Page 8 - June 2005 • Southern California Gaming Guide

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
How Much Money Should You Take to the Casino? by Bob Dancer
I get asked this question a lot. Casino players don’t want to carry around excess cash and they don’t want to run out. is is an easy-to-understand request. Unfortunately, the answer is not so easy.
One good way to get a good feel for the numbers involved is by using the auto-hold feature on Bob Dancer Presents WinPoker (Ed.: Dancer’s award-winning educational video poker software). Let’s assume you want to know how much it costs to play 9/6 Jacks or Better for two hours for dollars.
I would set the computer for auto play and set the “stop after xxxx hands” to 1000, which is about two hours. If you play faster and want to set that number to 1400 or some other number, go ahead. I would set the speed to the fastest possible by moving the arrow to the top. ese instructions make sense if you have the software installed on your pc and in front of you. So if you do not have it in front of you, you probably want to save this article until you do.
considering whether to take $200 or $300, getting back $25 doesn’t a ect that decision very much.
What about a promotion of the sort of four sevens pay an extra 100 coins? If we programmed our game to take that into consideration, we’d get the extra 100 coins around 4, 5, or 6 times. But it doesn’t a ect how much money we need to bring. Why? Because it is likely that the ve or so worst sessions didn’t have any quads—sevens or otherwise. e 100-coin bonus will tend to make our good sessions better. It won’t a ect our worst sessions one way or the other.
One thing that should be clear by this exercise is that the numbers vary all over the place. You cannot know for sure in advance what any particular session will amount to. at is the nature of gambling.
So if you want to know on average the range a 2-hour session can take, the technique presented here
I now would record the number of credits. I would hit the start button, which would cause the computer to play 1000 hands, and then record the number of credits again. When I did this 20 times, I got the following numbers:
1510 (starting), 1705, 1760, 1965, 1555, 1220, 885, 700, 260, 870, 875, 605, 640, 445, 4530, 4490, 4025, 3995, 3770, 3775, 3540. ese represent the ending number of credits after 1000 hands were played. I then subtracted them from each other and sorted them. I got:
4085, 610, 205, 195, 55,35, 5, -30, -40, -85, -180, -185, -195, -225, -235, -335, -335, -410, -440
ese sessions added up to $2,130, which is to be expected since there was one royal hit in only 20,000 hands played.
One of the sessions I hit a royal and was up $4,085. ere were 7 positive sessions and 13 negative ones. My worst two sessions cost over $400. Two more cost over $300, two more over $200 and three more over $100.
e fact that I picked twenty sessions was arbitrary, andcertainlynotveryscienti c.Butyoucouldconclude that if you only started with $100 in your pocket, you would run out about half the time. If you started with $500 in your pocket, you would rarely, if ever, run out. If you ran 2,000 simulations instead of 20, these conclusions would not change very much.
If you play Deuces Wild, ne. Run these numbers for that game. If the best game at a casino close to you is 8/5 Jacks or Better, you can run these gures
“The fact that I picked twenty sessions was arbitrary, and certainly not very scientific. But you could conclude that if
you only started with $100 in your pocket, you would run out about half the time. If you started with $500 in your pocket, you would rarely, if ever, run out. If you ran 2,000 simulations
instead of 20, these conclusions would not change very much.”
for that game. You’ll get a spread, and those numbers will give you an idea of what is “normal.”
e auto-play feature plays computer perfect. What if you don’t? Just take a little extra. Your errors are not likely to a ect a 2-hour score very much, although they will de nitely mount up if you play dozens of 2-hour sessions.
What about cash back from the casino slot club? It is largely irrelevant for two-hour sessions. Two hours at dollars means you’ll play $5,000 through the machines. Half percent cash back adds $25. If we are
will work quite well. If you want to know speci cally what will happen to you on your next trip, I can’t help you. I can’t tell you because nobody will know that number until the trip is over.
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, his autobiography Million Dollar Video Poker, and his recent novel, Sex, Lies, and Video Poker. Dancer’s products may be ordered at www.bobdancer.com
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Page 8 June 2005
Column: Video Poker with Bob Dancer