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Wizard of Oz at Sphere

Like everyone else, I’d heard all the amazing things about Sphere over the last two years. I’d been wanting to experience it firsthand, but none of the bands that have played there so far have interested me enough to go and certainly not enough to pay Sphere prices to see them.

So I was excited when I realized that my next scheduled Vegas trip was only a few weeks after Sphere’s debut of the remake of The Wizard of Oz. I grabbed tickets early and was glad I did; demand has only gotten stronger after all the word of mouth about the show.

Two caveats. This review contains spoilers and is from the perspective of someone who hadn’t yet experienced the largest screen on Earth. If you’ve already seen a concert or movie there, some of this will be old territory for you.

I went to a 10 a.m. show and arrived a little before 9. There were plenty of kids and families at that hour and a handful of people (kids and adults alike) were dressed up in character; Sphere is encouraging people to don Oz costumes for their Halloween-weekend screenings. Doors opened between 9 and 9:15 and entry/security checkpoints went more smoothly than I expected. You don’t need to arrive as early as I did, but do give yourself some extra time. Merchandise lines are long and there are a few fun things to see in the lobby.

My seat was in Section 307, row 11, which was ideal: dead center and not too high up. I would have had a better view from one of the lower rows of my section, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be in the 200s; in the rear rows of the 200s, your view is partially blocked by the overhang from the 300 sections.

You have to climb down some very steep stairs from the concourse to the 300-level seats; if you’re prone to veritgo or dizziness, keep your head down, focus on the stairs, and wait to look around the theater until you’re in place. And no one, vertigo or not, should navigate the stairs without hanging onto the handrail for dear life.

The show itself was absolutely amazing all around. You felt like you were inside the movie. The best comparison I can make is that it’s like riding Soarin’ at Disney World for an hour-plus. At certain points, you feel like the theater is actually moving (it’s not, but again, if you’re prone to vertigo, maybe close your eyes for a few seconds during these sequences). The film is so high def that you can count individual pieces of straw during the Scarecrow’s scenes. The sound is impressive (though I did spot some minor lip-sync issues in one or two spots — barely noticable and not surprising, considering all the work they did to transform the original film).

And the effects … man! I can’t overstate how impressive they are. There’s not a lot of Disney/Vegas crossover in general, but this really was Disney-level Imagineering, like you’d get on a ride such as Remy or Rise of the Resistance: Apples fall from the sky during the forest scene, actual flying monkeys in the theater supplement the ones on screen, and the tornado scene causes the audience to break into spontaneous applause. I won’t completely spoil it for you. Suffice it to say, you’ll be very impressed.

Runtime is 75 minutes (the movie has been edited down slightly, though what’s missing isn’t particularly discernible), but budget some time to take in the post-show theatrics in the lobby.

Tickets are expensive (and dynamic — check the website for your preferred show and seat location), but I paid $150 to a company owned by someone I find distasteful to see a movie I own on video and definitely felt it was worth it.

Sphere’s website claims to have strict no-bag and no-photo/video policies, but I saw both violated with abandon and no apparent consequences, but your mileage may vary.

If you’re on the fence about this, don’t be. The Wizard of Oz lives up to all the hype.

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… And They’re Here To Help

Not! It’s time for Stupid Government Tricks, in which the guvmint blunders into gambling oversight, usually with disastrous consequences. First up is Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D), who wants to double down on Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) and his usurious tax on sports betting handle. Seeing all the money the state stands to make (and possibly affrighted by the specter of predatory prediction markets), Johnson proposes a 10.25% tax on OSB revenue. It’s all part of a tap dance to cover a gaping budgetary hole. The target amount? $26 million a year.

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Bobby Vegas—Ask and Ye Shall Win

Bobby Vegas: Friends Don’t Let Friends Play Triple-Zero Roulette

Advantage players search for edges. In addition to the usual techniques at blackjack, video poker, sports betting, and tournaments, they keep their eyes out for opportunities where the house offers a promotion, but miscalculates the odds.

A good example comes from Anthony’s YouTube channel interview with Jonathan Jossel. The Plaza offered a 30% rebate on W9 taxable wins for 24 hours. APs swept in and played keno — yes, keno — till the cows came home. Not exactly the usual AP game. Being a stand-up guy, Jossel didn’t cancel the promotion when he realized the mistake, even though it cost the Plaza several hundred thou. In 24 hours, no less.

That’s how significant exploiting a loophole can be.

Now, some APs will grouse at me again for publishing this, as they have when I wave the flag about advantage play VP opportunities or stacking promos, but that’s my job, helping you see the (value) light pointing the way to the promised land before the house catches it. And they’re watching, so you have to move quick.

A favorite expression comes to mind: “Happiness is positive cash flow.” OURS, not theirs!

The purpose of this post is to MAKE YOU THINK, to ask, “What if …?”

You should realize that you’ll make mistakes, hit dead ends, find out your hunch was, a buncha hooey. Are you willing to take that risk? Look dumb? Get the door slammed in your face? If so, I can tell you that when you’re RIGHT, it’s so sweet. Positive cash flow sweet.

Ken, an Arizona reader, told me about his experience calling the Virgin attempting to get info on their tier bump requirements. Reaching the player’s club, a very uncooperative staff member hung up on him. Customer service? Fuggedaboudit!

He didn’t get the info needed but that’s okay, because Ken’s ASKING was key. He was SEARCHING.

BTW, Ken got a free Bobby Vegas T-shirt for the tip. “Avoid the Virgin!” Ever since they transformed the truly legendary Hard Rock into this no-winners no-fun land of boring games and well corporate tomfoolery, the “Virgin” is more like a (I shouldn’t be that vulgar, so let’s just say) washed out.

Here’s another example of my thought process.

If less people are coming to Vegas for the foreseeable future, where can I find an undiscovered advantage — beyond great hotel deals? Like if bingo has 30% less people, but the payouts are the same, does that raise our odds for winning substantially
compared to bingo’s edge? YES. Get my drift?

Check it out. Try being wrong. ASK, and win.

Where else have you found an edge or tried to? Share your discoveries and mistakes.

Next up is my favorite math formula (nerd alert):

It’s not “Any X equals X.” It’s “Any X equals ANY X”!

O.M.G. The Birthday Paradox. I love it. We’ll get to it in my next blog. Stay tuned.

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If I Could Do It Over Again

Bob Dancer

I’m approaching the twilight of my life and career, and I sometimes reflect on whether I could have done it better. My readers are, for the most part, younger than I am, and at least some of them would like to pursue successful gambling as a career. Perhaps there are some lessons for others in my musings.

For the sake of today’s blog, I’m going to take it as a given that I became a successful gambler, writer, and teacher. This ending was never a foregone conclusion. That’s just the way it turned out. 

Education:

At the time I stopped going to graduate school in the mid-70s, I had never heard of video poker. While I was reasonably proficient at games and just beginning to play backgammon professionally, I didn’t envision my life turning out the way it did.

I studied a lot of math and economics in school, which was a good choice. Gambling is mostly applied math, especially probability, and the more I knew about that the better. When I attended UCLA, economics was taught as logic applied to the real world. That’s a perfect background for a gambler.

Today I wish I knew more math and computer programming. There were many video poker games that arose which needed to be analyzed by computer programs. Commercially available computer software came of age during my career, but there were many problems these software programs couldn’t solve. Sometimes I hired others to do the programming for me, but I could have addressed these games more efficiently had I known how to program myself.

I had no idea I was going to be a writer. Somehow, I went all the way through school while never having to write a term paper. I never completed my Ph.D. dissertation, largely because I didn’t know how to write well. Today I get my blogs edited before you see them.

The irony of this is that if I had been a competent writer, I probably would have completed the dissertation and become a professor of economics — or at least started out that way. Others have gone from academia to the world of gambling. Perhaps I would have too.

I took some public speaking classes along the way, including debate. This was valuable training for teaching classes. Debate teaches you the principles of argumentation. There have been a lot of disagreements with casino players and other players. Knowing how to present my case clearly has led me to have a better-than-average results in these arguments.

I’m fortunate that my career included both teaching and writing. I wouldn’t know the subject nearly as well as I do without all the study required for these two activities. 

Consulting: 

I consulted for a variety of casinos and game manufacturers — although I haven’t for several years. The effects of this were both good and bad.

On the good side, I was paid well to look at casinos and their inventory all across the country. I wrote reports to the casinos that hired me to do this, but I also learned so much while I did this. Plus, getting paid well was a nice cushion when my gambling activities weren’t going so well.

On the down side of consulting, there were a lot of players who were very uncomfortable with me doing this. Basically, they wanted me to “pick a side and stick to it.” If I were going to write for players, fine. If I were going to write for casinos, that’d be okay too. But writing for both led to a lot of mistrust because they didn’t know where I stood. Many believed I was doing something shady or detrimental to players’ interests. I don’t believe I was doing either of those things but convincing some players of that proved impossible for me.

I took a lot of abuse from a large number of players over the years. In the early days of the internet, a lot of people using pseudonyms anonymously criticized and ridiculed me on video poker forums. I tried responding, but when the abuse is coming from several different directions with many choosing to believe the worst about me no matter what I did or said, it became an impossible situation. The only available response for me was to shut up and try to ignore it. No fun at all.

Love life:

My love life has been nothing to brag about. While I believe that humans should mate for life, I haven’t been able to manage that. By a long shot.

Still, for some reason, I ended up okay. Bonnie and I have been happy with each other, and we didn’t get together until we were both senior citizens. I’m used to the debate concerning “skill versus luck” in gambling. Finding Bonnie when I did was definitely good luck.

Podcast:

I was interested in doing a podcast at the same time Frank Kneeland was. Unfortunately, Frank and I were not a good fit together, and we lasted only six months before I asked him to bow out. 

Richard Munchkin was a miraculously good replacement. He gambled successfully for decades at table games — which is different from my expertise. He knows tons of people in the gambling world and is universally well-respected. At his first stint as co-host, he still lived in Southern California. He felt the podcast was better if he did it in person, so he drove four-or-so hours each way each week. Understandably that got to be a drag and he asked to find a replacement for him after a while.

I talked Michael Shackleford into being a co-host, and that worked pretty well for a while. Michael was far more mathematical than I was, and the guests he knew — game designers, other mathematicians, and sports bettors — were a change-up from the guests Richard and I attracted. Which wasn’t a bad thing.

After a year and a half, Shackleford became bored with the podcast. Richard had moved to Las Vegas by this time and was willing to resume cohosting the show. I was delighted.

For more than 10 years, we aired more than 50 podcasts per year. We attracted professional gamblers and wannabe professional gamblers as an audience. I was preparing for the podcasts more than playing video poker — which was good.

I learned details about winning at other forms of gambling — especially blackjack and sports betting. 

For whatever reason, I started being criticized less and respected more.  I’m not exactly sure why, but I’ll take it. My best guess is that many of the people who previously criticized me had not met me but had merely heard things about me. Now they heard me on the podcast and figured out I wasn’t the monster I was portrayed to be. 

My detractors will never go away completely. My style/personality/sense of humor rubs some people the wrong way. I am what I am.

Health and Diet:

For the most part, I’ve been good at this — with some lapses. I struggle to keep my weight under control, but it’s not terrible. I’m up to date on my vaccines and hope I’ll always be able to get them regardless of whomever is in charge of the CDC.

I’ve done a lot of study on longevity and believe I’m doing things that will give me a decent chance to reach my 90s or maybe beyond. We’ll see.  

Conclusion:

Yes, I could have done things differently, but I’ve had a good life and a good career. And my writings will leave a legacy of sorts behind me. Not such a bad result.

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Atlantic City Levels Off

After a good summer, gambling winnings in Atlantic City have plateaued in September, achieving $230.5 million. The coffee achiever of the Boardwalk was Ocean Casino Resort (above), catapulting 39% to $39.5 million. Hard Rock Atlantic City was still ahead at $45.5 million (2%) but that might be too close for comfort. Borgata led with $63 million but had the flattest grosses in town.

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Shocker from MGM

See that fancy-schmancy vision of an upgraded MGM Empire City? Well, it ain’t happening. In the shocker of the year, MGM Resorts International yanked its New York City casino bid from consideration yesterday. What the company said was less interesting than what it didn’t say: It’s essentially pulling the plug on casino operations in the Big Apple altogether.

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A New Book?

Bob Dancer

I’ve written recently about retiring from gambling when the new IRS rules for gambling become effective on January 1, 2026. While I’m a senior citizen and retirement is what many people my age dream about, that doesn’t sound very attractive to me. I’ve always taken great pleasure in using my brain and figuring things out. So, what am I to do?

My current best guess is that I’ll write my second autobiography, tentatively entitled Million Dollar Video Poker — The Next 25 Years. The story from my original Million Dollar Video Poker ended in 2001, with me getting kicked out of MGM Grand and Venetian after having a lucky six-month period when I netted more than $1 million.

In 2001, I had my 54th birthday and was still in my prime gambling-wise. While there is no doubt that gambling at video poker was much more lucrative in the 1990s than it has been since, I have still found numerous opportunities every year since then, and have made more money from gambling after 2001 than I made up to that point.

Most of the opportunities I found are no longer around. Do players really want to learn about this history? Do they want to know what kind of mistakes casinos were making in 2004 and 2015 and 2023? I think yes. While there are an infinite number of ways for promotions to be structured, the same types of mistakes by casino marketing people keep happening over and over again. At a minimum, the book will give players examples that just might be relevant down the road.

Good games remain today. After the pandemic. I had good years along with an expensive 2024 — but they added up to more than a half-million dollars net win for me. Some of the games I profited from are gone, but many remain.

I think, though, that the most useful thing I can write about is how I attacked whatever came along. The actual solutions I came up with may not be relevant in a changed environment, but the approach I used to come up with those solutions is still relevant.

Would Anthony Curtis publish this book? Probably. Depending on how good it is. And part of his role as a publisher is to help make the book better. If the first draft weren’t quite good enough, that wouldn’t necessarily be a showstopper.

Part of the problem is my memory isn’t as good today as it was during my first book. And the events I would describe would be 20 years ago, whereas most of the action in MDVP was from two or three years prior to when I wrote about it. We may have to include a disclaimer like what is found at the front of many movies, “Based on a true story.”

Another problem is that some of the juicy promotions are still going on today, and writing about them and how to beat them would be tantamount to killing the deal. That’s probably not a showstopper because it’ll take three or four years to work through the Huntington Press queue, and by that time the promotions would be killed off by others.

Before announcing this project, I wanted to be certain I could see it through. So, beginning in August of this year, I began drafting several chapters for the new book and also making a list of things I wanted to talk about that I haven’t written yet. While it is nowhere near completed, perhaps the first draft of 20% of the final book has been finished. I’m convinced it’s a worthwhile project and I can keep going.

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Bobby Vegas — More on Golden Gate, Being Nice, and Vintage Vegas

Bobby Vegas: Friends Don’t Let Friends Play Triple-Zero Roulette

Got an excellent reader tip about still using Golden Gate matchplay chips.

(BTW, if you send a tip I use to [email protected], I’ll send you a Bobby Vegas T-shirt (“fweeee!”). 

LVA’s QOD established you can exchange Golden Gate table-game chips at the D or Circa. Meanwhile, Circa, Golden Gate, and the D give out non-expiring matchplay chips, (way better than expiring 24-hour paper coupons). You may have received some using your LVA MRB matchplay coupons for Golden Gate and the D.

My bud was able to exchange his Golden Gate matchplay chips That’s a 2-for-1 payout on a 50/50 bet. Sweet.

The lesson here, as Jean Scott used to say, is honey attracts more bees than vinegar, so it never hurts to ask and be nice!

Oh — and a late-breaking bulletin. Thanks to Matchplay Bob, who clarified he had a Golden Gate players club manager sign his Golden Gate MRB matchplay coupon and it was accepted at Circa. So take your unused GG MRB matchplay coupon, have someone at GG sign it, and it “should” be accepted at Circa for their matchplay chip.

I didn’t double check the other two matchplay “show your Southwest ticket” at the D or Circa before posting, but I believe both are still active. Anyone?

Here’s one more Bobby V downtown-scuffler special.

I’m not a fan of Garage Mahal at Circa — parking fees and it’s inconvenient. If I’m going to Circa’s sports book or to use my LVA MRB free champagne coupon at Circa’s fabulous rooftop Legacy Club or to play or eat at the Plaza, I valet park at Golden Gate’s tiny lot.

“Checking in or will you be long?”

“Maybe an hour.”

Be a George and give the valet a few dollars *up front* and a few when you pick up*.

And be cool. Go INTO the Golden Gate. Going to the Plaza or Circa? Go out through the front of GG.

Hey.. I just had a why-I-love-downtown Vegas revelation (“Praise full pay VP and pass the cash!”) over the Strip. I don’t like crowds reminding me of midtown Manhattan on New Year’s Eve, bad games and overpriced … well … everything. Downtown is more personal, on more of a human scale. I like that experience, that connection. Why?

“I’m special!”

Plus, better games, rock n roll on every corner, and a meal that doesn’t require you to pawn your jewelry all fill the bill quite nicely.

Growing up, I was more a pinball-at-the-bowling-alley grab-a-deli-“sammich” and go-to-the-state-fair-midway kinda guy. So sue me.

Speaking of pinball, granted it’s wayyy down past the South Strip near the “Bobby Vegas” (oh wait — that change hasn’t happened … yet) “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign, but you can have some vintage fun for spare change at the Pinball Hall of Fame.

Then head on down to South Point for a super selection of full-pay VP, very affordable LIVE table games, and a decent buffet and nobody’s charging you for parking at all three!

I’m old school. Sue me. Again. My kind of Vegas.