Tag: video poker

I became interested in video poker in the early-to-mid 1990s, which turned out to be a very fortunate time to do this. Players were not so knowledgeable as they are today, but neither were slot directors or game manufacturers, which led to casinos offering much juicier games and promotions than are present today.

Treasure Island was built by Steve Wynn and opened in October, 1993. In addition to $1 9-7 Double Bonus progressives, they had ample $5 and $10 9/6 Jacks or Better (99.54%) games, along with one for $2, all with 0.67% cash back. (They might have had some bigger games, but $25 and higher games were so far beyond my comfort zone, I ignored what was there.) You could get RFB (a room, and unlimited food and beverage) for a very modest amount of $15,000 coin-in per day. Plus, they had monthly promotions where they gave away multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars on one Saturday night during the month for which you earned drawing tickets on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday playing a game where the player had the advantage.

It turned out that 9/6 Jacks or Better, along with Full Pay Deuces Wild and 10/7 Double Bonus, were the three games for which I initially worked out strategies that I was ready to publish in 1994. By late 1994, I had built my bankroll up to $20,000 or $30,000 and was ready to tackle this game of video poker. It was just a guess as to whether or not I had enough bankroll, but I figured I had about a 1% edge (including the drawings), and if I could just hold on at the beginning, and avoid expensive habits outside of gambling, I was pretty much guaranteed to increase my bankroll bigtime. I had spent 20 years or so playing backgammon for money and so was used to the swings of gambling.

I soon realized I played a more accurate Jacks or Better strategy than most of the other players. The strategies published by Dan Paymar and Lenny Frome were decent enough, but simplified. Jacks or Better is arguably the easiest game to play 100% accurately so I taught myself to do that.

Treasure Island also gave away tickets to the show Mystere. I don’t remember the exact exchange rate, but it was something like $4,000 coin-in gave you two free tickets daily. I didn’t want to be seen selling the tickets, so I sold them to a few non-players for $50 apiece who then stood in line every night and resold them for $100 or so. I probably did this 100 times (two tickets each time)— adding $10,000 to my bankroll. Eventually the non-players began getting questioned about “Where did you get those tickets?” and I decided it was time to shut down that form of extra revenue.

Shirley came into my life in late 1995, and we both started playing at Treasure Island. The Mirage had largely the same monthly promotions, usually on different weekends than Treasure Island did, so we played there too. The Golden Nugget’s version of this was to give the money away via a slot tournament — perhaps $40,000 cash given away to 200 players each month, which added up to $200 in equity per person. Add this to playing a positive game and RFB — it was a good deal. They had good games at the Rio as well.

Other casinos like Bally’s, Caesars Palace, Desert Inn, and MGM Grand had similar promotions but I largely avoided those in the mid-1990s. Later Venetian, New York New York and others joined as well. One event per weekend was enough. I was writing and teaching, and there were local casinos with good games during the week. Most of the big Strip events had dances on the night they gave away the money, and this was almost as important to us as the money itself. If we started double- and triple-booking promotions, we might earn more money, but it wouldn’t be as much fun.

The Las Vegas casinos competing with each other as to which one could give the players the best deal lasted well after the turn of the millennium. Although players eventually got stronger, so did casino management, with the net effect that not so many players percentagewise were beating the casinos as there used to be. The best players, however, continued to succeed.

It’s fun to think back to the “good old days” periodically, but it’s more useful to think on how to beat casinos today. It is still being done — but not in the same ways we did it a few decades ago. And I suspect the methods we’re using five and ten years from now will be different yet.

I don’t know how long this “ride” will last. For me, at age 77, it’s more difficult for me to keep up than it was 30 years ago so I may need to give up beating the casinos earlier than I would were I younger.

Bonnie and I regularly played at an out-of-town Caesars property where part of the monthly mailer was $200 in resort credit apiece. If we played our usual amount, our host would pick up food charges. So that left the resort credit to be spent at gift shops. They had a women’s store, a men’s store, and a jewelry store, in addition to a typical small gift shop where you could get various sundries. 

Generally speaking, you don’t expect casino gift shops to compete on price. At the men’s store, I was told that if I paid with cash or credit card, I’d get a 35% discount. If I used Reward Credits, I’d get a 20% discount. And if I charged to my room, I’d get no discount. Part of the deal with the $200 resort credit was that you had to charge it to your room. 

The resort credits weren’t worth anywhere near face value to us — but they were obviously worth something and made the play worth more to me than if I didn’t get to spend them. So how much are they worth?

No gift shop is worth the same amount to every player. I would wear a few of the shirts sold by this particular men’s store — but not all that many. A younger man — or a man whose taste is different from mine — might find he liked a much larger percentage of the inventory than I do. Bonnie is usually with me on these trips — and she can usually find something in one of the gift shops. If I tell her she has $400 to spend at such and such a selection of stores, she’ll find at least that much for one of us — or for one of our relatives or friends.

If I were thinking a $200 gift shop award might be worth $100, I asked myself, “Would I pay $100 in cash to get that $200 gift shop award?” For me, the answer was, ‘No.’ But I might pay $50 in cash. So, I figured that’s what the award was worth. 

I find it useful to turn this into a percentage — so I can add it into the mix along with the return on the game, the slot club, and other such awards. If I regularly played $10,000 and they gave me this award worth $50 to me, the award would be worth 0.5%. If I played $100,000 (which is closer to what I actually play), the award is worth 0.05%.

Frankly, something worth 0.05% would rarely be enough to tip the play-or-not-play scales into positive territory. Maybe if a play were already worth 100.3%, which is about the minimum I’ll play, I’ll make a play I might otherwise pass on. But that exact circumstance rarely happens.

It turns out that I find such awards most valuable for “keeping Bonnie happy” reasons. 

Bonnie and I keep our finances separate. If I win or lose $40,000 on a trip, it basically doesn’t affect her finances at all. But if I have the advantage on the play, and I can play on her card as well as mine, it’s good for her to make the trip with me, even if there is not much for her to do once she’s there.

So, gift shop awards, at least one nice dinner per trip, free movies in the room, and excursions to sight-seeing places are all part of what we do while we’re there. Sometimes I give her half of my win in a drawing. She’s 80 years old, I’m 77, and staying happy together is a significant part of our game plan. If there is suitable music, we dance for a few hours. If we earn cruises, she gets a big say in where we go. Bonnie’s generally a good sport about coming with me when I take these “business trips,” I want her to look forward to our time together. If getting to go shopping brings a smile to her face, I’m all for it.

The following incident happened while a friend of mine was playing slots, but there’s enough in common to gambling at video poker that I think it’s worth discussing.

“John” was scouting a casino in Las Vegas looking for slot machines in positive conditions. There are many, many slot machines that are sometimes positive — but most of the time, on each of these machines, the house has the advantage. Most players, however, are not aware of when the game is positive or not and simply play the game, quitting whenever they feel like it. Sometimes they quit when the game is positive, and then when the next knowledgeable player comes by, that player typically sits down to play it off. 

John has “strike numbers” on perhaps 20-30 different slot machine titles. That’s nowhere near all or even most of the beatable machines, but still, it’s more than most players know.

He found a game for $25 a play that he thought might be positive. This is a much larger game than usual for slot players. Most players can’t afford to play this game, but the size of the game was not a showstopper to him. He shifted the denomination on the machine so that it showed the $10-per-play game and consulted his notes. The $10-per-play game was nowhere near a positive play at the moment, and other pros seeking games would walk right by. He wanted time to think about this situation without drawing attention to the game.

His notes said that the game was a play when a certain meter was at 15 or higher — and sure enough this meter was at 16. So, it was a play. His notes also said the game is highly volatile. He knew that on a volatile $25 game, he could easily win or lose several thousand dollars. If he played this game in this situation several dozen times, he figured he’d make a sizeable profit. But there was no way to tell at the outset whether this time would be positive or negative.

He had $3,500 on him. He figured that would cover the swings most of the time. He wouldn’t likely run out of money, but if he did there were people he could call. He didn’t like making these calls — partly because that meant others would have the right to call him when they ran out. He trusted himself to run out of money very rarely, but some of the people he called wouldn’t have the same discipline. But if he asked for help, he had to be prepared to give help to others in the future. He didn’t want to open that door.

He actually called me to ask my opinion. John and I respect each other’s knowledge and have helped each other out occasionally. I know him well, know how he handles swings, and I thought he should go for it. I wasn’t in Vegas at the time, and he was, so there was no way I could get money to him if he ended up needing some.

He was just about to start when another pro, “Peter,” approached him and asked if he were going to play the $25 game. John knew Peter vaguely. He’d seen him checking out machines but wasn’t sure how knowledgeable he was.

John said yes. He thought it was a good play and he had the bankroll to play it. Peter said he had the bankroll too, but wasn’t in the mood to risk his daily score on such a volatile play.

Peter, it seems, had been losing recently and was sort of gun shy. He didn’t trust his own judgment, so he didn’t want to play such a big game. He could likely find a sizeable number of smaller games where he could increase his bankroll by dribs and drabs rather than making a big jump one way or the other all at once.

Peter said he had a few thousand dollars on him and suggested they partner up for this one game. John thought about this. It had some positive aspects to it. It essentially guaranteed he wouldn’t run out of money. 

At the same time, John had never done business with Peter before. Was he trustworthy? Who was going to eat the W-2G if there was one? Peter was friendly now, but what if Peter was the one playing when the bonus round hit and denied making a deal? So John passed and played it by himself. Peter wished him luck and left.

As it happened, the bonus round went off rather quickly and John ended up making $900. This was a nice result, but it certainly didn’t have to be that way.

I want to look at Peter’s reaction to this. Peter had actually seen the game first and passed on it. He had the financial bankroll — but not the emotional bankroll — to play the game. So, I believe he was right to pass.

Everybody has his own emotional bankroll. Respecting your bankroll parameters, both financial and emotional, is critical to long term success at gambling. I also think that Peter suggesting they be partners was a move that made sense for him. This would lower the swings and lower the risk. So now it might have been within his comfort zone. 

It couldn’t have been too much of a surprise for Peter that John turned down his offer to partner up. That’s probably the usual result. But you don’t know unless you try. 

All in all, the situation was well played by both men.