This past December 1-8, Sunday to Sunday, Bonnie and I cruised the Mexican Riviera aboard the Norwegian Joy. We have taken this same cruise at the end of the year several times because:
1. Our main purposes in cruising are relaxing and dancing, so the ports aren’t particularly important.
Continue reading Cruising on a “Contaminated” ShipI’ve found a bank of four machines where sometimes the progressives are playable. I’m intentionally changing the details a bit because I wish to instruct players but not give away the exact location of the play.
As is my wont, every time I think the progressive is high enough and I’m the only player (which is a common occurrence for graveyard players but not so common for daytime players), I check the meters. For a machine with one or more progressives, I write down the amounts, $20 through the machine, and then I see how much the meters has changed. If it’s a 1% meter, the sum of the meters will have gone up 20¢. If it’s a half-percent meter, 10¢.
Continue reading Checking the MeterI was playing 25¢ Five Play 9/6 Jacks or Better Multi Strike at the South Point during their “Half Price Amazon Gift Cards” promotion in November. A friend, “George”, sat down next to me. And later still his wife joined us.
I didn’t notice how much George put in to start. Early on he hit a $1,000 royal flush on the bottom line and then later a $250 four-of-a-kind on an 8x line.
Continue reading You Want Me to Play to Lose $100?There are many casinos with promotions where the player can earn extra drawing tickets during certain periods, such as 5x tickets during 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Fridays, or perhaps 10x tickets all day Tuesday.
To the player, whether 5x drawing tickets is worth more or less than 2x points depends on the value of each. You can usually figure out exactly how much 2x points is worth and it will always be an estimate of how much 5x drawing tickets is worth.
Continue reading Multiple Drawing EntriesI recently received an email from a slot director with whom I’m friendly. It read:
I’ve had a number of customers ask me what banks in Las Vegas are gambler friendly, meaning they understand how “professional gambler” is an actual profession and as such, banks would be used to multiple deposits, withdrawals etc. in varying amounts and timing.
Continue reading Dealing with MoneyIf someone were attempting to describe my “system” of winning at video poker, a reasonable 20-second summary would be:
I get inspiration for columns from all sorts of places. This was a question sent in to [email protected] for Richard and me to answer on the podcast. I will answer it there the next time we have a “Bob and Richard answer their mail” show (which is usually when we haven’t been able to schedule a guest for that week), but I’ll answer it here first.
Continue reading Winning a DrawingMost of the specific video poker games I played two years ago are gone. The reason for this is that either casinos have downgraded the machines (e.g. changed the full house from paying 45 to paying 40) or downgraded my welcome in playing that game.
Continue reading Things are Always ChangingEvery year, the gaming industry holds its biggest show-and-tell convention of the year in Las Vegas, called the Global Gaming Expo or G2E. And every year, I go and look at what’s coming up in the near future.
Continue reading What I Saw at G2EIn my classes, I often get out-of-town students. Whether I am teaching Quick Quads, Ultimate X, Deuces Wild, or whatever, there are often students who decided long ago that they are going to take at least one Bob Dancer class — and this is the week they’re in Vegas.
Continue reading I’ve Heard This One Before