My 2020 Gambling Escapade

Heading into 2020 I switched from DDB to BP. Better return at 99.71%. The better return was part of the reason. Less W2G's was the other part. Looking back over the last 2 years and seeing how much in jackpots I had won vs how much I had actually kept I was like "What's the point?" All I was creating for myself was more work come tax season as well as keeping all theses detailed records. My solution was to play a better different game with fewer W2G's. It wasn't as exciting as DDB but I've had enough excitement to last me quite a while. It seemed like a good solution and it seemed to be working.

The first month and a half of this year I was keeping more of my winnings while generating less W2G's. And less wild swings was a nicer bonus as well. Paying 10 on 2 pair does that. And then...

Pay tables got cut 8/5 DSTP BP down to 7/5 On February 13th. They also changed denominations from nickel/quarter/dollar to $1/$2/$5 and added 5 and 10 play to $1 level.

I was done.

I was both happy and upset this happened. Happy because I knew it would ultimately save me money as I had absolutely no intention of ever playing again at National Harbor (beyond collecting free play till it ran out.) And upset because I was making decent progress recouping losses from 2019. Did I think I would get all my losses back, hell no. But I was chipping away at it without wild setbacks. It was a nice change of pace and I wanted to keep riding that wave. It wasn't meant to be though. Oh well. Overall, I had a good run that started in February 2017 till February 2020.

National Harbor then closed on March 15th until it reopened on Monday June 29th to the general public. As a Noir member they had an early opening starting on Friday the 26th. Well, I had no intention of going since my free play was down to $55 and the risk of getting sick didn't seem worth it.

Well, that Sunday afternoon I received an email from a host (not my normal host) there with the following offer:

"Greetings from MGM National Harbor! My name is **** ****, and I wanted to reach out to inform you that I will be your new National Marketing Executive who will be handling your request at our property. We have put many safety measures in place for our guest and employee’s. You can call, text, or email me back with any questions you may have, or anything you may have in mind such as complimentary rooms, dinner reservations, or offers. Also, on your future trip to MGM National Harbor, I will be offering you $500 in free play. Pease let me know at your earliest convenience when you may be interested in visiting."

I guess choosing not to go was a good idea. Now I had $500 in freeplay. But, at the time I still felt the risk outweighed the reward and chose not to go.

On a side note, the player who convinced them to change the denominations and ultimately the pay tables did go that Friday the 26th for early opening. He never got that $500 free play offer. I think they figured since he showed up as soon as they opened he was hooked and needed no enticement. I, however, did not go that opening Friday or Saturday so they thought I did.

I told my friends I wouldn't go back for anything less than $1,000 in free play. My thought was that I would never get that much in free play which means I would never be going back. I was OK with that. I did however always log into my account on Mystery Freeplay days to see what I would get that day. Could get up to $10,000. Never got more than $50 so I didn't have to go for that reason.

Then I get this email from my regular host on August 30:

"I hope all is well! I want to welcome you back to MGM National Harbor! Even if you haven’t been back to see us since our reopening , I want to welcome you back by issuing you $1,000 in FREEPLAY or Promotional Chips ….. as a special gift, from me!"

Well, my first thought was "Oh, I gotta go for this. I'm so incredibly bored with nothing to do."

Of course there is a "HOWEVER".

My license expired over the summer and I was waiting on getting a copy of my birth certificate so I could get a Real ID. I would need that If I ever wanted to board a flight again. Once I got that I made an appointment at the DMV....3 months out! The DMV went to appointment only which means a 2.5 to 3 months scheduling wait time.

I contacted my host explaining it to them. They said they would keep offer open till after October 7th, the date of my DMV appointment. I needed a valid license to get a working players card to access the free play.

To be continued . . .

Quote: cmlotito

I contacted my host explaining it to them. They said they would keep offer open till after October 7th, the date of my DMV appointment. I needed a valid license to get a working players card to access the free play.

To be continued . . .

You don't have a passport?

Quote: rsactuary

You don't have a passport?

Lol. Everyone keeps asking me that. I do not have a passport as I have no intention of ever traveling anywhere outside the country.

I spent some time thinking about what to do with the $1,000 free play.

Option #1
Do I just play it thru once and run? I will admit this was my first thought. I had no intention of returning to a casino where the best game is 9/6 DDB. If I took this route this would essentially burn me in my hosts eyes. Did I care? Well, actually I did just a little bit. I don't know why I did. I mean they were giving me free money to entice me to come back to lose far more. So, not exactly an altruistic motive on their part. Still, it did not seem to be the "fair" thing to do. I know all is fair in love, war, and gambling but it just didn't sit right with me.

Option #2
Just play it at 9/6 DDB down to zero or till I hit a jackpot and stop at whichever comes first. Well, that seemed to be bit more honorable as I would be at least be using my own money once the free play was run thru one time. This option was leading until another idea popped into my head.

Option #3 (The one I did choose, I had over a month to think about this)
Eventually it occurred to me that they still had my game I was playing earlier this year. Yes, it was nerfed down to 7/5 Bonus Poker from 8/5. BUT . . . what if . . . once I run the free play thru once I use what ever is left of it to "offset" the 35 coin payout on the full house that use to be a 40 coin payout. For example, I run the free play thru a game and the $1000 becomes say $910. My "full house bank" starts at $910. Every time I get a full house at 7/5 Bonus Poker I deduct $5 from that bank. If I get a multiplied full house by 3x then I would deduct $15 from the bank. I would play until I either deplete my full house bank or lose what money I brought with me.

Now, let me be the first to type this and say "Chris, that has got to be the stupidest thing you have ever typed on this sight. (Hopefully, I don't get banned for calling myself stupid.) And I wouldn't blame any of you for thinking the same thing.

HOWEVER, . . . from my perspective that free play money was never mine. They gave it to me. I'm just using it to boost the return on the crappy game to temporarily bring it back to the original 99.71% return. And yes I know this is a fallacy but in the finite short run I would consider this a money management scheme. This definitely wouldn't make sense to try it with anything other than free play.

This would provide me an opportunity to play what they had installed back on February 13th . . . $1 10 Play 7/5 DSTP BP. That's $70 a hand and a chance at an $800,000 jackpot. I figured I wouldn't be there more than maybe an hour before I either run out of money or the full house bank gets depleted. In my mind this would give the casino a chance at my money which was all they ever wanted by giving me the free play in the first place and a chance for me to give them a big middle finger by hitting a game that I don't think they realize how big of a payout it is capable of.

Challenge accepted.

To be continued . . .

October 7, 2020

My appointment day for my license renew finally arrived. Got to the DMV early. Appointment time came. Had all proper paper work. Took the eye exam and silently curse to myself as 8 of the 12 letters were blurry. The outside 4 letters on each side were challenging but I successfully guessed and got my renewal! I guess my progressive lenses were the cause. Didn't matter. I had my license.

I went and picked up a friend and we went to National Harbor.

It was standard fair. Same machines as back in March with same crappy pay tables. Some banks had all machines turned on with plexiglass dividers in between while other banks have 2 consecutive machines deactivated.

I had a total of $1095 in free play to use. $1,000 from my host, $70 from weekly (for some reason they bumped me up to $70 from $55 a week, probably because I never returned since reopening) and $25 for electing free play instead of the weekly crappy bakeware gift.

Now, I had been thinking about what to do with it long before I got there. If I did 96 DDB that could swing wildly even running thru once. I know almost all of you would say play the highest return game variance be damned. But, I discussed this with another friend and he and I agreed to see if they had 75 bonus poker on a 50 or 100 play machine. More hands played would get me closer to expectation. Normally I would never do this with free play.

HOWEVER

This was not a normal situation to me. This was going to be a one and done trip that is almost entirely funded by the casino's money (the $1,000 free play from my host.) So, varying from my normal operating procedures was ok with me.

As it turned out there was no 75 bonus poker on those machines. I went with my backup plan of 96 DDB. And wouldn't you know $1,095 divided by 15 equals 73. And that means 73 deals at $1 triple play 96 DDB was the way to go.

I managed this little gem.


Now I had a full house bank that had $1,635 in it to offset the reduced payout on the full house. It was time to invest my own money. Of course this is where the risk comes in. It would now be like playing pre pay table nerf until the bank runs out. I then stop and go home. I could easily lose a few thousand dollars as I have done just that on the game before. This bank just evens the playing field while it is funded. Ya never know what could happen.

To be continued . . .

Why 9/6 ddb instead of 9/7 db?
Higher return and lower variance.

Or did they remove them from the 2nd floor?

Quote: 100xOdds

Why 9/6 ddb instead of 9/7 db?
Higher return and lower variance.

Or did they remove them from the 2nd floor?

97 DB is still there.

I only ever played 97 DB seriously for about a month in 2017. I did not like getting 4AWAK and only getting 800 vs 2000. I'm funny that way sometimes. I did however get my only $20,000 single line Royal Flush playing that.



I played tons of $5 single line late 2017. Before I discovered the dual edged sword that is DSTP.

Let the play begin. . .

On the 165th deal I continued to fail in my quest to get a 5 of a kind in a non wild game.


217 Deals later pulled a quad off a pair with a nice multiplier.


Finally, 298 deals later and 323,655 deals (at National Harbor, which I feel I need to specify as I did play a fair amount of 25 cent single line at Horseshow Baltimore late 2019 which I was unable to calculate an exact amount of deals) since my last dealt Royal Flush, I get the 5th Dealt Royal Flush of my life.


I had Just hit deal and picked up my drink to quickly take a sip as I had my mask off. Just as I took a sip I realized what happened and had to focus as to not spit it out all over the machine. I set my drink down and picked up my phone. I then fumbled the buttons trying to get the camera active. Took a nice blurry selfie video of my left hand for 2 seconds before I was able to get the correct video mode enabled and begin recording.

You can see the video here https://youtu.be/kHmcbxzkm2w

The mathematically challenged voice you hear in the video is a friend of mine that was with me.

Nice hit!

Quote: cmlotito

Finally, 298 deals later and 323,655 deals (at National Harbor, which I feel I need to specify as I did play a fair amount of 25 cent single line at Horseshow Baltimore late 2019 which I was unable to calculate an exact amount of deals) since my last dealt Royal Flush, I get the 5th Dealt Royal Flush of my life.


I had Just hit deal and picked up my drink to quickly take a sip as I had my mask off. Just as I took a sip I realized what happened and had to focus as to not spit it out all over the machine. I set my drink down and picked up my phone. I then fumbled the buttons trying to get the camera active. Took a nice blurry selfie video of my left hand for 2 seconds before I was able to get the correct video mode enabled and begin recording.

You can see the video here https://youtu.be/kHmcbxzkm2w

The mathematically challenged voice you hear in the video is a friend of mine that was with me.

what? no multiplier on the redraw either?
why do the vp gods hate you? :)

congrats!

Have your plans changed?
are you going to add this $40k to your full house bank roll? or walk away right now? or..?

and woah.. you were down to $280?!

Quote: cmlotito

I did play a fair amount of 25 cent single line at Horseshoe Baltimore late 2019

they nerfed the 9/6 JoB years ago.
didnt know they still had good vp.

what did you play at Horseshoe Baltimore?

I was up about 2k after first 2 jackpots then had to go into my own pocket till I hit that. I have $1,100 left in my dumb ass full house bank. The entire time I was rooting for full houses. The first two times I got dealt 2 pair I whiffed on all 20 hands. I did get dealt a full house with a 2x multiplier so that knocked off $100 in 1 hand.

Going back this Tuesday. I will play my $105 free play first at triple play $1 DDB. Winnings will be added to the full house bank. Then I will play and stop when I either run out of money I bring with me for the day, deplete the full house bank to $0 or get ahead $500 or more. I'm ok with any outcome at this point. But, I will say the best outcome, barring another dealt royal, is for me to get dealt some full houses with big multipliers to end this journey I have been taking at National Harbor. I rather enjoyed not doing anything gambling related since March.

Quote: 100xOdds

they nerfed the 9/6 JoB years ago.
didnt know they still had good vp.

what did you play at Horseshoe Baltimore?

I was playing 95 DDB 25 cent progressive on quads and royal. A negative game. But they were giving me tons of free bets and free play last 2 months of 2019 that I would occasionally throw $100 at this just to pass the time. Return % was not as good as 96 but not as bad as 95 due to progressives.

I even got my first and only jackpot there playing free play.

They deactivated the ability to play free play on almost all of their video poker....almost all. They left it available to play on 4 or 5 (i forget exact number) machines. When I started to go in November 2019 you could use free play on most of the video poker there. When I hit this it was down to just those few machines.

This was the best it ever got when I played there. The Royal Flush got up to $1,529.76

I could only muster 4 aces. But that got me ahead so I left. I had played for a few hours after having worked an 8 hour day and was tired. When I went back a couple days later it was hit.

I have had multiple dealt Royal Flushes but never on a multi-hand game. Sadly, I don't play much anymore so I will probably never get one.

Quote: DRich

I have had multiple dealt Royal Flushes but never on a multi-hand game. Sadly, I don't play much anymore so I will probably never get one.

I got lucky not just because it was dealt but because I could have just as easily gotten it playing 5 play quarter last year or 10 play nickel (which I dabbled in.) That would have been far worse than not getting a multiplier on this one.

I went yesterday and lost.

Here is the breakdown:

Well over 1000 deals.
Over a 13% loss rate at 7/5 DSTP BP

Only one AAAA for $400 non multiplied
Several, I don't recall how many, but it wasn't a lot, non multiplied $200 sets of quad 2's, 3's, and 4's, NONE MULTIPLIED.

One 5x $125 quad for $625
Two 3 x $125 quads for $375
Three 2x $125 quad for $250

No jackpots. Best one hand payout was $840

I can't be upset even though it was a blood bath. I played for two trips on that $1,000 free play offer and still have enough of it to do some repairs around the house and get a small bathroom remodeled.

I doubt they will ever see this, but I would like to formally thank my host.

I'll be waiting for my next $1,000+ free play offer at National Harbor. If it never comes, I'm ok with that.

I finished out 2020 just collecting free play in November and December. I did not want to play any more as my agi was nearing a limit I did not want to exceed for tax purposes.

I suppose I should start a 2021 thread soon. It's been an interesting year so far.

Quote: cmlotito

I finished out 2020 just collecting free play in November and December. I did not want to play any more as my agi was nearing a limit I did not want to exceed for tax purposes.

I suppose I should start a 2021 thread soon. It's been an interesting year so far.

what i dont understand when you - lets call it grinding - when you are grinding you sit at a machine and you assume it will "cycle" through a period.

Is it possible to get the "same" result, or do you assume that you will get a "fair" "runthrough" so to say where you know you are running through the entire period and it will hit each individual result that is possible by the machine?

Quote: heatmap

what i dont understand when you - lets call it grinding - when you are grinding you sit at a machine and you assume it will "cycle" through a period.

Is it possible to get the "same" result, or do you assume that you will get a "fair" "runthrough" so to say where you know you are running through the entire period and it will hit each individual result that is possible by the machine?

Video poker is streaky. At times frustratingly so. Sometimes I will stay at the same machine until i win or lose. Other times I'll get up and move to another machine. I've done better and worse both ways so it doesn't really matter In my opinion.

As far as waiting for a cycle to complete I don't think I've ever had a specific hand like a royal flush be exactly x number of hands between getting them. If a royal comes once every 40,000 hands I might get two a 5 or 6 thousand hands apart or go 80,000 plus hands in between royals. Hence the streakiness.

Quote: cmlotito

I finished out 2020 just collecting free play in November and December. I did not want to play any more as my agi was nearing a limit I did not want to exceed for tax purposes.

I suppose I should start a 2021 thread soon. It's been an interesting year so far.

so you're just playing the freeplay and not much additional gambling?
how much lower is the free play now?

Quote: 100xOdds

so you're just playing the freeplay and not much additional gambling?
how much lower is the free play now?

I play some 96 DDB single and multi line. Not heavy but not light gambling. Freeplay is down to $30 a week. Just biding my time until a return trip to Vegas. Hopefully later this year.