{"id":4939,"date":"2016-12-27T09:54:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-27T17:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamblingwithanedge.com\/?p=4939"},"modified":"2023-08-24T14:11:53","modified_gmt":"2023-08-24T22:11:53","slug":"wrong-conclusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/blog\/wrong-conclusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrong Conclusion"},"content":{"rendered":"

A square-dancing friend, Sal, was telling me how happy he was that he finally learned to play Full Pay Deuces Wild. He had studied the Winner\u2019s Guide<\/em>, practiced on Video Poker for Winners<\/em>, and in the last two months had averaged about $30 per hour in profit on about 5-6 hours of play per week on the quarter game. He had pictures of three $1,000 royals on his cell phone that he wanted to show and have me admire.<\/p>\n

Using this source of extra income, he had made a commitment to move his girlfriend, Betty, to Vegas from out-of-state. \u201cI can finally afford it,\u201d Sal told me. \u201cI never realized I had what it takes to be a successful gambler.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHold on,\u201d I told him. \u201cFull Pay Deuces Wild is worth somewhere in the range of $6-$10 per hour, depending on how fast you play and the benefits the casino gives you. There will be periods where your results exceed this for relatively short periods of time and there will be months in a row where you lose, lose, lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve been going through what we call positive variance for the past few months,\u201d I told Sal. \u201cIt won\u2019t last. Guaranteed. It\u2019s even possible you haven\u2019t learned the game sufficiently well to be a favorite at all. Or maybe only a $2 an hour favorite.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving a two-month winning streak is no indication of whether you are playing competently or not. On a hand like W<\/em><\/strong> W <\/em><\/strong>7\u2660 6\u2665<\/span> 8\u2660, where the W<\/em><\/strong> (for wild card) indicates a deuce, good players hold WW78<\/em><\/strong>. Had somebody just held the deuces, he might have scored despite the 1-in-360 odds against him and ended up with four deuces this particular time. That would have been profitable in the short run, but over time that play is a costly one. There are numerous examples in this game where the wrong hold can work this time, so just looking at results over the short run gives you the wrong conclusion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you need the extra $150 or so per week to bring your girlfriend to town and have her stay here, you better find an additional source of income, tell her not to come, or let her know that she\u2019s going to have to pitch in financially to make this work.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlus, you need a bankroll of probably $4,000 or preferably more on hand just to cover the swings of this game. This is not money you need for rent, food, or anything else. This is money AFTER you\u2019ve paid off all your credit card, any expenses related to her move, and all other debt. \u00a0It\u2019s just a reserve because the negative variance times are definitely coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sal sighed and said that talking to me today had been a real downer. He preferred to think positively and the negative picture I presented was not pleasant at all.<\/p>\n

I shrugged. \u201cI\u2019d rather tell you what I think is the truth rather than to paint a rosy picture that won\u2019t come to fruition. I experienced what they call Gambler\u2019s Ruin almost 35 years ago, It was no fun. And now you\u2019re a senior citizen, it\u2019ll be even harder to recoup if it happens to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

They were starting another dance and Sal left to find a partner. During the next break between dances he came back to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetty doesn\u2019t even think gambling is a good idea. I haven\u2019t told her yet that gambling is what allowed me to pay for her ticket.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou aren\u2019t going to like my response,\u201d I told Sal, \u201cbut if you go out and spend the money right away whenever you hit a royal flush, you will never accumulate the necessary bankroll. There will be times when you go to the casino for 5-6 hours and come back and have to tell Betty you lost $400 or more. That\u2019s merely going to reinforce her general attitude that gambling is bad news. She probably won\u2019t believe that you\u2019re playing a game where you actually have the advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what should I do?\u201d he asked. \u201cYou make it sound like it\u2019s going to be a disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t make the decisions for you,\u201d I told him. \u201cI\u2019ve never met Betty. I don\u2019t know how flexible she is about staying with you if you continue to gamble. I don\u2019t know how employable either one of you are or how good you are at getting by. I don\u2019t know what your habits are and how expensive they are. All I do know is that if you are expecting Full Pay Deuces Wild for quarters to continue to generate $30 per hour, it simply won\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess Betty and I are going to have a long phone call tonight and discuss things\u201d Sal told me.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s probably a good start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A square-dancing friend, Sal, was telling me how happy he was that he finally learned to play Full Pay Deuces Wild. He had studied the Winner\u2019s Guide, practiced on Video Poker for Winners, and in the last two months had averaged about $30 per hour in profit on about 5-6 hours of play per week […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15763,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[558,643,557],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4939"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15763"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}