Ignorance is bliss...or is it?

Forgive me. I'm still new to this forum. Let me just say, I really, really enjoy video poker. At least, JoB video poker. It's one of the few games in the casino that I can play for a long time without having to pull out my wallet too often.

But - I'm hearing you guys talk about bankroll - and well, I'm mystified, I guess. I don't make much money. About 35-45k depending on commissions. My expenses are pretty low, however. Even with the debt I do have, I usually have about 400 bucks on a given weekend to play a little video poker.

Sure, there have been days when that $400 lasted a half hour. But, I've also had days - like today, where the first $20 in a $1 VP JoB game turned into $150 after a lucky 4th 8 was found. (had I guess 25 credits when it hit). So, on the same machine, I changed the denomination from $1 to $2. After what seemed like an hour of up and down play, I got like 3 full houses within 10 hands. At $200 credits, I went to the bar for a water.

I tossed $20 in the machine and played 50 cents double bonus and after maybe 15 minutes, switched to $1 on the same machine and I hit 4 threes for 400 bucks. So, I'm up 760 bucks, less gas, wear and tear on the car (70 miles round trip) taxes and time spent not doing laundry.

Am I missing something? I thought we were supposed to just go to the casino with what we could afford to lose and you left with your shirt, it was a good day.

The math supports the casinos. The notion of taking $25,000 to a casino to see what the real payoff is - - well that terrifies me. If I had 25k, why even go to the casino? The food is good, yeah. But I guess I'm doing it wrong. I know I'm playing with optimum play when I play. I do have a "sense" of sorts when it comes to when to leave and when to keep playing. It works about, well, 50% of the time. Jackpots not included, I'm still up at least 1000 bucks over the past 6 trips. When you break it down hourly, and think about the risk of driving over there, and the time spent that could have been spent doing something else, maybe it wasn't that much.

But, man, I am going to have to wrap my head around all this math you guys do. I just shove money in until it gives it back to me, or go home broke. The idea of getting a cash advance to keep playing would terrify me. (and probably thrill me more than I want to think about.)

I wonder if I should take calculus again...

Most people just want to know what type of "bankroll" they should take with them so they can enjoy a good time gambling without being tapped out. Some others need to reach a certain amount of coin in, so they can get the next tier level or more comps. Others want to be able to play without giving much back to the house.

Then there are the AP's, which look for every advantage they can to get more back then they bet. To us the term "bankroll" is our toolbox, and the money is used to create more money, which gives us bigger and better options to play bigger for more edges.

Depending on what you played, the math dictates that if you do not have an edge, you will eventually go broke. If you have an edge, you will make money over time. If you keep playing $100 over and over again in a -EV machine eventually it will grind down to 0, since every hand you will play against a house edge. Sometimes you will hit something big and make money but keep at it and no matter what you hit, or how often, you will go broke. Whatever the casino deems your expected loss is, they will give you back a portion of it in freeplay, comps, etc. This means your comps will never = more then your expected loss.

There is a discrepancy between what the casino considers expected loss and how much to give you back to get you to come back and lose some more. If you played $50k coin in at casino ABC on a 1% house edge game and they gave you back 10% in mailers, free play, comps then you will be ahead 9% in the long run. They are sending you this in the chance you will come back and keep playing. If you do not give them any more play the free stuff eventually runs out, and you will have to play again. If casino XYZ gave you only 3% back then their expected loss on the same machine is less than casino ABC so they will give you less.

The casinos might differ in how they give you back your portion of expected loss. Some places might give you more free play, or more food comps. Places such as CET gives you a lot of free room offers, but not much of anything else. Other places like locals casinos usually give you only free play or food comps. Some others might place you into free slot tournaments, or free shows.

Quote: ukaserex

I wonder if I should take calculus again...

I never went past pre-calculus in school and feel like I understand casino math well. (That was in college, where all the other students had already taken it in high school, so they had an easy time and I got left behind.)

The most basic equation goes like this:
house has the edge = giving your money away
player has the edge = income

Unfortunately some of the edges you find are so small that you can also include this formula:
income < $6 per hour

Also, for video poker, if you don't hit the jackpot, you will almost certainly be losing after enough hours. So to actually have profit you need enough money to keep playing until you do hit one. There is a formula for it based on multiplying bet size with variance to determine which is most likely to happen first. Rather than trying to learn it, I just put my trust into other sources (such as wizardofodds.com).

If you put $400 into a machine every week that pays back +100% and use perfect strategy and play until you lose or hit a big win, most likely you'll have won money given enough weeks, especially if they give comps and cash back. But will it really be enough to cover even the gas money and that many hours of your time? That's the math problem I like to try to answer

Quote: ukaserex

Am I missing something? I thought we were supposed to just go to the casino with what we could afford to lose and you left with your shirt, it was a good day.

That is a completely fine way to play. I've got $400, I'm going to stick it in the machine and whack buttons until it's gone, and then I go home, maybe having taken a photo of dealt quads while you were harvesting abandoned UTX multipliers ($700 hit, btw, one of the best returns on my free slot play ever, and that was just in the first $10. 3 line BPD 25c - believe it was 2x 2x 3x, dealt queens.), or some other fun thing (hot roll 12x and land an A-3 on your dealt AAA on TDB, maybe? Or DSTP dealt royal with multiplier (on nickels, that's $4000 per line)?)

Other ways to think about it:
I play 1000 rounds per hour, and I'd like to play for 6 hours. How much money will I probably need to do so for a given game?
... If I have a given amount of money, which games might I be able to play for that amount of time?

In order to qualify for a promotion, I need to run $10,000 in coin-in. The promotion is worth $465 to me, so I'd like to lose less than that. For a given game, how much am I likely to lose playing $10k coin in? How long will it probably take, if I play 750 hands/hour, so I can figure out if the play is worthwhile, and if I can fit it all in one gaming day to qualify?


Some people get a royal or two in a lifetime. Some people get a royal every year. Some people get a royal every week. Some people expect to get a royal every day. These various people tend to think about the game a little differently.

Quote: Dieter

That is a completely fine way to play. I've got $400, I'm going to stick it in the machine and whack buttons until it's gone, and then I go home, maybe having taken a photo of dealt quads while you were harvesting abandoned UTX multipliers ($700 hit, btw, one of the best returns on my free slot play ever, and that was just in the first $10. 3 line BPD 25c - believe it was 2x 2x 3x, dealt queens.), or some other fun thing (hot roll 12x and land an A-3 on your dealt AAA on TDB, maybe? Or DSTP dealt royal with multiplier (on nickels, that's $4000 per line)?)

Other ways to think about it:
I play 1000 rounds per hour, and I'd like to play for 6 hours. How much money will I probably need to do so for a given game?
... If I have a given amount of money, which games might I be able to play for that amount of time?

In order to qualify for a promotion, I need to run $10,000 in coin-in. The promotion is worth $465 to me, so I'd like to lose less than that. For a given game, how much am I likely to lose playing $10k coin in? How long will it probably take, if I play 750 hands/hour, so I can figure out if the play is worthwhile, and if I can fit it all in one gaming day to qualify?


Some people get a royal or two in a lifetime. Some people get a royal every year. Some people get a royal every week. Some people expect to get a royal every day. These various people tend to think about the game a little differently.

How do you get a royal everyday? I thought you get a royal every 40,000 hands. So like 2-3 days at the minimum, right?

Quote: Avincow

How do you get a royal everyday? I thought you get a royal every 40,000 hands. So like 2-3 days at the minimum, right?

If you play multi-line games, you can run through 40,000 hands rather quickly.

I've toyed around with the multi-hands - I don't care for them. They're awesome when you're dealt a winner, but when you're not - it's just not that great of a deal, because that 4 of a kind - the return just got split among all the other hands dealt. Fine for a three hand - but when you get into 10 hands...to me, it just dilutes the joy.

(Of course, getting dealt four 8's off the top...well that'd be nice. Or any other quad, or sf. )

Quote: Avincow

How do you get a royal everyday? I thought you get a royal every 40,000 hands. So like 2-3 days at the minimum, right?

One round every 6 seconds (600 per hour) on 25 play gets you there every three hours or so.

I was sitting a next to a woman ("lady" would be... incorrect) one. She was running 10 play deuces on a 4 or 5 second clock, most of the time. Every once in a while, she'd want a switch, and would flip to DB, and then flip back a few minutes later. (I didn't see any cue for her switch, so I'm attributing it to superstition or whim or signals from THEM. No matter, that. a 5 second clock gets you 12 rounds a minute or 720 an hour. On 10 play, that's 7200 hands an hour.

Her sessions seemed to last from "happy hour" (around 5pm) to around midnight; call it 6 hours once we deduct dinner. 7200 times 6 is a bit over 40k.

I have definitely seen people camp out on various 10 line machines for 5+ hours before. At least one was getting cranky after she hit a few royals with good multipliers on UTX - the lockup was cutting into her hands per hour, and the attendant was taking her sweet time coming back with the check.

Talk like this makes me wish I lived closer to the casinos.

On the plus side, I'm a recruiter for a living. I stumbled across my preferred casino's Executive Host on LinkedIn and connected. Met up with him briefly at the casino for a card exchange. I now have more comps than I can spend.

Which is good, because I was up and down over the entire trip. I hit 4 Aces on the $2 machine for $800 twice on one machine within a 30 minute window - and got greedy on the machine next to it. Only hit them once.

It kept giving me 4 cards to a royal (seemingly so). Like it was teasing me. I knew that the more often it gives it, the better my chances for hitting it again - but it just wouldn't hit for me.

I used to think once I got a straight or a flush, it would deny me on the next 2 or 3 4 cards to a straight or 4 cards to a flush - but this machine would given them to me multiple times in a row. I even got 3 full houses in 4 hands. 3 Dealt full houses. Never seen that happen before! It's tough for a greedy idiot like me to walk away from that kind of performance. My 50 credits (100 bucks) went up to like 890 credits but got whittled down to 600 on the yo-yo run while was playing for the Royal. The next day - that machine still showed me some love, just not as much.

Just a darn shame I tried that $5 machine and lost $400 within maybe 2 minutes. Honestly, never had a machine make me a loser 10 hands in a row. I wanted to get more money figuring it was bound to do something, but I know statistically, the chances are the same each hand. (in the back of my head, I'm thinking they *have* to pay off sooner or later, or the gaming commission would cry foul.

Then, I heard someone say that Mississippi's gaming commission are now paid by the casino's - so they don't check anything anymore. One machine could be paying back 125% while the rest are only paying back 50%, as long as the total % is 96.8% ( or whatever the threshold is.)

Quote: ukaserex

Just a darn shame I tried that $5 machine and lost $400 within maybe 2 minutes. Honestly, never had a machine make me a loser 10 hands in a row. I wanted to get more money figuring it was bound to do something, but I know statistically, the chances are the same each hand. (in the back of my head, I'm thinking they *have* to pay off sooner or later, or the gaming commission would cry foul.

Haha, those $5 machines are the worst. I was finishing off a bonus at Bovada and had ~$200 left to play through, so I figured, ok, 8 hands of $5 JoB shouldn't hurt too much.

Yup, 8 straight whiffs.