Author: Bob Dancer

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Save or No Save?

Bob Dancer

You are one of the winners in a casino drawing. This time, there were actually eleven winners. Ten of you will get $500 and one of you will get $10,000. All prizes are in cash.

Nine people have already made their selections — and all have picked $500 — many of them showing their disappointment. There are only two cards left. One for $500 and one for $10,000. You know the other winner and he leans over and asks if you want to make a save.

“What do you have in mind?” you ask.

“The guy who wins the big prize gives the other guy $3,000,” comes the reply.

So. Do you make this deal? 

There are lots of different ways the save could have been structured. Through the years, I’ve been in this situation perhaps a dozen times. Sometimes I’ve taken the deal and sometimes I haven’t. Sometimes I’ve been the one suggesting the split. I’ve also witnessed others make this type of deal dozens of more times. Today I want to discuss what would make me say yes and what would make me say no.

Saves in general are a way to lower variance without affecting your expected win — this time changing the prize structure from $10,000 – $500, to $7,000 – $3,500. This is a preferable split to most players. But you need to be careful. 

Here we’re assuming there are two players with equal chances. Tournament poker players sometimes use a so-called “Independent Chip Model” to deal with any number of players, each with different chip stacks. That’s way beyond what we’re discussing today. 

First of all, do I trust the other guy? If the answer is no, I’ll decline the deal. If I’ve heard anything suggesting he’s not honorable, that’s a showstopper. A situation where I pay him $3,000 half the time but he reneges the other half is a lousy position to be in. If I’ve never seen this guy before, my default reaction is not to split. 

Second, what about taxes? The one who collects $10,000 is going to receive a Form 1099 from the casino for that amount, meaning the IRS is going to want its share. Possibly the $500 winner will receive a 1099 too, depending on the casino. In today’s discussion, we’ll ignore whether the $500 winner will receive a 1099 from the casino.

The two most-common ways to handle taxes are for the winner to eat them all, or for the winner issue his own Form 1099 to the other guy. I can live with it either way, but I need to know in advance. 

Lastly, and this isn’t always possible, I want a witness we both know and trust. If this is a weekly drawing at a local casino and both of us regularly enter the drawing, there are likely several others we know and trust to be a witness. If this is a drawing at a casino where neither of us have won before, finding that trusted third party will be tougher. One or both of you may know nobody else there. In this situation, I probably won’t know the other winner either and so my solution would be to skip the save.

There will not be time for a written agreement — signed and notarized. You’re going to have to go with a handshake deal. (Whether there’s a physical handshake or not is immaterial to the agreement between you being valid — but one or both of you might feel better if you actually do it.) 

One time I got burned on this. The other guy’s wife got involved after the fact and vetoed the deal. She was adamant and a big scene in the casino would have had bad repercussions. I choose to believe that the guy made an honorable agreement and his wife came in and interfered. It’s possible, I suppose, that they regularly pull this as a sort of scam. Two years later the same guy invited me to split, and I declined.

That’s it. Congratulations on making it this far in the drawing! Hopefully, whether you’ve agreed to a split or not, you win the big prize!

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Every Little Bit Helps

Bob Dancer

Some casinos do not issue coins at the change machines. If your ticket is $16.23, you will get the $16 in bills, and a voucher for the 23¢. Some casinos will give you the “opportunity” to donate that change to charity, and if you agree, the voucher isn’t even printed. Different states have different rules as to what the casinos can do with this un-collected money.

You can redeem these vouchers at the cage. But that takes time, and many people will often conclude that their time is worth more than the time it takes to collect a few pennies. So, they leave these tickets behind. Anyone walking by is welcome to take these tickets and cash them in. And I do pick them up, but I don’t immediately cash them in.

When I was strictly a video poker player, this rarely happened to me. After all, I usually play big enough machines so that there are no pennies in any cashout ticket I receive. This isn’t always the case today because sometimes I play quarter five play Multi-Strike 9/6 Jacks or Better at the South Point. While this is a $25-per-play game, the cashout ticket can print with an ending of 25¢, 50¢, or 75¢. When this happens to me, I generally keep playing. With the slot club paying 0.30% and the game I’m playing returning 99.79%, it is very slightly positive to keep playing and I do until the pennies disappear. On average, one in four of these tickets will end with zero cents, and I’ll quit then. On occasion I have lost more than $100 getting rid of the cents, but I have also won more than that. I’m playing a long game and those swings don’t affect me much.

South Point is one of the many places I play penny slots in addition to video poker. Almost always, when I cash out a ticket from such machines, the ticket includes some non-zero number of pennies at the end.

I will have a “master ticket” for the day, and any of the small tickets I accumulate get added in. When I cash in at the end of the day, I’ll collect some number of dollars and one ticket for change. If I have change in my pocket, I’ll frequently go to the cage and add enough change to my ticket to make it into an even number of dollars.

No ticket is too small for me to pick up. It’s all going to go into the machines. I once picked up a ticket for $3.16. I figured it was left behind intentionally, and kept it. Another time I found a ticket in excess of $700. I turned it in. There was no way somebody left that on purpose. Although tempting to keep it, the person who left it likely needs it more than I do. Plus, if it’s reported and they remember where they left it, the slot shift manager might search for it using surveillance cameras. I’m fairly well known in all casinos I frequent (because I’ve received W-2Gs plus I usually go back to the same casinos over and over again), so if I’m spotted on camera pocketing such a ticket, it’s almost certain I won’t like what happens next.

One year ago, more casinos paid off pennies in vouchers than do today. The vouchers are unpopular with customers, plus it encourages vagrants to hang around looking for and collecting these tickets. 

I end up with one voucher of less than one dollar per casino. When I visit the casino next time, I’ll put the old voucher in at the start as a part of my “ammunition.” Sometimes I do not return to a particular casino before a voucher expires. No big deal. It’s a small amount, and overall, the practice of picking up and holding onto these vouchers pays off.

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People Don’t Wait

Bob Dancer

I noticed a pattern at the Four Queens in downtown Las Vegas. It probably happens elsewhere too.

The casino sometimes, not always, has monthly promotions. While the details of the promotions vary, most of them follow a pattern.

This is a slot club where slot machines require $5 coin-in to earn a point, video poker machines require $8 to earn that same point, and the loosest video poker games require $16 to get that same point. 

The promotions require you earn a certain number of points during the month — it could be 500, 1,000, 2,000, or even 4,000 — and when you accumulate that many points, you go to the booth, and they give you your reward. The rewards are some combination of free play, comp dollars, and physical gifts.

The loosest video poker games are for 25 cents and $1, and even with the extra coin-in required to earn a point on these machines, they still represent the best value. There are exactly four $1 machines where you can find the loosest game, and probably 200 players during the month want to play their points on these machines for whatever the promotion is this time.

The thing is, for the first 10 days or so of the month, if you come in to play on these machines, usually all four of them are busy. For the last 10 days or so of the month, if you come in to play on these machines, usually you have your choice of any of the four. 

These dates vary, of course, depending on how many points are required this month. If it’s a 4,000-point promotion, meaning $64,000 coin-in on a dollar machine, the machines will pretty much be busy all month long. If it’s a 500-point promotion, the machines will be available more often simply because it doesn’t take nearly so long to satisfy the promotion.

Because of this, I usually wait until the 15th or so to start my play there, assuming I’m going to be in town all month. If I’m going to be gone for a couple of weeks late in the month, I’ll get my play done during graveyard shift in the first week of the month. That’s a less popular time to play, so almost always one or more seats are available at that time any day during the month.

In addition to machine availability, there’s another reason I wait until mid-month to get my play done there. If you do your play on slot machines there instead of video poker machines, not only does it require less play coin-wise, but your mailers tend to be bigger. And play done at either the Four Queens or Binion’s (which is catty-corner across Fremont) count. So, when I’m downtown earlier in the month, I’ll check to see if any slot machines are in positive mode. I do have certain machines I check in both properties. There are a lot of slot hustlers checking machines downtown all the time, so finding a playable machine at any particular time is hit or miss, but I’ll still check.

I never know how many slot points I’ll accumulate. I have rules of thumb for when these machines are worth playing, but they are usually playable only until a certain bonus feature goes off. I’ve had bonuses go off on my very first spin, earning virtually no slot club points, and I’ve had bonuses take a very, very long time to go off. 

If I need 500 points on slots, if I find a good machine and play off my points, it will typically not be a good time to leave the machine. If a machine is of the type that it’s a play if ever the minor bonus is at least 25 spins, I might get on the machine at 27 spins and by the time I’ve played 500 points it’s now up to 33 spins — which is considerably more positive than merely being at 25 spins. (After all, when it goes off, you get eight additional chances for something good to happen.) When this happens, I’ll play considerably more than the minimum points required for the promotion.

The thing is, though, I cannot be the only player who has noticed that the loose machines are usually busy early in the month and usually un-busy later in the month. While out-of-towners need to play while they are in town, locals, generally speaking, should be equally comfortable playing during the last week of the month rather than the first week of the month. 

And yet, I don’t see this happening. I wonder why?

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Why Video Poker for Me?

Bob Dancer

I’ve been playing video poker for 30 years, and by any measure have been quite successful at it. Prior to this gambling game, I tried very hard to become successful at several other gambling games — specifically poker, backgammon, bridge, and blackjack.

I’ve been pondering recently as to why I became successful at this one specific game and not the others. Today I’m going to compare my results at video poker with my non-success at backgammon — which is the gambling game I tried hardest and longest before I gave up.

A factor in winning at any gambling game is one’s intelligence — both IQ and the ability to apply that intelligence to addressing the many aspects of successful gambling. It’s difficult for me to talk about my own intelligence without having some people conclude I’m full of myself and/or others conclude I’m being overly modest. But I’m convinced it’s a big part of the reason for my results in both games.

Video poker is a relatively easy game compared to other gambling games. When I learned the game, I had to create my own strategies, or at least perfect strategies published by others. When I had a strategy, I needed to execute it competently over and over again. Usually this meant memorization, but sometimes I’d bring some sort of “cheat sheet” strategy card, especially if it was going to be a short-term play where it would not make sense to take the time to memorize the game completely.

I needed to evaluate how much a game is worth, and how much the slot club, promotions, and other benefits slots were worth. Of these, probably evaluating and analyzing promotions was the most difficult. Having a working knowledge of probability and statistics helped here.

By the luck of the draw, I “grew up” in video poker right as computerized programs were becoming available to the public. Had I started five years earlier, the problems of creating a strategy and figuring out how much a game is worth would have been beyond my capabilities. Players starting today are able to get a strategy for most video poker games for free from www.wizardofodds.com but casinos aren’t offering as many good opportunities as they used to.

I’m not sure why, but using commercially available software in the 90s, I was able to create and execute accurate video poker strategies better than most other players. I attribute that to intelligence, basic mathematical ability, and the willingness to put in the hours necessary for success. Also, looking at five cards and immediately seeing the various possibilities for straights, flushes, straight flushes, etc., comes easier to me than others. I never appreciated this until I discovered when I was teaching that this is not easy for many players.

Also by the luck of the draw, I grew up with video poker in an era when casinos were giving away the store to video poker players. Not intentionally, of course, but slot directors generally didn’t understand the mathematics of video poker nearly as well as the best players did. All competent video poker players had to do was “Repeat Until Rich,” which is the name of a book (on blackjack success) by Josh Axelrad.

Backgammon, which I played for 20 years from 1974 to 1994, was a totally different situation for me. Computer software wasn’t available yet, and the way to learn the game was to read books and roll out positions over and over again until you understood them. I certainly learned from playing and watching others, but that is a complicated and potentially expensive way to learn.

Backgammon has a zillion different possible positions. Even long-time players regularly come across positions they’ve never studied before. Or maybe it’s the same position, but last time you studied playing a five and a three, and this time the roll is a six and a one. The correct play on most rolls from most positions is fairly obvious to competent players — but some rolls require you to select among different good positions, or perhaps choose the least bad among several not-so-good positions.

No player has studied every position — or even seen every position. During a game, you have to make the best decisions you can. Raw intelligence plays a big part in this, because there are a lot of elements to consider, both offensive and defensive. After a lot of study, I was pretty good at this — but there were many players who were better. I concluded they were brighter than I was.

I did “grow up” in backgammon at a fortunate time. The game was popular in the early 1970s and played by celebrities. The game was played at the Playboy Mansion, and to a young man in his mid-20s at the time, that was pretty interesting. The game was played at discos, and I took dance lessons and obtained a suitable wardrobe to fit in there. For the most part, the players in discos took the game much more casually than I did, and my skills were such that I could clean up in that environment — and meet plenty of ladies who liked being with guys who could dance. What a life!

But that environment ended in the late 1970s. Discos closed and the days of making easy money gambling against non-professional players were over. There were enough better players than I was (including brains, knowledge, and whatever else) that I eventually went bankrupt and had to go get a job.

While I worked my way back into modest backgammon success, I never reached the highest level, no matter how hard I studied.

Today, there are a number of computerized programs available for backgammon players, with the best one called Extreme Gammon (XG.) With the same innate intelligence, players using XG for six months can get as good as I got in 20 years of play.

Today gambling at backgammon is fairly rare. It’s still done, of course, especially while backgammon tournaments are taking place, but today a “PR rating” is generated in tournaments comparing a player’s actual play with the play of XG. A player with a rating of 3.0 (world class) will have a very difficult time getting a game against players with ratings of 10 (intermediate level). Years ago, such matches were possible because nobody knew how good other players were. Today they do.

I know that I could return to that game and get as good as I was 30 years ago, but 30 years ago I was an intermediate player! And there are players who could beat me 30 years ago who’ve been playing and studying continuously since then. They could beat me then and they’ve only gotten better since. I’d have no chance.

Basically, starting over again, at age 77, is not a formula for success. And if I busted my ass for several years and got my average PR rating down to 5 or so, I still couldn’t make enough money to support myself because games against lesser players simply aren’t regularly available.

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Waiting for a Machine — Part I of II

Bob Dancer

I’ve written several times about there being more players who want certain video poker machines at a certain time than there are machines available. Today’s article isn’t about that. It’s about waiting for a slot machine that you believe is positive.

Let’s talk about the hypothetical “Red Bob” machine. I have not searched patents and trademarks to know if any such machine exists, but if so, I haven’t heard of it. If there is such a machine, it’s just a coincidence. I’m making up everything I’m saying about this machine.

The Red Bob machine has three meters: Mini, Minor, and Major. Each of these meters increases when certain symbols appear. When one of these meters goes off, you receive however many free spins are on the meter. The Mini meter goes off most frequently and is the least valuable. The Minor goes off less frequently, but is more valuable because you get additional wild symbols on each spin. And the Major meter goes off still less frequently, but is more valuable still when it does go off because of still more wild symbols.

Assume you’ve collected data and have determined that the Mini meter is a play at 23 spins — meaning that on average, starting from right now, the amount of money you collect when the meter goes off is more than how much you’ll have to pay to get that meter to go off. There is a random element to this, as in most gambling games. Sometimes you’ll win, sometimes you’ll lose, but on average, so long as you only play games when the meter is at least 23, you’ll do all right.

Similarly, the Minor meter needs to be 37 to be a play and the Major meter is a play at 45. Just one meter needs to be high enough for it to be a play. For the record, I know of no machines where 23, 37, and 45 are the “strike numbers,” but I know of many games that are generally similar to this.

Assume you come across a Red Bob machine that has meters of Mini 26, Minor 17, and Major 13 and it costs $2 to play each hand. This is a play, because the Mini is at least 23, and we assume you can afford the $2 a hand. The trouble is, somebody is already at the machine.

At this point, I’m going to evaluate the situation. A pro, or semi-pro, will probably be playing the machine like he’s in a slot tournament. That is, he will keep hitting the spin button as fast as he can. He knows that he’s the favorite and the sooner he can get to the Mini meter to go off, the more time he has to make money on other machines. 

Generally speaking, I don’t wait around for a pro to finish. Most likely he’s not going to stop until the Mini meter is hit. And when that happens, the machine is no longer interesting to me because the Minor and Major meters are way too low to be profitable.

But sometimes you’ll find a “regular” player — that is, someone who might not know or care that he’s playing a game returning in excess of 100%. He’s in the casino for enjoyment and knows the casino usually wins. It’s the price he pays for entertainment. This player usually plays relatively slowly, listening to the music and enjoying the sights and sounds of the game.

I then look at the credits. If he has $239.17 in credits, I probably won’t stick around, unless I get some vibe that he’s ready to go (like maybe a wife telling him about dinner.) If he has $12.34 in credits, I’m going to find a nearby chair and wait. After all, running out of money in the machine creates a natural stopping point.

Once seated, I look around and see if anybody else is waiting for the game. They will have seen me evaluate the situation and sit down. Normally, they give me some sort of “evil eye,” or maybe use sign language to indicate that they were there before I was. If I see this, I nod acceptance of reality and move along. There are many reasons I don’t want to be in any sort of fight in a casino.

If I see nobody, then I watch the player to see if he gives up. I’m also alert to other players coming and thinking about moving in on the machine. If I observe this, I give them my own version of the evil eye. Usually that works.

If the player runs out of money in the machine and grudgingly puts in a $20 bill or smaller, I stick around. If he puts in a $100 bill, I figure he’s not going to run out of money.

If he does stand up, I move in fast. I’m usually seated within five seconds after he leaves. Once I’m seated there, I’m in a strong position to be able to keep the machine. If I dawdle, some other player might move in — and even if I was waiting longer, it’s not always simple to enforce my rights without making a scene — which is a situation I don’t want.

Once I’m there, I’ll insert my money and player’s card and keep playing until the Mini goes off. With the numbers presented in the example, it’s unlikely that either the Minor or Major will be high enough to be playable before the Mini goes off. But if the original numbers were 26, 34, 38, even if the Mini goes off quickly, I’ll keep playing until “one or the other” of the other two meters goes off. Even though neither is high enough by itself, the combination is playable — at least in my opinion.

I know that most of my readers are video poker players and don’t care about playing slots — but I felt that this situation was different enough from regular video poker waiting that it would be interesting to many of you. I have more to say about this subject, but I’ll give it a rest for a few weeks.

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A Story from Treasure Island

Bob Dancer

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.

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You’re Leaving Money on the Table

Bob Dancer

Bonnie and I sometimes travel to Harrah’s Cherokee, which is in the Smoky Mountains in western North Carolina. 

Although there are many reasons we go there, one is that we have casino friends, “Jack” and “Jill,” who also play there. I email Jack when Bonnie and I are going to be traveling east, and sometimes they make a trip there at the same time. And when that happens, we share at least one meal at Brio, the Italian restaurant at the casino.

Rather than split the cost of the meal, we each pick up the entire check every other time we do this. All four of us play at the Seven Stars level, so, among other things, each gets five $100 food vouchers a year. Often one of those vouchers is redeemed during our meals together.

This time it was Jack’s turn to pick up the check. I asked him how much of the meal his host was picking up, and Jack said he never asked a host to buy his food.

“You’re leaving money on the table,” I told him. “You and Jill each play $50,000 coin-in per day you’re there and annually you each earn Seven Stars status primarily from your play at this casino. Hosts will consider you valuable to the casino and will be willing to give you something.”

He told me between them they earn $100 worth of Reward Credits a day, sometimes more if there’s a multiplier, and that’s enough to cover much of what they spend on food.

“Okay,” I continued. “I don’t know what kind of benefits your play entitles you to, but let’s say the host is willing to pick up $250 in food for your four-day trip that usually you pay for with Reward Credits. That many Reward Credits can be turned into $125 free play — which essentially means cash. Are you so rich you can’t find a use for another $125?”

The answer was obvious. I had given Jack the name of our host previously. He had spoken to the host over the phone, but never met her and she didn’t know they were at the casino now.

“You’re going to be here tomorrow, and she’ll get in at noon. Why don’t you give her a call and see if she has five minutes to chat. Once she puts faces to names, she can look up your play and figure out what she can do — if anything. It’s possible, I suppose, that she can’t do anything, but I very much doubt that. Even if that turns out to be the case, it will only cost you five minutes to find out. The odds are very good that she’ll be able to do something.” 

Jill commented she would rather get free facials and manicures than free food. Jack thought a bottle of Scotch Whisky would satisfy him more.

“Let your host know that. Your host’s job is to take care of valuable customers. She has guidelines she must follow, but also, she has a lot of flexibility. It doesn’t hurt to ask.

“And sometimes you play at Harrah’s New Orleans too. If you don’t have a host there, get one. Let them know when you’re coming and see if they can offer you anything.”

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Gifts that Aren’t Gifts

Bob Dancer

Casinos reward players for playing. These rewards typically include cash back, free play, rooms, food, show/event tickets, and as many other goodies as a marketing director can imagine. I’ve received gift cards, spa treatments, cruises, shopping sprees, trips, and discounts on a variety of things.

Once you’ve received these rewards, for the most part you can use them as you see fit, including redeem them, ignore them, give them to family and friends, and, sometimes, sell them. If you’ve received a logo jacket, for example, and choose to sell it on eBay, no casino executive will object to this.

If the casino has offered you a hotel room, and you give this room away, again there’s no problem. But if you sell the room, and the casino discovers this, you may well be punished. Each casino has its own way of bringing players into line, but you usually will receive a warning before the casino takes any action.

If you continue selling rooms after the casino tells you that it’s not allowed, the casino will “solve” the problem by not giving you free rooms anymore — and maybe kicking you out altogether.

I can see the casino’s point of view on this. After all, selling rooms is one of their income streams, and if they can sell the room instead of giving it away for free, it helps their bottom line.

I can also see the player’s point of view on this. If a casino “gives” you something, you should be able to do whatever you want with it. It’s hard enough to beat the casino. Adding a few extra bucks from selling something the casino gives you makes it easier to win. Or at least lose less.

While I haven’t sold any comped rooms for several years, if I were to do it again, I’d try to do it in a way that would maximize my chances of being successful at it.

First of all, I wouldn’t go through a host. My host knows my preferences — perhaps one bed, no smoking, high floor, near elevator — whatever. If I all of a sudden I want two beds in a smoking room, the host is going to be asking questions. I could say it’s for my brother-in-law, and that would fly once. But if I tried it several more times, each time with a different set of room requests, the host may get suspicious. While the host is your “friend,” of sorts, the casino signs her paycheck. 

So, after the reservation is made, go though the front desk to make the changes in the “smoking or not” kind of requests. To the front desk, you’re just a name. To your host, you’re quite a bit more than that. Casinos identify you by what kind of games you play, what stakes, what frequency of play, what your win-loss numbers are, and a variety of other things. All this data is part of how your host knows you.

Second, if I get a comped room and sell it to somebody, I’d play some that weekend. It doesn’t have to be a lot. But no play at all waives a red flag. 

Third, I’d be discreet about it. I wouldn’t post an ad that offers discounted rooms to the such-and-such casino. Those ads might well be seen by somebody who works at the casino, and it could lead to it being investigated. Once somebody who works at the casino tries to “buy” such a discounted room, they’d find out that I was behind it — and the cat would be out of the bag. No thanks.

Fourth, I’d spread it around to several casinos if I had potential comped rooms at more than one place. Each time one does this is a risk. Doing it at several casinos rather than just one dilutes that risk a bit.

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A Look at Casino Drawings — Part II of II

Bob Dancer

Today we continue our look at casino drawings. If you want to catch up and read last week’s blog, I’ll wait until you come back.

You usually have to plan for a drawing. While it is possible that you’re 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’re lucky enough to be drawn, claim your prize within some relatively short period of time.

This means that if you’re going to compete in one drawing at 7 p.m. on a given night, you can’t be at another drawing as well. So you need to pick and choose where you have the best chance.

It’s not trivial to get to a casino, park, and deal with the crowds in order to win at a drawing. Today, if I don’t have an expected win of at least $250 at a drawing, I won’t 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’s looking at “possibilities,” not “probabilities.” I actually look one more layer deep. I look at the probability of being called and the average size win.

In general, the more tickets you have in the drum, the better your chances of winning. If you’re a $5 player, you have a significantly better chance of winning than if you’re a 25¢ or $1 player. If you’re a 5¢ player, five coins at a time, you basically have no chance at all.

It’s 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’t make financial sense.

It can make sense to play a negative game if it’s “close.” 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. 

If you’re 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’t 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’t care which of the players win the money. Drawing ticket multipliers shift the odds from the players who don’t play on that day to those who do.

Don’t win drawings at the same casino too often. This is the “voice of experience” 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’t like. So if you win, take a month off or so. 

Read the rules carefully. If it’s 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’s drawing on Tuesday and a “for everybody” drawing on Friday, and, if you’re old enough, your play can count for both drawings. There might be limits to consider.

It’s possible that for the amount you play, winning a drawing is essentially a zillion to one longshot. If that’s the case, don’t even try. Concentrate on other ways to win in the casino — or in life.

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A Look at Casino Drawings — Part I of II

Bob Dancer

It’s been a while since I’ve written about casino drawings. In Part I, I’m going to address a selective history of drawings. And Part II deals with how to improve your chances in drawings.

My personal history deals primarily, but not exclusively, with drawings in Las Vegas starting in 1994. The ways they did it in Atlantic City and other places are mostly a mystery to me. 

While most casinos held drawings similarly to the way other casinos did it, any marketing director could say, “I’ve got a good idea. Why don’t we . . .?,” and you had a different twist on how to do it.

“In the beginning,” drawings used paper tickets on which you filled out your name and player’s card number. Sometimes you needed additional information like your address. If you had a lot of tickets, you had to allow considerable time to prepare them. Using rubber stamps or address labels made it faster than doing everything longhand, but it still required an effort.

Some players believed that folding the tickets was useful, and many players had their own techniques. Some casino executives drawing the tickets felt that folded tickets provided an unfair advantage, so they would intentionally feel around for unfolded tickets. I was never sure, so I folded half of mine and left the others au naturel.

The tickets had to go into some sort of drum. If the drum was large, say able to hold 20,000 tickets, and there were only 500 tickets in the drum, spinning the drum mixed the tickets pretty well. If that same drum was filled with 22,000 tickets, the tickets were so jammed that no matter how many times they spun the drum, the tickets stayed right where they were. In this kind of drawing, it was vital to place your tickets in the drum within the last half hour or so before the drawing. If your tickets were placed before that and are now at the bottom of the drum, you had zero chance of it being picked. Someone might dig down one foot or so into a batch of tickets to get one, but nobody could dig down six feet.

You usually received tickets based on your play — maybe every 1,000 slot club points earned you one ticket. Sometimes different tier levels received different numbers of tickets per slot club points. Sometimes video poker machines earned tickets at a different rate than slot machines. Sometimes there were “ticket multiplier” days. Sometimes everybody received free tickets.

Often, but not always, you had to be present to win. Often, but not always, if somebody called wasn’t present, they drew again. Sometimes you could win two or more prizes if your name were drawn more than once. Sometimes anybody could enter and win a drawing, but sometimes it was only for invited guests.

Sometimes the first name drawn gets the biggest prize. Sometimes they keep drawing until they get the right number of names, and then each of the contestants picks an envelope, spins a wheel, or does something else to decide how much they have won.

In Nevada, usually the drawings were fair — but more than once a casino was caught cheating. I have to assume that sometimes casinos cheated and were not caught. It isn’t that difficult for a casino employee to have a ticket palmed when he/she reaches in to pick out a ticket. If done well, it’s extremely difficult to catch. 

I’ve entered many hundreds of Vegas drawings over the past 30 years — possibly more than one thousand. I don’t know the total amount of prizes I’ve won, but it easily exceeds $1 million, including cash, free play, and sometimes physical prizes like cars, jewelry, and even cruises. That’s not all profit, of course. Sometimes I had to play a negative game to earn drawing tickets.

Sometimes there were cash or free play options. For example, if your name were drawn for a $25,000 car, the casino would arrange for you to buy any car you wanted at, for example, Finley Toyota, or would offer you $20,000 if you didn’t take the car.

Sometimes casinos issued 1099s when you won at least $600. Sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes, if you won more than one drawing over the calendar year, the casino would sum up your prizes and present you with the tax form if your total winnings were at least $600. Sometimes casinos would treat each drawing as a separate event tax-wise.

Next week I’ll discuss how drawings are different today than they used to be and give you some pointers on doing well in these drawings.