Page 8 - January 2004 • Southern California Gaming Guide

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
Reaching Zero Credits Does Not Mean You Have a Problem
by Bob Dancer
Iwas chatting with a slot director of a Las Vegas casino when somebody came into his o ce and reminded him that he had to be at a “problem gambling” lecture. Nevada gaming
law requires that each casino provide awareness classes for their employees and all employees in certain job categories must attend.
Most people can tell you when they should have quit a half-hour ago. But nobody can tell you what his or her results will be during the next half-hour of gambling. In gambling, you have to make your decisions before you know what the results will be. You can only talk about your results after you know what they are.
Perhaps a symptom of this woman’s problem was that she confused what she did not know beforehand with what she could not know. Inability to predict the future is hardly a disease. It is the normal state of a airs. It is not surprising to me that she made this confusion. I suspect unrealistic expectations concerning gam- bling situations are common phenomena among problem gamblers.
It is surprising and disappointing to me that ncpg chose to include this comment in an otherwise-informative tape. e purpose of this lm was to educate, and to include normal gambling occurrences in a context that implies they are abnormal is misleading. And there must be many people within ncpg who
can tell this di erence. After all, a major purpose for this organization is to assist problem gamblers, and presumably you must understand gambling before you can do that.
Do not assume my words here are meant to belittle the ncpg or make fun of people with a gambling problem. I am doing neither of these things. I am only trying to point out that in order to determine whether you have a problem, you must di erentiate between normal swings and behavior that indicates a real problem.
If going from 200 credits down to zero were a symptom of problem gambling, every video poker player I know would qualify as having a serious gambling problem. I do not accept this de nition at all.
Bob Dancer is America’s best-known video poker writer and teacher. He has a variety of “how to play better video poker” products, including Winner’s Guides, strategy cards, videos, and the award-winning computer software, “Bob Dancer Presents WinPoker,” and a brand-new book Million Dollar Video Poker. Dancer’s products may be ordered at www.bobdancer.com
Today was his day to go.
He invited me along. I accepted. As a gaming writer and speaker, I should know more about this subject than I do, plus I was curious about how the casinos were presenting this
information.
e format of the class was to
present a lm produced by the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling. I know this column is being read in California, and California has its own rules and education process, but problem gambling is not unique to any one jurisdiction. is lm had interviews with several people who had experienced problems with gambling. All were now in Gamblers Anonymous and told their personal stories. Although each story was a little di erent, they all had a similar cycle starting with the excitement of gambling, the over-extension, the inability to stop, the “big fall,” and, eventually, recovery with the help of GA. I’m using di erent terms than the lm did, but I believe I am fairly summarizing the message.
e lm was informative and probably accurate. e people interviewed had been through hell, and, with treatment, now are able to lead useful lives. But there was one brief part that I strongly disagree with — which is why I am writing
this article in the rst place. One of the women gamblers gave an example of how bad her gambling addiction truly was. She said that sometimes she started with $20 at video poker, ran it up to $200, and kept playing until it was down to zero.
I am not debating whether this lady had a problem. What I am debating is whether this example is relevant. Every video poker player has this happen to them on a regular basis. is is not a sign of a gambling problem. is is the nature of the game.
With video poker, every hand costs you ve credits. Most of the time you either get your money back, or lose the ve credits. e general trend of your score is downhill. Periodically, you will get a straight or a ush which will prop up your score a bit. Occasionally, you will hit four of a kind, which will create a big jump in your credits, which will then begin to decrease as you play.
Will you hit another four of a kind before you get down to zero? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
We’ve all had it happen both ways many, many times. Nobody knows what will happen the next time until they go through it. One of the reasons to play is to nd out.
Page 8 January 2004
Column: Video Poker With Bob Dancer