Bingo AP Fall 2015

Long time fan of the site/forum, first time poster that wanted to bring back a topic which gets brought up not very often, bingo AP. This is more of a question, but also an explanation of some research that I did on my own through this site and sitting through some pretty random bingo sessions.

I understand that Bingo isn't played against the house, but rather against your peers. I began noticing I never one when playing just a paper card (but hey, it's cheap entertainment) so I set out to change that and this site was the perfect road map! Knowing that buying in bulk was the way to go I attended the following sessions:

- Sunday GVR 1PM session with roughly 50-60 people and purchases the biggest electronic special they offered which gave me 153 cards or so. Buy in of $80, I cased most games but only one $60 on the last chance coverall.

Understanding the competition was probably fierce, I decided to go to a slower session...

- Thursday 1AM South Point with 31 people, majority playing electronic. Once again roughly $75 buy-in playing close to 200 cards, but this time I won the FIRST game very quickly, cased throughout but didn't win. Down another $20...

I figured lets really live the dream and do a Friday late night/Sat early morning Arizona Charlies 5am session. Bought around 230 cards for close to $80 (all blues for the best per card cost) with surprisingly 31 people in the room... I got my butt handed to me, only cased maybe 2-3 games and heard machines going off like mad when I was 2-3 numbers away. How could this be?

I went back to South Point at 1am on a Monday, counted 53 people and decided not to buy in. Went to Rampart yesterday (Sunday) at 11am and as I fully expected it was really busy.

Since many rooms are limiting the amount of cards to buy (per the Wizard perhaps) is Bingo AP likely anymore? Maybe there is opportunity when weather is terrible or something like that, but either consumers have caught on, or just play a heck of a lot more than when this topic was first discussed years ago.

Now perhaps there is opportunity within sessions during the 9am - 5pm time period during the week, but I'm not going to miss work and from the looks of it, it doesn't seem like it would matter.

Thoughts from anyone? Thanks!

Most of the people who won ended up blowing through their money on the slots outside of the room so I doubt it was AP, but just heavy players

I don't know whether or not you had an advantage, but if you did and the sessions you mentioned are the only ones you played, then I'd chalk it up to limited sample size.

so your idea of "AP" is buying more cards?

Quote: andysif

so your idea of "AP" is buying more cards?

In Bingo, prizes are fixed, so an important piece of information is to try to estimate how many cards are in play on a certain draw. Prior to the game beginning, each card has an equal probability of winning and/or tying, so your expected value is based on the prize amount divided by the total number of cards in play (to get a per card value) and how that compares to the price of each card you have in play.

Also, the probability of a tie would factor in there, but I'm keeping the explanation simple for now.

Okay, so let's say thirty cards are in play this round and the prize amount is $30, the prize is equal to $1/card. I paid $0.50/card, so I definitely want to play some cards on this game.

For the purposes of AP, you simply want the average card value, based on the prize to be won, to exceed what you paid for your own cards. You increase the probability of winning by increasing the number of cards you have in the game, although that diminishes the average value per card in the game and, therefore, would also diminish the value of the cards you have in the game.

However, if the average card value for all cards in that game exceeds the amount you paid per card, then you have an advantage. All if the other Players would have an advantage in the instance of that particular game, too, if their cost per card is the same, but they might not know it or actively seek out such opportunities.

Quote: Mission146

In Bingo, prizes are fixed, so an important piece of information is to try to estimate how many cards are in play on a certain draw. Prior to the game beginning, each card has an equal probability of winning and/or tying, so your expected value is based on the prize amount divided by the total number of cards in play (to get a per card value) and how that compares to the price of each card you have in play.

Also, the probability of a tie would factor in there, but I'm keeping the explanation simple for now.

Okay, so let's say thirty cards are in play this round and the prize amount is $30, the prize is equal to $1/card. I paid $0.50/card, so I definitely want to play some cards on this game.

For the purposes of AP, you simply want the average card value, based on the prize to be won, to exceed what you paid for your own cards. You increase the probability of winning by increasing the number of cards you have in the game, although that diminishes the average value per card in the game and, therefore, would also diminish the value of the cards you have in the game.

However, if the average card value for all cards in that game exceeds the amount you paid per card, then you have an advantage. All if the other Players would have an advantage in the instance of that particular game, too, if their cost per card is the same, but they might not know it or actively seek out such opportunities.

yes it all sounds pretty good but please don't assume other people are stupid. i bet you if you go looking through 1000 games you would not find one where you actually had an "advantage". Maybe some you would be in "less disadvantage", but never one with "advantage"

its just like pokerstars tournament, they have $500 guranteed tournament for $2 entry. you never find one with less than 250 people

I agree the sample size was limited, but at the point of being down $120 I figured perhaps I dig deeper before continuing. Assuming this AP strategy was put on the internet 2+ years ago and since then rules have changed and the savvy of the player is always increasing, I wondered if I was wasting my time.

And if in the end I can only grind $20/session 2x a week overtime, I need to evaluate if it's even worth it with gas, time and throwing off my general sleep cycle.

Thanks for the input thus far, would love to here even more theories!

Quote: andysif

yes it all sounds pretty good but please don't assume other people are stupid. i bet you if you go looking through 1000 games you would not find one where you actually had an "advantage". Maybe some you would be in "less disadvantage", but never one with "advantage"

its just like pokerstars tournament, they have $500 guranteed tournament for $2 entry. you never find one with less than 250 people

I'm not assuming anything, I don't AP Bingo, I was just giving a very rough description of how it theoretically could be APed. Therefore, I don't know what the ratio of advantageous to disadvantageous games is. You could well be right.

The one thing that I do know is AP would be impossible if every player on Earth knew/did it. There have to be people losing where there are people winning, or nobody would spread the game. And, like I said, a situation such as Bingo could have specific occasions where it is AP for everyone in the game, but not all know it or seek that out.