Page 24 - June 2010 • Southern California Gaming Guide

Bob Dancer: Video Poker
TDo You Know When to Quit?
here is a slogan by a major beer manufacturer that says,“Know when to say when.” A slogan by one state’s Council on Problem Gaming says,“Winners know when to quit.” e attitude expressed by the two slogans is virtually identical—that is, to drink and gamble responsibly.
And there is no doubt that problem drinking and problem gambling are both serious problems today and anything that can be done to reduce these problems is a good thing.
Drinking and gambling, however are not the same. I believe using the same slogan for both activities is very misleading. In drinking, how much a person responds to three glasses of beer, for example, is fairly consistent from
episode to episode. It
changes over the course of
time, of course, but very
gradually. How much
three beers impaired your
performance at anything
a month ago is a very
good predictor of how
much it will impair your
performance today.
With alcohol, every drink makes you a little more intoxicated. It is never the case with alcohol that taking one more drink will all of a sudden make you cold sober. But with gambling, one more can make
you nancially whole.
hour opportunity. e game was good, but we’d been playing twelve hours and we were tired. If we gave up the machines, we’d likely never get them back because we saw video poker team players loitering about. Once we left, their group would trade them back and forth until somebody hit the royal.
So how tired do we need to get in order to leave? I certainly don’t know any rm rule of thumb I can pass on. It’s always a guess. Often Shirley or I would announce something like “Next four-of-a-kind and it’s hasta la vista, baby.” Or sometimes, “when these credits either double or disappear, we’re out of here.” It’s not a science. It’s frequently arbitrary. I truly don’t even know what the phrase “Winners know when to quit” even means.
Most casinos display signs with slogans similar to “Winners know when to quit.” And on the sign is a telephone number to help you with gambling addiction or gambling-related problems. Such signs are required in some jurisdictions, and other casinos just plain think it’s a good idea to have them.
In my own writing, I sometimes include a version of “If you can’t a ord to lose, don’t play.” I have no idea if my slogan is better or worse than any of the others.
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 the software “Video Poker for Winners,” his new book, Video Poker for the Intelligent Beginner, 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. Pacific Time.
When I “learned” to
drink beer in college, it
didn’t take me long to
discover that I could handle
threebeerswith“essentially
no e ect,” but with four
or more, there was a
noticeable e ect. e way
I learned my “limit” was
through experimentation.
I didn’t set out to gather
that information, and I
certainly exceeded that three-beer limit numerous times back then, but after a while I just “knew” from experience what my limit was.
In gambling, however, it is di erent—at least in video poker. For a quarter player, sometimes investing an extra $20 will lead to a $1,000 royal ush, although usually it won’t. Perhaps a month ago, the extra $20 might have paid o very well. at is a lousy predictor of whether it is going to happen today.
di cult to determine in gambling than it is in drinking.
In gambling, you have the phenomenon called “steaming.” is is behavior where somebody gets behind, and then bets bigger and bigger in the hopes of a miraculous recovery. Sometimes their ship comes in. Usually
they end up drowning. For people that steam, it is impossible to go home a small loser. ey either win, or lose everything they have.
Sometimes, when to quit gambling is clear cut. If you’re playing because of double points on Tuesday, then midnight Tuesday is the deadline. If the reason you’re playing is that the progressive is high, and somebody hits it (hopefully you), then most winners would quit. But often it isn’t so clear. Shirley and I were playing a ve-dollar 8/5 Bonus Poker game several years ago with the royal progressive over $33,000 and a half-percent cash players club. At the speed we play, this is a $150 per
“Sometimes when to quit is makes “knowing when to quit” more
gambling is clear cut. If you’re playing because of double points on Tuesday, then midnight Tuesday is the deadline. If the reason you’re playing is that the progressive is high, and somebody hits it (hopefully you), then most winners would quit. But often it isn’t so clear.”
Page 24
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
June 2010
Video Poker with Bob Dancer