Page 28 - June 2015 • Southern California Gaming Guide

AINew Way to Answer an Old Question
teach a lot of classes, and one of the most frequently asked questions I get is,“If I’m having a bad session, when do I change machines?”
My answer was always some version of, “It doesn’t matter. Changing machines has absolutely nothing to do with the winning process.”
Several years back I started trying a di erent answer. Not that the old answer was wrong; it’s just that the newer answer stressed things a little di erently.
“Why are you playing video poker?” I’d ask.
If the answer came back to me,“To make money,” I’d
then ask the question, “In the game you are playing, who’s the favorite: you or the casino?”
e conversation can go several ways from here. If the player tells me that he’s the favorite (because he knows the return on the game, the contribution of the players club, and the promotions in e ect — and they add up to enough over 100% to make it worth his time) I then tell him, “Keep going. You have the advantage. Assuming you have a su cient bankroll to weather the swings, a small setback is irrelevant.”
If the player tells me he doesn’t know whether he’s the favorite or not, or worse, he knows that the casino has the advantage, I then openly question why he is playing in the rst place. It can’t be to make money because the house has the advantage.
One of the basic principles of winning at gambling is to bet when you have the edge and not to bet when you don’t have the edge. If players can accept that, they’ll stop asking such silly questions as when to change machines.
So for the past few years, this has been the type of answer I’ve given. And it’s still a good answer. But recently I’ve been looking at it a bit di erently.
What about the cases where you know the return on the game and the base rate of the players club, but you don’t know what the mailers and comps will be down the road? What then?
It would be useful to have all that information up front, but often you don’t. If you’ve played at a casino
for a long time and are used to their system, the best assumption is that “the future bene ts will be like the previous bene ts.”
We know that this assumption isn’t perfect. Games are removed or excluded from bene ts. e amounts of the mailers change over time. ey raise the prices in the restaurant and your comps don’t go as far. ey might add a resort fee to comped rooms that they didn’t previously, etc.
Even though the assumption isn’t perfect, it’s the best one we have. We need to have some idea of what we are getting in order to decide whether it makes sense to play, and a “ best guess” is better than no idea at all. If you want to say “the bene ts in the future will be 90% of what they’ve been,” ne. at takes into account that bene ts have been decreasing over time. But it still provides a best guess to use in your calculations.
If you’re new to a casino and have no idea what they’re going to o er, you might talk to others. Some players are very knowledgeable. Some aren’t. Don’t assume that everything you hear is true.
If it’s in your hometown, you likely already have a good idea of who is a reliable source and who isn’t. If you’re traveling and don’t know anybody, use your best judgment.
It can happen that you’re at a brand new casino, so nobody has any information. What are you going to do? e games themselves are very likely worth less than 100%, including the players club. It’s appropriate then to take your best guess as to what you will receive.
Use the following kinds of background information to make your decision: What do other casinos in the area o er? What do “related” casinos o er? Are there
signs up at the players club about an o er that might be interesting to you?
Sometimes you just can’t tell. You have to give the casino some action and then nd out later whether the actual rewards more than make up for the expected loss. is is completely di erent from comparing the bene ts to the actual loss. at’s largely irrelevant, assuming you’re playing within your bankroll. Some of us only want to play when we have the advantage, but it’s possible we just can’t know until later how much of an advantage we have — if any.
ere’s a reason it’s called gambling!
Professional video poker player Bob Dancer’s radio show Gambling With An Edge, is on Thursday evenings 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Paci c Time on radio station 1230 AM in Las Vegas online at klav1230am.com. Dancer’s products may be ordered at bobdancer.com or at 1-800-244-2224 Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Paci c Time.
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PAGE 28
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
JUNE 2015
Video Poker with Bob Dancer