
  1. Promotions affect games differently. If it’s some sort kind of a 4-of-a-kind promotion, deuces wild variants do not perform as well as games without wild cards.
  1. Different casinos have different game mixes. While to some degree “all casinos are the same,” they really aren’t. Each has its own restaurants, for example, and you probably prefer some more than others — plus however good any particular restaurant is, variety is nice. Some casinos include movie theaters, bowling, childcare, shuttles to get you there, or perhaps are nearer to shopping. If you have one or more travel companions when you go to casinos, some of these things might be important to whomever you’re traveling with.
  1. The more games you know and practice, the more you stay mentally sharp at playing the game. I’m a believer that to keep your brain sharp, you have to use it. Regularly. I’m not an expert in brain health, but I’ve heard that adage repeated enough that it’s gospel to me. While at age 77 my brain is not as sharp as it was when I was younger, I attribute the sharpness that remains to the regular use to which I put it.
  1. Video poker is a very repetitious game. You’re dealt two pair. You hold two pair. For many people, playing the same repetitious game over and over again gets boring. 
  1. Your financial conditions might change, and not all pay schedules are available in all denominations.
  1. There might be better games on Triple Play or some other format you prefer more than single line games.
  1. You might prefer slant top machines to uprights. Or maybe adjustable chairs. Or distance from the sound effects of a particularly obnoxious slot machine.
  2. Playing multiple games allows you to meet more people. While a lot of us, including me, prefer to play without chatting, a valuable source of information about games and/or promotions at the current casino and others will be your fellow players. Just as in “real life,” the more networking you do the more you’ll succeed.
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Staying in the Groove

Bob Dancer

I’ve been playing NSU Deuces Wild for more than 20 years. It’s a simple game to play at the 99% accuracy level. It’s easier than most other video poker games to play at the 99.9% accuracy level. But it’s virtually impossible to play 100% accurately. The appendices to the Dancer/Daily Winners Guide to NSU Deuces Wild contain hundreds of exceptions to the basic strategy. Even the basic strategy has some real toughies in it. 

Consider the following nine pairs of hands. In none of the pairs are the two hands played identically. Do you know which is which? As difficult as this test is, it is much simpler when you have the clue that the two hands are played differently, than it is when you face any of these while playing. 

As is my custom, a W stands for a deuce. In the answers, bold italics means the cards are suited with each other. 

Test: 

  1. W 4♠ 5♠ K♠ T♥ versus W 4♠ 5♠ K♠ J♥
  1. W 4♥ 5♥ Q♥ K♣ versus W 4♥ 5♥ Q♥ J♣
  1. W 6♦ 7♣ 8♥ K♥ versus W 6♦ 7♣ 8♥ K♠
  1. W 4♣ 5♣ 3♥ J♦ versus W 4♣ 5♣ 3♥ Q♦
  1.  K♦ T♦ 6♦ A♠ 9♥ versus K♦ T♦ 6♦ A♠ 9♠ 
  1. K♠ T♠ 5♠ A♦ 3♦ versus K♠ T♠ 5♠ Q♦ 3♦
  1. 8♥ 9♥ Q♠ A♣ 4♣ versus 8♥ 9♥ Q♠ A♣ 3♣
  1. A♣ T♣ 9♥ 7♠ 5♦ versus A♣ T♣ 9♥ 7♠ 5♠
  1. W A♦ K♦ T♠ 8♠ versus W A♦ K♦ J♠ 9♠

Answers:

  1. W45 and W
  2. W and W45
  3. W and W678
  4. W45 and W
  5. KT and draw 5
  6. KT and draw 5
  7. 89 and draw 5
  8. AT and draw 5
  9. WT8 and WAK

Don’t fret too much if you didn’t score well. The test was my way of supporting my statement that it was virtually impossible to play this game perfectly. Each of these nine examples have a lot of similar hands to learn. Learning these particular 18 hands still leaves you with several hundred different tough hands to struggle with.

As it happens, until some casinos change their inventory, I’ll be playing NSU Deuces Wild more, dollar-wise, than all the other video poker games I play. So even though each of these distinctions are worth fractions of a penny if you play for quarters, I’m playing enough hands for large enough stakes that it makes sense, to me anyway, if I spend time mastering them.

I could have an exact list of hands in a PDF that I could carry with me on my smart phone. In addition to it being illegal in Nevada and some other states to use cell phones to help you make gambling decisions in a casino, I find this tedious. I’m playing games where I have the advantage, everything considered, and taking 15 seconds to make sure I have the correct play by a tenth of a penny makes no financial sense.

It may surprise you, but I would not have aced the test I presented today. In question 5, I would have drawn five new cards both times, in question 6 I would have held KT both times, and in question 7, I would have drawn five new cards both times. The other six hands I would have aced.

So, what gives? Why would I play these hands incorrectly?

I have worked out a strategy that is “good enough.” I have the Level 4 strategy completely memorized, and for the appendix material, I use the shortcuts provided there. These shortcuts are relatively easy to memorize and get me close enough. I don’t have the tools to accurately measure how accurate my “simplified” strategy is, but I suspect it’s well over 99.99% of what is possible. And I can play it relatively fast.

It’s a far bigger risk to make mistakes by oversight. I know the right play, but maybe I don’t see it, or maybe I get momentarily confused. This happens to me more as a senior citizen than it did a few decades ago.

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Sometimes You Have to Guesstimate

Bob Dancer

The big key to winning at video poker and other gambling games is to only play when you have an advantage. Sometimes, though, it’s hard to know whether you have the advantage or not — or even how to measure that advantage.

Casino drawings provide one example. The casino agrees to give away such and such prizes. If you knew how many tickets were going to be in the drum, how many tickets you were going to end up having, and the value of the prizes, you could figure out what your EV was in the drawing. Factoring in how much coin-in it cost you to earn that many tickets and you can figure out your percentage return. Even if you could calculate it at 0.2%, it comes with a high variance. Usually, you don’t get drawn. Occasionally you do.

But you don’t usually know how many tickets are going to be in the drum, nor the exact number of tickets you’re going to end up with. And sometimes you don’t even know how much the prize is worth. Cash or free play is pretty straightforward. But what about if the prize is a car? Sometimes there’s a cash option, at 75% or 80% of retail, but not always. It might be a specific vehicle, or it may be a voucher for $25,000 (or any other amount) at such and such dealership.

What if it’s a Chevrolet dealership and you hate Chevies? Or if it’s a Toyota dealership and you practice a “Buying American” philosophy? Hard to put a number on these things.

What about comps? Some casinos offer you a certain amount of comp dollars, but these are hard to value as well. There are usually a limited number of outlets at which you can spend your comp dollars. If you get $100 to spend at the gift shop, if there is nothing there you want or what is there is greatly overpriced compared to what you can buy it for elsewhere, that comp is hardly worth $100.

You may earn enough comps to eat at one of the gourmet rooms, but what if this isn’t the kind of food you enjoy or is on your diet? Even if it is food you enjoy, if you have $200 to spend (eat it or lose it), you’ll probably use most of it up even if your typical dinner costs far less than that. You might decide a $40 tip is warranted on this meal while your typical dinner with tip might be $50. Is this comp worth $200 or $10?

The South Point casino regularly runs promotions where you play a certain amount and earn one or more spins where each spin is worth between $5 and $100. (The exact rules vary each time, but are often similar to this.) If you don’t know how much average spin is, how are you going to put a value on the promotion?

For me, since I play approximately a breakeven game at the South Point (99.7%+ games and a 0.3% slot club) before the promotion and mailers, any additional free play is welcome, but not needed to justify playing. I’ll come in on the days you can get the spins (if I’m in town) and collect the extra money, but the promotions aren’t sufficient for me to play extra. Whereas unlimited double points just might be.

I do not put a value on room comps, although I definitely use them when out of town. If I weren’t there, I wouldn’t need a room, and I can’t “cash in” the value of the room. (Or, rather, I don’t. Years ago, I sometimes sold room nights, but not anymore.) A suite is appreciated over a regular room, but if the game isn’t more than 100% without the suite, I stay away.

In Vegas and many other cities, there are professional sports teams and some casinos offer you tickets to the events — often premium seats with amenities. Were I someone who would buy tickets to these events, this is a comp worth money and I would conceivably play a slightly-under 100% game to score the tickets. Since I basically have a “I’ll take the tickets if they are offered, but I wouldn’t go out and buy them” attitude, I don’t factor this into whether a game is playable.

Sometimes there is a jewelry or some other giveaway that attracts Bonnie’s eye. I’ll play extra for that. I don’t put an exact value on “keeping Bonnie happy,” but it is definitely something worth investing in. So I do.

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Don’t Count It Twice!

Bob Dancer

At least two casinos in the Caesars system (in Cherokee, NC and Danville, VA — possibly others) offer next day bounce back for your slot and video poker play. I have not been to Danville, but I can describe the promotion in Cherokee.

Video poker players receive 0.75% next day bounce back while slot players receive double that. At least some “unprofitable” players receive a smaller percentage. To make it work for the casino, mailers and other offers have been reduced. Still, some of the mailer offers (spa credit, for example) are useless to some players, while “extra” free play is welcomed by all. If you want to go to the spa and no longer get as much spa credit, use the money derived from the next day free play and use it at the spa.

You earn your free play from 6 a.m. to 6 a.m., and it’s put on your card at noon. It’s good for 90 days. There are a few other “fine points” to the promotion, so if you go to one of these casinos, make sure you read the rules.

There’s always the question of when do you count this extra free play? Do you count it when you earn it or when you redeem it? While either methodology is defensible, personally, I count it when I redeem. 

What I mean is I do most of my play there on $5 deuces wild. At the outset of my trip, I take a marker and get a supply of $2,500 TITO tickets. My score generally goes up and down, mostly down, until I hit four deuces ($5,000) or a royal ($20,000) when I get paid in tickets. 

As I play, I put in these tickets and keep track of how many. Sometime after noon, I download the free play I’ve earned, but I don’t record that as money inserted. At the end of the day, I record my net win or loss. If I had $500 in free play (meaning I played about $67,000 coin-in the previous day), that money will end up as increasing my win or reducing my loss for the day. And, legally, this free play is as taxable as the results from playing the game.

The machines I play on are $1, $2, and $5 denominations, where the return on the game is highest on the $5 games. While I was playing a $5 game one day, I was next to a player playing $1 7-5 Bonus Poker. I heard him recount his score to his wife.

He said, “I started with $1,000 of my own money, and had $50 in free play from yesterday’s play which I downloaded. I earned 1,000 Tier Credits ($10,000 coin-in), so I’ll get another $75 tomorrow. Since I cashed out for $950, I really made $25 today. Let’s celebrate at the bar!”

This player was counting his free play twice in his mind. He counted yesterday’s $50 in free play and today’s $75 in the same session. Tomorrow, he’ll count today’s $75 again. It’s a mind game. The thing is, he only gets the $75 once.

Relatively few of you will play at these particular casinos, but this same principle happens at other casinos as well. In August, South Point is offering free spins Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, where you will earn free play up to $100, for playing $500 in slots or $1,500 in video poker. 

The day I’m writing this, playing on both Bonnie’s and my card, I earned a total of $140 in free play that’s redeemable until the end of the month. I could redeem it immediately, but there’s no need. I’ll be back in two days to play the promotion again and use the $140 as “ammunition” for my play next time. My results of that will then be recorded.

As of today, I don’t know the exact ending date for redeeming this promo. I’ll earn some free play on August 30, and am not planning on playing again until Tuesday, September 3, which is usually when my regular Tuesday-Thursday free play will be available (Sometimes there’s a different pickup schedule but I won’t know that until I receive the September mailer.) I’ll check the rules before then to see if the free play from the August spins will still be on my card when I pick up my first September free play. If the free play will still be there then, I’ll wait. If not, I’ll redeem it on August 30.

Another local casino in Vegas (Four Queens/Binion’s, which use the same card) gives you $160 for earning 1,200 points during the month. They regularly have variations of this promotion where you earn some amount of free play, comps, and/or gifts of some sort. I count the money when I redeem it.

Taxes aside, even if you’re playing recreationally, it’s good to know how you are doing. Fooling yourself into thinking you’re winning more (or losing less) by counting this kind of promotion twice gives you an erroneous picture of the profit or cost of your gambling.

At the same time, this is a clever way for a casino to run a promotion. Even when the rules of the promotion are perfectly clear, this makes it easy for players to think they’re getting more than they actually are.

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Still More About Slots

Bob Dancer

Last week I wrote about the hypothetical “Green Bob” machines. Today I’m going to talk about how to obtain some of the numbers we assumed last week. You should probably read that article before trying to make sense out of this one.

In general, there are three sources of information about these slot machines — par sheets, information from others, and figuring it out yourself.

  1. Par sheets.

A par sheet gives a lot of information about the game. These are designed to be useful to employees in slot departments. Probably more than 10,000 people have access to par sheets. I am not one of them.

Under certain circumstances, people with access to par sheets will share them with others. I have made a few unsuccessful attempts over the years at getting a slot director to provide par sheets to me. How to be successful at this is not something I can speak about from my own experience.

  1. Learning from others

I got started by having a “guru” I trusted give me some useful information. There are X feeds and Internet sites dedicated to this. Over time, my first guru stopped telling me things and I found a second. I “bartered” by sharing video poker information for slot information — but bartering can take many forms.

Much of the information online is not very good. Over time you’ll need to figure out the sources you can trust and the sources you can’t. I see no possibility that bobdancer.com will ever become a major source of slot machine information.

  1. Figuring it out yourself

On the Green Bob machine, the information you need is: How long does it take, on average, for each meter to go off, and how much, on average, is each extra spin on each meter worth. You also need the RTP (return to player) — which is to say you need to know whether this game returns 88% overall, 92%, or whatever. 

We’ll cover the RTP first. Assuming you don’t have access to the par sheet, this information is usually in the data displayed when the slot machine is open. There is a LOT of information there, but the RTP is near the top. When the door is open, read what’s there. Sometimes slot employees will tell you to step away, but usually they don’t care. Sometimes you can get them to open up a machine for some reason, perhaps claiming that you’re not sure, but you think the bill acceptor didn’t record the last $100 bill you entered. 

In the Green Bob machine, you also need to know how long it takes each of the three meters to go off. You can do your counting while you are playing or somebody else is playing. So, each spin will add to each of the three counts. Eventually one of them will go off. You’ll record that number and start counting over again. The more cycles you have the better.

We don’t have a Mega meter on this particular machine — but these typically have a cycle of 50,000 or more — approximately the same as a royal flush. You’re never going to get an accurate count for enough cycles to get a close estimate on the cycle. When figuring out whether I’m going to play a game with a Mega meter, I ignore that meter. One will go off periodically and that day will be a winner, but I always assume that that day won’t be today.

There are games where the top meter tops out at 99 spins. I’ve heard pros say things like 99 on the top meter might or might not be a play. It could take you 12 hours of play to find out. 

Once you get a cycle for each meter, you need to figure out how much each spin pays. I collect by both denomination and number of coins — so a penny game betting 500 coins would be recorded differently than a dime game betting 50 coins. While both games require $5 per spin, it’s very possible that the latter game is a bit looser. As the denomination increases, some manufacturers, not all, give the player a slightly better game.

After 30 or more data points for each number of coins/denomination combination, you can get a fairly reliable average of how much each spin is worth. But there will always be variance. Sometimes 25 spins for a certain bet size will return $30 and sometimes it will return $800. You’ll never know how much it will return this time until you play it.

From here, you need to put all the numbers together to figure out how much it will cost to get a Minor meter currently at xx to go off and how much it will return once it does go off. These are average amounts. Sometimes the machine will give more. Sometimes it will give less.

That is basically how it’s done. It’s hard work and once you have the numbers, you’re competing with many other players who have their own numbers — however obtained — sometimes by guessing. There’s a lot of walking around checking machines. If you’re looking for an easy way to get rich quick, this isn’t it.

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More About Slots

Bob Dancer

When I write about slots, it appears that I frustrate some of my readers. A typical response I get lists several demands. Following is one of those responses simplified:

  1. Where exactly did your “adventure” happen? I’m not interested in telling you that. The games I write about are found in many casinos. Slot club promotions are not irrelevant, but they are not as important as they are in video poker. In video poker, most of the games return less than 100% and you need the slot club benefits to make the game playable. The slot machines I play are typically in the 105% – 120% range, so getting double points for an extra 0.05% doesn’t mean too much.
  2. There are several hundreds of different slot machine titles around. Exactly what game are you talking about?

    I’m not interested in telling you that either. If I told you the game, some readers would want to know all the ins and outs of playing that game profitably — such as when to get on and when to get off, and how does that vary by denomination and, occasionally, slot club details. However much I share, there will always be players wanting more information.

  3. How can a slot machine pay 120%? We’ve always heard that slot machines return less than video poker, and no video poker game (other than a very occasional super-high progressive or a huge casino mistake) pays anywhere near that much. This I can talk about, and is indeed the subject of today’s blog.
  4. Where can I get more information about advantage slots? Michael Shackleford wrote a decent introductory section on advantage slots in the recent update to Gambling 102. There are several places on X, formerly Twitter, and YouTube.com where this is discussed. Look and you will find what you want to know, but I’m not going to give you an easy-to-follow roadmap. There are already many, many slot professionals out there. If you do decide to go this route, know that there will be lots of competition for the best games. 

In the past I’ve written about the hypothetical “Red Bob” slot machine and how it is played. Today I’m going to write about the equally hypothetical “Green Bob” machine — which is played differently than the “Red Bob” machine. Neither machine is an exact clone of a real machine, but slot players will recognize similarities between these games and games that do exist.

Assume the following about Green Bob: The game has three meters, Mini, Minor, and Major. Randomly the meters grow. Randomly the meters “go off,” and when that happens, the player gets as many free spins as are on the meter that just went off.

Assume further that the reset value of each meter is 6 (meaning if you hit the Mini meter immediately after just hitting the Mini meter, the second time you hit it, you would get six spins.)

If you don’t count the meters going off, the game returns 60%. You get some pays from three or more identical symbols in a row. The game gives occasional wild cards, both in and out of the bonus rounds, which help. If the meters don’t go off for a long while, you will be losing at a pretty rapid pace.

Based on how often each meter increases and how much each bonus spin is worth when the meter goes off, assume you’ve calculated the meters this way:

Each increment over 6 for the Mini meter adds 1% to the return on the game. The Mini bonus round is played on a 5×3 matrix with 243 ways to win. (All pay lines go left to right on this game. There are some games where pay lines go both ways, but this is not one of them.)

Each increment above 6 for the Minor meter adds 2% to the return on the game. The Minor bonus round is played on a 5×4 matrix with 1024 ways to win.

Each increment in excess of 6 for the Major meter adds 3% to the return on the game. The Major bonus round is played on a 5×5 matrix with 3125 ways to win.

With modern slot machines, it is very common for differently sized displays to happen at different points in the game.

Let’s assume that you see a machine with all three meters at 15. It’s being played, but the player is down to only a few credits. If that player leaves, you want to sit down and play that game. If the player pulls out another $100 bill and inserts it, you can read body language to get an idea whether or not to wait.

That is, you can sometimes tell if that’s the last $100 bill the player has just by the way he pulls it out. If it’s a $1 per spin game, $100 is going to last for a while. If it’s a $30 per spin game, $100 probably won’t last very long at all. Of course, if it’s a $30 per spin game and you don’t have several thousand dollars of cash on you, you run a very good chance of running out of money before one or more of the meters goes off.

Since the Mini meter is 9 units above the reset value of 6, it adds 9% to the 60% base level of the game. The Minor meter is also 9 units above reset, so it adds 18% to the 60% base level of the game. The Major meter too is 9 units above the 60% base level of the game, adding 27% to the value of the game. Adding these numbers together, you’ll get 60% + 9% + 18% + 27% = 114%. This is definitely worth playing — if you can be the player who gets the machine when the current player leaves. This is not a time for sauntering. If that player stands up, move in immediately.

If you get on the machine and the Mini meter goes off first (and the other two meters haven’t risen), the game will still be at 105% and well worth playing. If the Minor hits, the play is over. If the Minor hits, the play is “only” 96% (assuming the other two meters haven’t risen), but the typical case will be that one or both of the other two meters will have risen and so the most likely scenario when you sit down is you’ll play until either the Major goes or both the Mini and the Minor go off.

So far, we’re assuming a lot of information. Next week, I’ll discuss how to figure out the numbers we assumed this week.

Over time, the game will return 88% or whatever it’s set at. Sometimes it’s at 60% and sometimes it’s at 120% or higher. Perhaps you can understand now how if you get on and off at the right times, this game that returns 88% overall can be well worth playing.

This is a case of looking forward, not looking backwards. When the Major goes off, you’ll probably collect a W-2G. This is NOT a time to keep playing because you’re running hot. When the Major is only 6, it’s not a play. Similarly, if you’ve already lost $3,000 on the play, assuming you have the bankroll, so long as the numbers are high enough, keep going!