Today we continue our look at casino drawings. If you want to catch up and read last week\u2019s blog, I\u2019ll wait until you come back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You usually have to plan for a drawing. While it is possible that you\u2019re automatically entered into a drawing and your prizes are sent to you in the mail, the far more typical way is that you need to show up at the casino and activate your tickets at a kiosk. You then need to stick around until the drawing is held and, if you\u2019re lucky enough to be drawn, claim your prize within some relatively short period of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This means that if you\u2019re going to compete in one drawing at 7 p.m. on a given night, you can\u2019t be at another drawing as well. So you need to pick and choose where you have the best chance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not trivial to get to a casino, park, and deal with the crowds in order to win at a drawing. Today, if I don\u2019t have an expected win of at least $250 at a drawing, I won\u2019t be showing up. Your number might be different from mine, but financially it rarely makes sense to show up at a drawing when you only have one ticket in the drum. Yes, it only takes one ticket to win, but that\u2019s looking at \u201cpossibilities,\u201d not \u201cprobabilities.\u201d I actually look one more layer deep. I look at the probability of being called and the average size win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In general, the more tickets you have in the drum, the better your chances of winning. If you\u2019re a $5 player, you have a significantly better chance of winning than if you\u2019re a 25\u00a2 or $1 player. If you\u2019re a 5\u00a2 player, five coins at a time, you basically have no chance at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s usually not a good idea to play a negative game in order to get drawing tickets. Having an expected loss of $1,000 in order to have a 10% chance of winning $500 in a drawing doesn\u2019t make financial sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It can make sense to play a negative game if it\u2019s \u201cclose.\u201d Playing 99.73% NSU Deuces Wild with a 0.20% slot club is a negative game. A drawing can make up the shortfall. If mailers and comps are given to you in addition to the 0.20% slot club, then this situation was probably slightly positive to start with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019re going to be at a drawing, and Thursday is a 10x drawing ticket day, make sure you play on Thursday. Ticket multiplier days are a way for a casino to present something worthwhile to players looking for an edge and it doesn\u2019t cost the casino a dime. It actually makes money for the casino because of the extra play generated on that day. The casino has already budgeted the drawing, say $20,000, and it largely doesn\u2019t care which of the players win the money. Drawing ticket multipliers shift the odds from the players who don\u2019t play on that day to those who do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t win drawings at the same casino too often. This is the \u201cvoice of experience\u201d talking and it applies to players who play for relatively large stakes compared to most of the other people in the drawings. At small casinos, where the same people show up for drawings every week, it gets noticed if that one guy seems to win all the time. Players will complain, and when that happens, the casino will come up with a solution that the winning player doesn\u2019t like. So if you win, take a month off or so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read the rules carefully. If it\u2019s the same rules for every drawing, probably most of the kinks have been worked out of them. But if they modify the rules every time, mistakes can be made. Sometimes point multipliers are in effect from 3 a.m. to 2:59 a.m., but ticket multipliers are in effect midnight to midnight. Double dipping might be possible! And they might have a senior\u2019s drawing on Tuesday and a \u201cfor everybody\u201d drawing on Friday, and, if you\u2019re old enough, your play can count for both drawings. There might be limits to consider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s possible that for the amount you play, winning a drawing is essentially a zillion to one longshot. If that\u2019s the case, don\u2019t even try. Concentrate on other ways to win in the casino — or in life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today we continue our look at casino drawings. If you want to catch up and read last week\u2019s blog, I\u2019ll wait until you come back. You usually have to plan for a drawing. While it is possible that you\u2019re automatically entered into a drawing and your prizes are sent to you in the mail, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15763,"featured_media":843442,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[601,557],"tags":[561,585],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/spinach-2.png?fit=500%2C300&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855695"}],"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=855695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}