Video Poker – Page 25 – Las Vegas Advisor

Posted on March 2, 2021August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 16 Comments

A Lesson Relearned

Today we’ll have a personal anecdote about what happened to me recently. I’m not sure how widespread my situation is, but perhaps some of my readers will relate to it.

I’ve been gambling at video poker since 1994. For the right promotion, I’ll go any time of the day or night. To make this work, I also need to be able to sleep any time of the day or night so I can be at my best when I play. Sometimes I’ll play daytime for one promotion, sleep four to six hours, and then go play graveyard at some other promotion. At age 74, it’s more difficult to do this than it was when I was younger.

Posted on February 23, 2021August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 14 Comments

Quitting While You are Ahead — Does it Work?

Recently, a poster on the videopoker.com forum wrote words to the following effect: “I have no doubt that if I could ever learn to quit while I was ahead, I’d be far ahead at video poker, even though I play games returning only about 99%.”

Let’s look more closely at that statement.

Posted on February 16, 2021August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 37 Comments

Who Are the Patrons?

On our February 4 Gambling with an Edge podcast, Anthony Curtis brought up something that I had experienced, but not understood why it was happening. With some notable exceptions, numerous Las Vegas casinos have really tightened up. Slot clubs are less generous. Promotions are smaller. Games aren’t as loose as they were.

In my opinion, this is not the smart way for these casinos to be acting. Their customers are hurting. Their customers have less money. At least some of the customers are wary about venturing into casinos at all until the percentage of our population vaccinated is much higher than it is now.

Posted on February 9, 2021August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 17 Comments

Two Stories

I have two brief things that came up recently and are worthy of writing about, but neither is sufficient to fill up an entire blog. So, I stacked them together. Hope you don’t mind.

New Rules

Posted on February 2, 2021August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 8 Comments

Using One Strategy for Two Games

The mathematical analysis in this blog was done by Rick Percy. I do not have the tools to do that analysis myself. Thank you, Rick!

My personal goal is to learn the best strategy for every game I play. Not everybody shares that goal. Some people want to minimize their work, or don’t have the time, or have trouble keeping the differences between strategies straight.

Posted on January 26, 2021August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 15 Comments

Killing the Golden Goose

There are some excellent video poker opportunities to be found from time to time in Las Vegas. When these are found, good players rush in to take advantage of them. After a few days or weeks of getting pounded, casino slot directors decide that they are tired of this, so they remove the promotions, the machines, or sometimes, the offending players.

For a promotion to work, good and bad players need to play. If the casinos do not make money, the promotion will not last. When good players hog all of the machines, the casino cannot make money, and so the casino makes adjustments.

Posted on January 19, 2021August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 15 Comments

Is It Worth the Risk?

I was playing a $1 9/6 Double Double Bonus game with multiple progressives. The royal was at $5,400 and aces with a kicker (AWAK) was slightly above $2,300. The other two active progressives, which reset at $800, had been hit in the previous half hour and had not yet risen much.

The numbers made the game about 100.1% which I would usually consider a waste of time, but it was by far the best game in the house. The slot club added 0.2%, the meter was rising at 1%, and I needed to play some to keep my mailers coming. Plus, sadly, at the moment I didn’t know of any better game around, so I played.

Posted on January 5, 2021August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 7 Comments

It All Adds Up

A friend, Jake Jacobs, posted in passing on a Facebook page recently that he’d been active in car rallyes in the Chicago area way back when. Some of them were time-speed-distance events where you were timed and crossing a checkpoint 30 seconds early was as bad as 30 seconds late — but both were better than 40 seconds either way.

The other type of rallye was called a gimmick rallye, where time was not a factor, although you had to finish by such-and-such a time because that’s when awards were passed out. You were scored on the basis of your answers to questions, such as, “What is the name of the first street you pass on the right?” or, “How many streetlights do you pass between xxx and yyy?” There was always some sort of trick in the rules leading many participants to get the wrong answer.

Posted on December 22, 2020August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 23 Comments

“I Hate Stations,” She Said.

In January of this year, I was preparing to teach a video poker class at the South Point. As is my custom, once I got set up, I went around to chat with the students before the class began.

One lady I had never seen before seemed to be a friend of a frequent student. She told me her name and proclaimed, “I hate Stations!”

Posted on December 15, 2020August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 9 Comments

Am I the Favorite?

The following email was sent to [email protected]. The correct answer, although not that difficult, has too much math for a podcast. So, I’m addressing it here.

I play full pay Jacks or Better (99.54% return), exclusively. I play $1 denomination at max bet for $5 a hand. The casino that I usually play at gives me, at minimum, $90 worth of free play once a week. For cash back, $5 coin-in on video poker earns one point. One thousand points is equal to $1 in value.

Category: Video Poker