Page 12 - October 2006 • Southern California Gaming Guide

Bob Dancer: Video Poker
So Long as the Green Light is On...
everal times I’ve been in casinos when their player tracking system shuts down. Sometimes this is scheduled maintenance and sometimes the system shuts down unexpectedly, and usually the players don’t have su cient information to tell the di erence.
e slot department workers have been trained to say some variation of,“So long as the green light stays on when you insert your card, you are getting your points. e points are being stored inside the machine and when the system comes back up again, everything will be ne.” ey often have no idea whether this is true at this time or not. ey are merely echoing what they’ve been trained to say.
system would crash, I would continue playing, but at a much lower rate — sometimes just playing slower and sometimes switching to a $5 Triple Play game on the same machine. If the system was down two hours, the hosts would conclude that my normal pace was to play $160,000 so that is what they would assume I played the same amount this time and they gave me the requisite points. I would “forget” to tell them that this time I probably only played $80,000. ( is is a di erence of more than $300 in players club bene ts each time this happened). In e ect, this became an unadvertised and unintended “double points” promotion.
Let’s discuss the “ethics” question on this. I had no problem at all telling the hosts “I played two hours and didn’t get credit for it.” is was an absolutely true statement. If they asked if I played at my usual speed (they never did), I would have told the truth. But they didn’t ask and I didn’t volunteer.
I actually went further than this. Two of the hosts were mathematically challenged. So those were the ones I approached for the adjustment. If they gave me too few points, I spoke up. If they overstated my points, I kept quiet.
I’ve taken some heat for this kind of behavior. So be it. Some people will never understand the mind-set of a winning player. Most winning players will conclude that it’s not their responsibility to ensure that a casino has good policies and hires competent people. When these players nd a breach in the casino’s armor, we exploit it.
Perhaps you wouldn’t exploit such a breach. at’s okay with me. e biggest part of this, I believe, was discovering the breach and guring out how to exploit it. No casino is going to tell you how to take advantage of them. You have to do this kind of discovery and analysis for yourself.
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 two novels including, Sex, Lies, and Video Poker. Dancer’s products may be ordered at www.bobdancer.com.
My experience with this is that it is usually true. I usually do get my points later. But another way of phrasing “usually true”
is “sometimes not true.”
to Shirley. Or do something more productive with my time than playing with a disadvantage.
If more players left when the system shuts down, casinos would invest in better systems.
At some casinos, I actually like it when the system goes down. Back when I played at the MGM Grand (it was
1999–2001 and I’m sure they’ve upgraded their system since then) the system would go down a lot of the time. Because of this, many of the hosts either decided unilaterally or were instructed to
“give the players what they wanted” point-wise.
So now the correct strategy is to slow down and record your time. I was playing $10 Five Play at the time and would play about $80,000 per hour through the machine (it would be much more per hour today, but this was
And the information to determine whether this case is part of the “usually true” or “sometimes not true” is often not available. So what do you do?
“Inmycase,sincewithoutthe
In my case, since
without the players club
most games I play return
less than 100%, I usually
quit playing. Since I
estimate that 80% of the
time my points will all be
captured and 20% of the
time they won’t (and this
is admittedly a very rough
estimate), I ask myself
if the players club were
reduced by 20% would
I still be interested in
playing? Since the answer
is usually “no,” I usually
stop playing. If I have a
room there (not usual, for
me, but sometimes) I may
decide to go take a nap
and try later. Or maybe I decide to take a lunch break. Or call my father. Or get in my daily walking. Or talk
before key-to-credit technology). e hosts could see this easily by looking at my past history. When the
players club most games I play return less than 100%, I usually quit playing. Since I estimate that 80% of the time my points will all be captured and 20% of the time they won’t (and this is admittedly a very rough estimate), I ask myself if the players club were reduced by 20% would I still be interested in playing? Since the answer is usually ‘no,’ I usually stop playing. If I have a room there (not usual, for me, but sometimes) I may decide to go
take a nap and try later.”
Page 12
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
October 2006
Video Poker with Bob Dancer