Page 14 - September 2008 • Southern California Gaming Guide

Bob Dancer: Video Poker
TPrejudice in Video Poker
he word “prejudice” is usually used in the context of believing a person or group or people are inferior to others because of race, national origin, religion, sex, politics, sexual orientation or the belief of whether Country/Western deserves to be called music. is
type of prejudice is frowned upon in this country, so long as you don’t share the particular prejudice. But this is not a political article, and I’m not using the word to mean anything like that.
I’m using the word “prejudice” to mean whatever you see tends to support whatever belief system you have going in. at is, if you believe that casinos o er a fair deal, if you know where to look, that’s what you’ll observe. If you believe that casinos are out to get you and can’t be trusted, you’ll easily nd evidence for that, too. Often, two people will see the same evidence and come to opposite conclusions, depending on their prejudices going in.
attempt to remove that sort of prejudice from their thoughts and words. When we speak of the sort of prejudice referred to in this article, however, it’s not the sort of thing we can remove.
Everyone has preconceived notions, or prejudices, and we need them to get through life. We can’t decide on everything in life newly every day. You’d never get anything done if you had to decide daily whether you liked where you lived, who you lived with, what kind of car you should be driving, what kind of foods taste good and are healthy, which religion and political party most closely mirrors your own views, and hundreds of other things. Any of these subjects may be revisited from time to time, but not all of them all the time.
What’s the“best” prejudice to have concerning video poker? I can tell you what mine is, but you’ll have to decide for yourself if it’s right for you. I believe that the most successful players take the time to learn the game well, including how to play the hands, how to analyze casino players clubs and promotions, and what are usual and unusual things that can happen. e best players continue to study and hone their skills. e knowledge they learn from doing this will allow them to analyze situations realistically. ese players tend to be winners at gambling year after year.
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, 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 or at 1-800-244-2224 Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Paci c Time.
In Jacks or Better, royal ushes come about every 40,000 on average. Let’s say you’ve played 160,000 hands (which we’ll call four royal “cycles”) and haven’t
received a royal. What’s going on?
you hit two $1 royals and end up with a net pro t of $6,500.Whathappened?
With my prejudices, I believe there’s a 2.4% chance of my hitting two royals in the next 10,000 hands, so this kind of result will happen about once in 40 trips. It’s happened many times in the past and will
My own prejudice is that and it’s no big deal. I know chance that I’ll start another four-royal dry spell tomorrow. It’s happened before, and it will happen again. It’s no fun, but not a big deal. I believe I’ll end up making money at video poker, year after year. If your prejudice is that casinos are out to cheat you, and that video poker writers like me are paid unkies to spread the “once in 40,000-hands misinformation,” you’ll look at this four-cycle dry spell as supporting your theory. You know you’ll lose year after year, and you’ll be right.
this happens on occasion, that there’s about a 1.8%
Let’s look at it from the
other side. You’ve recently
read my Jacks or Better Winner’s Guide and have practiced on Video Poker for Winners. You go to your local casino and expect to set the world on re. Sure enough, you do. In about 10,000 hands over a weekend,
will become disillusioned shortly. e system does work, but not usually this well all at once.
When we speak of the prejudice listed in the rst paragraph, we call it bigotry, and enlightened people
“With my prejudices, I believe there’s a 2.4% chance of my
hitting two royals in the next 10,000 hands, so this kind of result will happen about once in 40 trips. It’s happened many times in the past and will
happen many times in the future. It’s the fun part of video poker, but it’s not that unusual.”
happen many times in the future. It’s the fun part of video poker, but it’s not that unusual. If your prejudice going in is that casinos are trying to cheat you, you’ll probably look at this evidence as the casinos trying to suck you into a lifetime of losses by letting you win early. If your prejudice is“I don’t know whether this will work or not,” you might well decide my system is the best thing since sliced bread and expect this kind of result every trip in the future. You
Page 14
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
September 2008
Video Poker with Bob Dancer