Category: Video Poker

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A Different Sort of Advantage Play

Bob Dancer

When I’m in Las Vegas, I usually drive my own car to go places. Sometimes, though, using rideshare is convenient. Like going to or from the airport. Or taking me to physical therapy appointments when I’m recovering from one surgery or another and I’m not supposed to drive. While I do enjoy a glass of wine with dinner periodically, I haven’t been too impaired to drive safely since my college days more than 50 years ago, but I suppose it could happen again.

I have both Lyft and Uber accounts set up, but in 20 trials, Lyft was always cheaper than Uber. So, I only use Lyft. It’s possible that Uber might be cheaper than Lyft some of the time. Since many of the Lyft drivers also drive for Uber, I’m assuming the experience itself is pretty similar between the two companies.

Bonnie and I go to Reno 20 times a year or so. While most of our play is at one casino, we do play at others there and so earn free play. We schedule our trips, among other parameters, so we can pick up any free play we’re offered.

If we have three or more casinos to visit during a trip (or if Lake Tahoe, which is 60 miles away, has one of those casinos), we’ll rent a car. But if it’s only two casinos, we’ll take the shuttle from the airport to get to the first casino offering free play, and Lyft our way to the casino where we’ll stay. While we could take a shuttle back to the airport and get another shuttle from the airport to the second casino, that can easily take an hour or so and Lyft is much quicker.

On one occasion, we did this in reverse. That is, we took the shuttle to the main casino we were going to stay for the trip and used Lyft to take us to the second. From there, we would take a shuttle to the airport. 

On this occasion, I brought most of our luggage down to the video poker machine I play, and was waiting for Bonnie to join me. She was still in the room and was going to meet me at the machine. I opened up the Lyft app to check how much it would be to go to the second casino and found out it was $12.50. I didn’t order the ride (Bonnie wasn’t there yet), but I left the app open. Five minutes later, the price was $9.75, and ten minutes after that it was $18.

While I knew rideshare pricing is based on supply and demand, I didn’t realize it jumped around so much so quickly.

When Bonnie arrived, the price was $14.35. I waited a few minutes and it dropped to $10.95, which I took. That wasn’t the lowest price of the day, but if I took the earlier price of $9.75, the ride would have come and gone before Bonnie got there. And leaving Bonnie behind wasn’t an option.

But $10.95 was a relatively low price. It was much lower than $18 and was the second-lowest price I’d seen in the last half hour. It’s possible the next price would be $8.35, but it’s also possible it would be $17.70. I have to pull the trigger some time, so I pick a price that is relatively low.

It’s possible that the first price I see will be the lowest one for quite some time. I won’t get that price, usually. Unless we’ve taken the same route at the same time of day several times, we don’t know a good price from a bad price. So we almost always get a few prices and pick a relatively low one.

Now, Bonnie and I make a game out of which Lyft price to take. If the price drops when we’re ready to go, we jump on it and feel good about saving $1.25 or so. Never mind that we might be up or down $40,000 for the trip.

In Las Vegas when we take Lyft from the airport home, I expect the price to be rather stable. During normal business hours, there are always a lot of people wanting to use Lyft to get away from the airport. The last time we took it, the price was $19.99, and it stayed that way for almost ten minutes. Finally, it dropped all the way to $19.85. I took it. 

When I “bragged” to Bonnie about saving a whole 14 cents, we both laughed. This time, what we saved was essentially zero. But doing this over and over again, we’ll get lower prices in total than if we blindly just take the first one.

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Crying Over Spilt Milk

Bob Dancer

The new tax law was signed on July 4, 2025. The gambling provisions have little effect on recreational gamblers but are career-endingly serious for professional gamblers. The Gambling with an Edge podcast with Russell Fox about this new tax law was posted July 16, and you can find it on YouTube or in several other places.

There are several possibilities that this law could be changed before January 1, 2026 — and we won’t know for some time if any of these possibilities will come in.  While Richard Munchkin expressed optimism in the podcast about one of these avenues for changing the law coming to fruition before January 1, I’m less sanguine about it. I’m preparing for my gambling life as I know it to be over in a few months.

For those unaware of how punitive this new law is for professional gamblers, consider two recent years of mine. In both years my W-2Gs added up to about $6 million. I’m playing high denominations games with a small edge. In one year, my gambling score was -$150,000 and in the other, +$200,000. I have non-gambling income as well. I also record my gambling expenses, which I’m entitled to do as I file as a professional gambler.

In the first year, since I lost money gambling, I paid no taxes on the gambling part of my income. In the second year, I paid quite a bit. Nobody likes to pay taxes, certainly including me, but it’s the price we pay to live in this country.

Under the new law, I would only be able to deduce $5.4 million in gambling losses in each year. (W-2Gs are considered proven gambling wins by the IRS and you can deduct up to 90% of them as losses.) That means in both years (one I lost $150,000 and the other I won $200,000), I would owe taxes on $600,000 of phantom income, in addition to the taxes on my other income. Minus 90% of my gambling expenses, of course, but those came nowhere near $600,000.)

It won’t take many of these tax years to wipe me out completely.

Some people manage to avoid paying taxes by simply lying about how much they make. When you get W-2Gs, though, you can’t lie about them. They go to the IRS and your tax return should claim at least the total dollar amount on the W-2Gs as in on the IRS computers, or they will come after you. In the past, it was always safe to add a few hundred thousand dollars to the W-2G total (because they would all be written off), but starting next year, adding $200,000 to this total will increase the amount you have to pay taxes on by $20,000.

Playing single-line quarters and avoiding W-2Gs altogether is not something I’m interested in. I don’t gamble “for fun.” I gamble for profit and the profit you can make playing games this small are smaller than I wish to seek. I know some of my readers take this route, and I’m not putting them down in any respect, but it’s not the life I want for me.

I’m both planning on exploiting the games I find for the last five months of this year, and planning on what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. This second kind of planning is both more difficult and not as far along as my plans for the rest of this year. It may well include stopping writing this blog. Most of the blog-posts here are inspired by something happening in a casino. If I won’t be in casinos, I’ll simply run out of new things to say. I already repeat myself more than some of you like. 

I’ve considered stiffing casinos on my way out the door on December 31, but have decided against it. While the gambling law might not change prior to 2026, there are also possibilities it could change in mid-2026 or later and I want to keep casino doors open to me should that happen. Stopping playing because of the tax law is easy for casino to understand. If they tolerated my action before, they will probably welcome me back. Taking front money and then not playing (so as to maximize my short-term profits on the way out the door) is much harder for casinos to forgive. So, I won’t do it.

One thing I won’t do is to lie around and cry over opportunities lost. I’ve had a longer and more successful gambling career than most, and if it ends in five months, so be it. I’ve saved enough to be set (unless the Doomsday Clock actually strikes twelve, which is definitely possible), so Bonnie and I will make the best of the time we have left together.

And, of course, I will hope the law gets changed soon. If it does, I plan to be ready to go in 2026 right where leave off on in 2025.

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Playing for Second Best

Bob Dancer

One of my students was given a nice offer at Caesars Atlantic City, based on his play at another Caesars property. He got some nice show-up money, some free hotel nights, some food, and an offer that for every so many Tier Credits (TCs) he earned, he got so much money in free play. I don’t know what the limit was, but it would take well over $1 million in coin-in to max the offer. He asked me to help him figure out the best way to tackle this.

We ruled out 9/6 Jacks or Better in the high limit room because it takes $25 coin-in to earn one TC and regular video poker only takes $10 to earn the same point. I called some players and discovered they have 9/6 Double Double Bonus (98.98%) in $5, $10, and $25 single-line games. That would be a much cheaper way to earn TCs even without the promo, and even more so with. This was his first trip there and if he played more than a million dollars on his first three-day visit, win or lose, there’s a good chance he’ll get nice offers down the road.

The property now offers 0.25% next day bounce back cash (NDB) on regular video poker (0.10% on 9/6 Jacks) and on Thursdays, for two hours, 10x NDB. He asked if he should make any strategy adjustments for that two-hour period.

“Absolutely,” I replied, “I don’t know for sure, but I suspect the casino will be very crowded during that two-hour period — especially in the high limit room. Unless there are nearby vacant machines with the same pay schedule. W-2Gs during those two hours are very expensive.”

While I’ve not played in that casino for more than a decade, I’ve heard getting W-2Gs paid there can take 15 minutes on regular days, and during some promotions, the slot people get so slammed it can take more than an hour. A two-hour juicy promotion is useless if you can’t get on a machine.

I suggested looking for hands where two plays are close in value, but the correct one can get a W-2G and the other one can’t — or at least it’s a lot more difficult to get one.

We used the advanced section of WinPoker to deal us hands where the difference between the best and the second-best play was 50 cents or less for a dollar player. That means $12.50 or less for a $25 player.

Hands such as A♠ J♥ T♠ 7♦ 4♠ popped up. Holding the bare ace is the best play by 3.3 cents for the five-coin dollar player. (The numbers I quote here will be for the dollar player. If you’re playing a $5, $10, or $25 machine, multiply the number by 5, 10, or 25 accordingly.) Holding AJ instead of the bare ace reduces your chance of getting a W-2G on this hand by about 50%. Is 3.3¢ a cheap price to pay for such a reduction? To my mind, yes.

Another qualifying hand was A♦ K♦ J♣ T♥ 8♠. Holding the AK gives you three chances out of 16,215 getting a W-2G. (On a $25 machine, the royal, four aces, and four kings each get you a handpay).  Holding AKJT eliminates that chance altogether. It costs you 4.3¢ to make such a play. It takes some courage to pull the trigger on this because while one of the possible jackpots was “only” four kings, with the other two W-2Gs you’re giving up the possibilities of receiving a royal flush and four aces — hands DDB players dream about. Still, getting those hands was taken into consideration when we computed it was a 4.3¢ difference in EV.

There are other hands to be considered. Once I give you the concept and tell you where to look, you can find them out for yourself if you’re interested.

In Harrah’s Cherokee, the loosest game is $5 NSU Deuces Wild. The “mystery” multiple NDB day goes for 24 hours, not just two. While they don’t make it clear what your multiplier is until you’ve already played, if you assume it’s 2x, you’ll be correct a very high percentage of the time. A 2x multiplier seems to pale in comparison with 10x elsewhere, but the base video poker games are better in Cherokee (if you’re willing and able to play $25 per hand), the base NDB rate is higher, and the promo goes for 24 hours rather than two.

The same “W-2Gs are expensive” philosophy holds during the multiple NDB days. When I get dealt a hand where a second-best play might reduce or eliminate the chances for a W-2G, the first thing I would do is check to see if there is a suitable nearby machine available. If one is, I’ll make the standard play and scoot over if the W-2G (four deuces or a royal flush in this game and denomination) comes home. But if no such machine is available, these are some of the hands I’d consider making the “second-best” play:

  1. W45 — With a suited deuce four five, it’s a close play whether you play the deuce by itself or deuce four five — and the exact correct play is a bit complicated to figure out. For me during the promo if no backup machine is available, I’m holding all three cards every time.
  2. A one-deuce perfect 4-card straight from W567-WQJT. It’s a close play whether you hold one card or four — and the exact rules are again a bit complicated — but during this promo with no backup machines available, I’m holding four cards every time.

A now-deceased good friend of mine made up “Annie’s Rule” on these hands.  Because she liked getting four deuces so much, she was willing to give up a few pennies in expected value to increase her chances of getting “the ducks.” I guess if she were playing this promotion and thought about it sufficiently, she would use “Bob’s Rule” which values not getting four deuces at times such as these.

  1. KQ, KJ, or KT with at least two penalties. A straight penalty would be an unpaired card in the range of 9-A, while a flush penalty is a card of the same suit as the K in the range of 3-8. In these hands, without an available spare machine, I’m throwing everything away. It’s only 16,214 to 1 to hit a royal when drawing three cards, while it’s much longer when drawing five cards.  Your odds of drawing four deuces after when drawing five new cards are on in 35,673. Not zero, but not likely.

As before, there are other hands I’d play “second best but no jackpot” under these conditions, but now you understand the concept and know where to look, you can find them yourself.

These plays are not limited to NDB conditions. They are worth considering whenever W-2Gs are going to be paid slowly and there are no replacement machines nearby. At some casinos this can be 100% of the time on some machines!

Be sure the right conditions are there before you pull the trigger on one these plays. If jackpots are paid faster (at some casinos you can self pay) or there are ample additional suitable machines, it’s not smart to make any of these second-best plays.

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Response to a Reader

Bob Dancer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Do Tariffs Affect Winning in the Casino?

Bob Dancer

I rarely write about politics. After all, whatever my political views are, it’s a safe bet that many of you have opposite views. Since part of my business model is to have some of you buy my beat-the-casinos literature, the fewer people I can alienate, the better for me.

Even though tariffs are about as political as it can get these days, what I have to say isn’t particularly political. My subject matter deals with how players take advantage of this situation.

Tariffs, basically, are a tax on imports — intended to protect the home country at the expense of foreign countries. My personal prejudice is that free trade, meaning no tariffs at all, is the better plan, but that’s neither here nor there. It is not my goal to try to convince you that my belief is best.

Consumers and business can adapt to relatively small tariffs if they’re predictable. The problem is uncertainty. If tariffs are announced, and then delayed, and then reinstated at a different rate, and then exceptions are announced, and then the courts make rulings changing the legality of tariffs — and then sometimes overturn those rulings — we have a whole lot of uncertainty. It’s hard for a small business to decide what to order for the Christmas season if that business can’t know what the prices are going to be. 

Casinos, especially the large ones with hotels, have to buy thousands of items of all sorts to supply their needs. Some of those items have been hit with tariffs, which increases their costs the same as any other business.

This is compounded with a shrinking player base. Their customers (including you and me) are facing higher costs due to the tariffs. Many of their bigger customers are small business owners, who are facing an uncertain financial environment. While there are some players who are going to continue to gamble come Hell or high water, many gamblers are cutting back for a while.

Casinos typically react to rising costs and a shrinking player base in one of two completely opposite ways. The first of these is bad for the players and should be avoided, and the second is good for the players and I, for one, am playing more at such casinos.

The first way — bad for the players — is for the casino to tighten everything. Good pay tables are eliminated, mailers cut, and promotions are reduced. The casino is attempting to ride out this economic situation by reducing costs. There are several such casinos in Las Vegas, and I’m reducing or eliminating my play at them.

The second way that casinos deal with this economic situation is to bribe players to come in and play. They do this by having better promotions than they usually do. They reason that they will benefit from extra play as many players are fleeing from the other casinos that are tightening up. There are a few casinos that are doing this. When I find them, I patronize them and attempt to take advantage of their promotions.

This requires more scouting than usual, but for me, so far, once I figured out what to look for, it has been a successful approach. At this point, I’m not identifying the casinos I’m playing at less and the ones I’m playing at more. Maybe later. But once your eyes have been opened to what to look for, it’s not that hard to figure out which casinos have which approach to dealing with this economic situation.

Note: Let’s keep the comments, if any, on ways to beat the casino and away from politics. Whether you are in favor or opposed to Trump and his policies, or believe the courts are helping or hurting the situation, if you post such opinions in this thread, I will delete your post. Whatever your political views, there are other forums where your comments on that are welcome. My blog is not such a forum. Additional note: Since I prepared this blog and before its release date, Congress passed a law greatly penalizing gamblers tax-wise. So greatly that I, for one, am strongly considering giving up gambling at the end of 2025. At the age of 78, I’ll have to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. Richard Munchkin and I are attempting to get our tax guru, Russell Fox, to do a special episode of Gambling with an Edge. Assuming Russell Fox comes on the show, after talking to him I may find a way to continue my profession. We’ll see. As in the previous note, if you comment on this, keep it away from political diatribes. Keep it on the theme of succeeding at gambling.

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A Couple of Advantage Plays

Bob Dancer

Not so long ago, Huntington Press published Michael Kaplan’s Advantage Players, and I was given a review copy so Richard Munchkin and I could interview Kaplan on one of our irregularly scheduled episodes of Gambling With an Edge.   

I took the book along to an out-of-town casino promotion to read during the plane rides and some other downtime. After reading about how many different gamblers and others use their wits to increase the odds in their favor, I came up with my own — on the spot.

We were on the right side of variance this weekend and were leaving our hotel room at 6:30 in the morning in order to catch a shuttle to the airport. I had just under six figures of cash and unredeemed slot tickets packed away. 

As it turned out, there was a body building competition in the same hotel that weekend, and approaching Bonnie and me were two huge guys — both well over six feet tall — possibly 280 pounds of ripped muscles stretching their form-fitting T shirts. I don’t know why, but these guys didn’t look happy.

I’m 78 years old, pushing a walker, with my right hand in a splint (actually a “spica”) due to recent thumb surgery. Bonnie is older than me by a few years, and time has bent her posture some. It was like we were wearing signs saying “Easy Targets,” or maybe “Easy Pickin’s,” and I was carrying way more money than I wished to part with.

I gave a grim smile at the guys and said, “Good morning. I hope the casino is nicer to you than it was to us.” The guys laughed and let us pass easily — apparently sizing us up as two losers who were down on our luck. Not worth messing with. Which was definitely some more positive variance from my point of view.

Were we ever in danger from these guys? Probably not. (Obviously, to me at least, I was giving up everything if they demanded. We had no relevant defense, and resisting could get us hurt – or worse.) Logically speaking, these guys had spent multiple years and thousands of hours of hard work to create their “perfect” bodies, and beating up old folks would be stupidly putting that at risk. But I couldn’t know that for sure until it was too late, and something was irritating them. So, I acted preemptively. And it worked.

Most AP plays work only some of the time. Most of them shift the odds a bit – say from 49-51 against you to 51-49 in your favor. Still, plenty of room to miss any particular time, but if you constantly work with such an edge, you very likely will prosper. (If you don’t go broke first. There are definitely bankroll issues here that we’re avoiding talking about at the moment.)

One of the parts of the book that reminded me of my own past was in a section about Phil Ivey — who is certainly in the conversation for being the greatest poker player of all time. Phil grew up in a lower-middle class neighborhood, and experienced going broke more than once when he had to sleep outside under bridges because he couldn’t afford anything better.

Paraphrasing, Ivey maintains he learned to play with an advantage because he had to win. He had no safe landing spot. In a sense it’s like being a cornered dog — hyper-alert and ready to pounce on any opportunity. While he is quite well-off financially these days, he remembers when that wasn’t true. While he doesn’t need that extra edge today for survival, he has those skills to fall back on — which takes him to the next level.

For me, it was similar, but not identical. My family wasn’t rich, but I did get help going through college (the undergraduate years, anyway), and so I had solid educational degrees and some job skills when I went broke playing backgammon in 1980. Had I not succeeded at the time, there was some family money I could access, probably. There would have been recriminations and a whole lot of being forced to eat humble pie — which I really wanted to avoid if I could, but that strikes me as a lot less onerous than being forced to live outside under bridges.

For me, it was the fear of going broke that drove me — not the actuality of being broke. I got very nervous when I didn’t have sufficient dollars in the bank, “in case.” I knew the machines gave and they took away and I didn’t have the knowledge or tools to properly calculate bankroll. I usually could figure out if I had the advantage, but I never knew if that advantage was enough.

So, when I moved to Vegas in 1993, I was obtaining and consuming $10-for-$5, $7-for-$5, and even $3-for-$2 table game coupons by the hundreds each month. They were a lot more plentiful back then and $200-$300 per month came from those. I would drive ten miles to pick up $10 in free play and thirty miles across town to pick up $25. I specialized in finding ways to double up on promotions — sometimes day of the week, sometimes time of day, sometimes two or more drawings, miles apart, in the same night. Sometimes partnering up with others — you pick up my free play at here and here and I’ll pick up yours at there and there.

One casino (the Sahara) had a “slot club” where if you bought so many red racks of dollar tokens you would get a free meal. So, I’d buy them from one change booth and sell them at another. (One poster a few weeks ago said he did a similar thing at about the same time with quarters at the Gold Coast. He said it struck him as a “Dancer” thing to do. He was right, although the Gold Coast wasn’t on my radar at the time. But the Sahara was.)

I specialized in examining the rules of most promotions. Often there were loopholes — sometimes pertaining to starting and ending times — where the alert player could gain an edge. Since I had at least some computer programming background, I was able to understand do-this-and-then-do-that versus do-this-only-if-that versus do-this-only-if-two-other-things-happen-first. Understanding that sort of logic was often very effective against marketing departments who would put out a new promotion this month while only tweaking slightly the rules from last month. It was a lot of work on my part, but I was scared of going broke, so I did it.

Gambling is applied math, and the design of promotions requires being good in left brain thinking. Many casinos, fewer than before, like to hire right brain “people people” to work in their marketing departments. For me, this has always been exploitable.

Today the fear of going broke doesn’t drive my actions, but I still read rules and look for loopholes. Age has diminished some of my smarts and skills (and I never was in Phil Ivey’s league smarts-wise), but the skills I learned years ago still seem to be working.

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Sunday Morning Coming Down

Bob Dancer

It will be easy to criticize my presumptuousness in this blog because I’m going to compare myself, in a way, to Kris Kristofferson, an actor/singer/songwriter we lost last year. Kristofferson won numerous Country Music Association awards and Grammys, along with a Golden Globe award and an Academy Award nomination. He also received several other “minor” awards that far outshone anything I’ve received. While I’ve had a relatively successful career, Kristofferson’s has dwarfed mine. Plus, most women found him gorgeous, and I haven’t been cursed with that affliction.

With that said, I recently came across on YouTube a four-part series on Kristofferson, hosted by Steve Earle in 2008, and found many similarities between Kris’s life and mine. So, forgive my presumptuousness if you can and hear me out.

Kris wrote hundreds of songs, but four of his biggest hits were recorded in a few months in the early 70s — “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” recorded by Johnny Cash, “For the Good Times,” recorded by Ray Price, “Me and Bobby McGee,” first recorded by Roger Miller but Janis Joplin posthumously made it a huge success, and “Help Me Make it Through the Night,” originally released by Sammi Smith and later by more than 400 other artists. While Kris lived more than a half-century more, having success in a variety of ways, that brief early-70s period gave him enough continued royalties that he didn’t have to work any longer if he didn’t want to.

For me, my most successful moment was a six-month period in 2000-2001 when I was able to net more than $1 million. I chronicled this run in my “Million Dollar Video Poker” autobiography. While the money was enough for me to retire, if I wanted, it gave my career the boost of credibility. I was essentially the same player before and after the million-dollar experience, but many players took winning that much as a sign I was very knowledgeable. And they bought my products.

While Kris’s run was a lot more lucrative than mine, probably the biggest difference between the runs was the percentage of luck versus the percentage of skill. While both of us had a healthy dose of both skill and luck, luck is a much bigger factor in gambling success than it is in writing four critically acclaimed and commercially successful songs back-to-back-to-back-to-back.
During and after Kris’s success in the 70s, drinking, drugs, and womanizing cost him his marriage to Rita Coolidge. My closest parallel to that also happened in the 70s — which was well before I moved to Vegas and experienced gambling success. While I was never a heavy drinker, and dabbling with marijuana was never a major hobby, there was a period of almost ten years when I couldn’t be trusted to be a faithful boyfriend/husband. I probably would have been a worse philanderer had it been easier. I never had groupies. I was okay looking, but women didn’t fall over themselves vying for my attentions. I’ve heard it said that a man is only as faithful as his opportunities. While there is some truth to that, strength of character can overcome these opportunities. For about a decade, I didn’t have that strength.

Kris seemed to overcome many of his demons with a religious conversion and an eye-opening movie role. In the 1976 version of “A Star is Born,” Kristofferson played opposite Barbra Streisand as an alcoholic self-destructive rock and roll star and songwriter. Over the course of the movie, Kristofferson gets more and more destructive and eventually kills himself while driving a car recklessly. Kris must have seen the movie as semi-autobiographical and become aware that if he didn’t change his ways, he too would likely face an early demise. At about the same time, Kris converted to Christianity and wrote the song “Why me?” (Sometimes called “Why Me, Lord?” when sung by other artists.) This song was his only number one record as a solo artist.

For me, I never starred in a movie, nor did I have a religious experience to straighten me out. I took the Erhard Seminars Training (EST) in 1980 — with positive results. The training is loosely based on Zen principles. It has generated substantial criticism, but for me it was the single-most important event on my journey towards being a responsible human being. I have had no contact with the organization for more than 40 years, which has morphed a few times but still exists, but it remains an important part of who I am.

When Kristofferson’s musical career was floundering in the mid-1980s, he teamed up with Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Johnny Cash and formed “The Highwayman.” These four artists, called outlaws by some, were as big as you get in country music. At the time, being less aware of Kristofferson’s achievements than I am now, I was surprised when he was included in the group, rather than, perhaps, Merle Haggard. While the group sang hits from each of them, about 40% of those songs were written by Kris. That’s why he was in the group. 

For me, my late-in-life partnership was the “Gambling with an Edge” podcast, especially when my co-host was Richard Munchkin. Prior to that show, I’d been a magnet for Internet criticism. People who did not know me regularly posted negative things, often untrue, about me. When the show became a hit because of the people we interviewed, much of that criticism stopped. For that, I am grateful.

Finally, both Kris and I eventually got marriage right. His third wife, Lisa, bore him five children and stuck by him 40 years until his death in 2024. By all accounts, they were happy. For me, I’ve had more than three wives. Bonnie came to me late in life. We recently celebrated our 11th anniversary — and both of us expect it to last for the duration.

So many of the good-and-bad events of my life parallel those of Kris — and I find that I personally respond to his lyrics. Maybe you can’t relate to “Well I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt,” but I can. My favorite Kristofferson song, “Jody and the Kid,” was never a commercial success. But look it up on YouTube. You’ll be glad you did.

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Should I Say Anything?

Bob Dancer

The details of today’s incident caused me to wonder whether I should say anything to casino management. If they chose to “fix” the inconsistency it could either go in a way that would slightly benefit or slightly hurt other players. I’ve kept quiet, but I am writing about it. Maybe one or more of you will speak up about it. I’m sure this happens in more places than I know about.

The One Club is the slot club system used by Circa, Golden Gate, and The D, in downtown Las Vegas — all of which are casinos owned by Derek Stevens.  Among other benefits, Bonnie and I each receive $100 in food and beverage twice a month from the One Club. We redeem these comps at 8 East and Saginaw’s Delicatessen inside Circa and Joe Vicari’s Andiamo’s Steakhouse  inside The D. There are other eligible food outlets and numerous bars, but these are the places we frequent.

The idiosyncrasy that prompted this blog post is that the two restaurants at Circa include sales tax of 8.5% or so against our comp balance when we eat there and the one at the D doesn’t. So, we get $100 retail worth of food at The D and only about $92 worth at Circa. And both casinos belong to the same organization.

In many casino restaurants, sales tax disappears when you use a comp or pay with points. Things can vary when the restaurants are not owned by the casino but just rent the space. Some of these don’t accept comps at all, but others, like Ruth’s Chris Steakhouses in various Harrah’s casinos, charge extra if you are using comps.

There are other Joe Vicari restaurants around the country, so I’m guessing Andiamo’s isn’t actually owned by The D. And that’s the place that waives sales tax for compees. I can find no other Saginaw’s Delicatessens or 8 East restaurants on Google, so I’m guessing these are owned by Circa. 

I’ve not met Derek Stevens, the owner of the other casinos involved here, but he has the reputation of being approachable. I believe I could find a way to ask him about his sales tax on comps policy if I tried hard enough. 

But what would happen if I did? One possibility is that he would remove this internal inconsistency by starting to charge sales tax on comped dinners at Andiamo’s — which is a solution that players certainly don’t want.

So, I’ll let things be and remain curious about why things are the way they are. There are a whole lot of situations where I don’t understand things, but I don’t have a mission in life to get to the bottom of everything.

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I Don’t Have Enough Time to Eat!

Bob Dancer

On Wednesday April 30, I ate the breakfast buffet at South Point. I had a $15 coupon which expired that day, so it was ‘use it or lose it.’ The breakfast buffet costs $15.95 if you have a player card, so the meal basically cost a dollar, plus a two-dollar tip. The meal was easily worth more than that.

The April promotion at the South Point was, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, play $3,000 coin-in on video poker and spin the wheel. Most of my wheel spins were for $50, $75, or $100 free play — which is an excellent return for a $3,000 investment on an even game. You could get some food offers, which expired May 4 or so, but I didn’t receive any of those. I was planning on playing $3,000+ on both my card and Bonnie’s after breakfast.

On my way towards the exit of the buffet, I noticed two men I’ve been friendly with for 20 years or so, “Al” and “Bo.” They were in the middle of their meal and, after receiving indications that I’d be welcome to join them for a bit, I pulled out a chair and sat down. We chatted for a while about this and that, as old men are wont to do, and then Al told me he wasn’t sure he was going to play the promotion that day.

“Why,” I asked. “It’s a nice promo plus you’re already here. Unless you are on a really tight schedule, it makes sense to play.”

Al told me that he already had two remaining breakfast or lunch coupons from this drawing, and they are only good Monday through Friday. If he got another one, he wouldn’t have the chance to use it.

Among the three of us, about 75% of the prizes had been for cash, averaging about $75.

I asked him if he’d play if he knew he’d get $50?

“Of course.”

Well, if 75% of the time you’re getting $75, that’s worth more than $50 in EV. He was used to such calculations, but not when there was food involved. He conceded that he couldn’t fault my logic.

“Plus,” I added, “if you do get another two buffets, you can use more than two in a day. You could invite Bonnie and me on Friday, and I’ll leave the tip! That’s got to be worth something to you, isn’t it?”

I left soon thereafter. I didn’t hear about his score that day, nor what he got with the wheel spin. I do know that Bonnie and I ate breakfast at home that Friday.

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A Closer Look at the NSU Puzzler

Bob Dancer

Last week my blog consisted of five mini-blogs. Each of these was about something I wanted to say but none was worth an entire column.

The last of these, changing notation slightly, was that you were playing NSU Deuces Wild and were dealt W45K as your first four cards, where the W represents a deuce and bold italics represent the cards that are suited with each other. Last week I called them all spades. It doesn’t really matter, but I’ll keep that true this week because it will simplify the answer. The question was: Of the possible 48 cards remaining in the deck, how many of them make the proper hold for the hand be exactly W45?

After I prepared that blog, but before it was published, I asked the same question to a couple of player-friends. They each had several answers/guesses and didn’t get the correct answer until I suggested they look it up on computer software. Before going on, I’ll be talking about relatively advanced concepts today. If you’re a beginning player, trying to learn advanced concepts before you have mastered the basics can mess up your learning process. You’ve been warned!

First let me give you how to play each of the 48 possible hands, and then I’ll tell you why. The dollar figures on each line tell you how much of an error it would be if you played W45 and you were playing for dollars, five coins at a time.

9 cards — any spade gives you a five-card flush. $10.31

3 cards — any deuce makes the correct play WW45. $15.65

9 cards — any 4, 5, or K gives you 3-of-a-kind. $4.78

15 cards — any non-spade A, 3, 6, 7, or 8 gives you a hand where the solitary deuce is the correct hold because these cards provide a straight penalty and the original K penalty . Between 9 cents and 20 cents, depending on which card we’re talking about

9 cards — any non-spade 9, J, or Q also gives you a correct hold of the deuce by itself because of “Power of the Pack” reasons and the possibility of a wild royal flush. Between 0.6 cents and 1.5 cents, depending on which card we’re talking about.

3 cards — any non-spade T makes the correct hold W45. Better than the solitary deuce by 0.9 cents. So, the correct answer was 3 out of 48 cards.

Now let’s talk about it. For the first three categories: the flush, 3-of-a-kind, and WW45, I’m not going to discuss any further. They should be obvious to all readers of a video poker column.

The next category, any A, 3, 6, 7, or 8 which are all straight penalties to W45, plus the king of spades which is a flush penalty. In Level 4 strategy on both the Dancer Daily strategy card and the Winner’s Guide, it says hold the deuce itself when there is both a flush and straight penalty. 

The next category, any 9, J, or Q, has Power of the Pack considerations. In the Winner’s Guides, we used the term “Pack” to indicate the remaining cards after the first five have been dealt. Here I’m slightly modifying that to indicate the remaining cards after the first four have been dealt.

When you are considering one or more deuces by themselves, the more cards that are already dealt at the extremes of the A3456789TJQKA continuum, the more likely you are to end up with a straight or straight flush with the cards remaining in the pack.

The king itself is the critical card here. For this rule to apply the cards must specifically be KQ, KJ, or K9, with one of them suited with the W45.

The reason why W45K T has a different play than W45K 9 is that the T interferes with wild royal flushes when you hold the deuce by itself. Out of the 178,365 possible draws from that deuce, 192 of them form a wild royal when you are dealt a T and throw it away compared to 236 of them form a wild royal when you are dealt a 9 and throw it away.

As we already mentioned, the flush and straight penalty cards lead to an error of between 9 cents and 20 cents. For some players, that is too small to worry about. I understand. For recreational players, going through the trouble to learn, memorize, and recall this penalty card situation is more trouble than it’s worth. Especially since it’s a relatively rare hand. Still, to me this a MAJOR ERROR, far larger than I’m willing to voluntarily put up with.

The Power of the Pack considerations at the end are all worth less than two cents. Which is why these corrections were listed in the appendix to the Winner’s Guide while the rule including flush and straight penalties was listed in our Level 4 Advanced strategy. 

Even though it’s not always worth a whole lot, I have all of these rules memorized and apply them whenever they arise. Part of this is because I play for larger stakes than $1, five coins at a time. Part of it is because, in spring 2025, coin-in on this game is probably more than 50% of all my gambling activity. And part of it is just my outlook on gambling — if I’m going to do it, I look for every legal edge I can get.