South Point Video Poker Claim

Recently saw a billboard for South Point Casino advertising "10,000 over 99% payback video pokers. . ."

Couple questions: (1) What is the definition of video pokers? My guess is they mean games, because I don't think they have 10,000 video poker machines on property.

(2) Does SP have 10,000 video poker games? The wizard's review of SP indicates there are almost 3,000 slot machines at SP, I am not sure if this includes video poker machines. However, a rough calculation would suggest that if a given video poker machine has 10 different games then they would at least need 1000 video poker machines to get to the 10,000 games. If SP is counting each denomination on the machine as a different game then they may need far less video poker machines depending on the number of denominations on a given game.

I think this is misleading to say the least and would be curious to see the proof to back this claim.

Good question. Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer to it. I think Bob Dancer quotes this claim on our show every week so I'll ask him about it.

Did the billboard ad have a claim that said "Not An Agency"?

With all the Hype and Lies in Vegas, this seems rather modest. The slot machines at Dottys all seem to offer a great variety of games that a player can select but I've never seen any ad that multiplied the machines by the games available to obtain some Hyped-Description. Why South Point would do it, I don't know.

Is a person who PLAYS Video Poker referred to as a Video Poker? Do they mean they have over ten thousand people who play video poker? To me, ONE slot machine capable of playing TEN different types of VP games is still only ONE slot machine. And one slot machine played at 25cents or the same slot machine played at one dollar is but ONE game on ONE machine.

Who is the drink consultant at South Point that can help me get Drink Service at a VP machine? Who can get me passed that darned red rope without having to tip the doorman a C-note or have two dynamite looking broads with me in order to play Video Poker? Or am I confusing the excessive hype that takes place in Vegas?

Quote: FleaStiff

Is a person who PLAYS Video Poker referred to as a Video Poker?

No they are called Video Pokerers

They count multiple games on one machine. I'm not sure if they count denominations as well. It is very possible that there are 1,000 video poker machines at South Point.

For what its worth, I think the plural should be videos poker :)

Quote: teddys

They count multiple games on one machine. I'm not sure if they count denominations as well. It is very possible that there are 1,000 video poker machines at South Point.

I imagine that to get to 10,000, they'd have to be counting all denominations.

I would've gone with something like "10,000 99%+ video poker options"

Quote: teddys

For what its worth, I think the plural should be videos poker :)

this made me smile. If a machine has 8 games available in 5 denominations it seems fair to call that 40 games. you have 40 different options,

Quote: bigfoot66

If a machine has 8 games available in 5 denominations it seems fair to call that 40 games. you have 40 different options,

If a casino offers one blackjack table with betting limits from $25 to $1000, would it be fair for them to say that they have 976 blackjack games?

Forty different options for eight games. Its like having eight pools... how deep you want to enter them is up to you, but there are only eight pools. And only one person can play at that machine...whether it has eight games or one game.

Public relations hype. Good for billboards. Good for public relations hacks.

Not particularly good for the players and not particularly stellar examples of honesty and forthrightness.

You can't imagine Benny Binion ever saying something like that! And if Benny Binion would not have said it then, it probably should not be said now.

A good gamble, a good steak and a good stiff drink... hold that salad nonsense, hold that olives or umbrella nonsense and hold that hype 'bout a super great fantastic gamble. It ain't a super great gamble, its just a good one! We give people a fair shake, we don't lie to them and pretend to give them our whole hand and arm. We just give them a fair shake and are honest and up-front about it. And if it turns out they are not honest and up-front with us, we give them their chips ... and tell them to be gone...for good!

How can we expect our customers to be honest with us if we are not honest with them.

About as fair as the AC advertising campaign about 5 years ago, tv and billboards, stating Single Deck Blackjack was back.
Of course no mention it was 6 to 5, even in the small print. LOL

This should be illegal.

Does subway claim to have a million different sandwiches? No.
Where do you draw the line?

That was not Benny Binions doing. Had Benny Binion been alive at the time his marquee would have read "No XXXXXXXXXXXX 6:5 XXXXX here. Not ever!" Only Benny Binion would not have used "X"s.

Quote: JB

If a casino offers one blackjack table with betting limits from $25 to $1000, would it be fair for them to say that they have 976 blackjack games?

Nope, more than that. You can always throw a $2.50 chip in to top off your bet. Only kidding.

Quote: JB

If a casino offers one blackjack table with betting limits from $25 to $1000, would it be fair for them to say that they have 976 blackjack games?

Only if they made the claim that they have 976 blackjackers.

Sorta like an all you can eat buffet, where if you go back for seconds, they say " NO. That's all you can eat ! "

Quote: JB

If a casino offers one blackjack table with betting limits from $25 to $1000, would it be fair for them to say that they have 976 blackjack games?

this is a really silly comparision and if this is the best you got then I have already won this argument. $5 JoB is very different from $1 JoB, and they appeal to different people because they are DIFFERENT GAMES. The exact same people play $5 BJ as play $10 BJ and a lot of people bet different amounts on different hands over the course of a session, in fact intelligent BJ demands it. Unless you are Rob Singer, intelligent VP players usually will play one paytable at one denomination over and over for the same session and very few players skip around from a nickel game to a half dollar game, then to quarters, now lets play the $10 game...doesnt happen. Many BJ players flat bet but plenty of people at your $25 game might bet anywhere from 1-6 green chips per hand over the course of an hour.

In other words, the denomination of a VP machine is fixed and defines the game more than table limits at BJ.

Quote: bigfoot66

this is a really silly comparision and if this is the best you got then I have already won this argument. $5 JoB is very different from $1 JoB, and they appeal to different people because they are DIFFERENT GAMES.

I disagree, unless the two denominations have different paytables. If not, then the rules and strategy are exactly the same. Likewise, someone betting $50 at the same blackjack table as someone who is betting $10 are two people that are playing the exact same game. Just because person A has to bet 5 times as much as person B to get the same level of enjoyment does not magically make it a different game.

Yeah, I think it's deceptive. Welcome to the world of advertising.

For what it's worth, Bob Dancer needed to make a retraction on one of the radion shows (before the Wizard was co-host), because the previous week, he said "machines" instead of "games" when doing the South Point commercial.

It was an honest mistake of an error when reading the advertising copy, so I do not blame Bob Dancer. But should South Point be punished for being deceptive? If so, shouldn't all of the retail world be punished for pricing items as $xx.99 ?


Bottom line, whatever claim is made must be approved by the NGC, right? If Gaming said the claim is acceptable, that's the end of the argument.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Bottom line, whatever claim is made must be approved by the NGC, right? If Gaming said the claim is acceptable, that's the end of the argument.

No... the NGC claims oversight rights to all advertising claims but does not exercise any prior restraint or prior blue-penciling of radio scripts; it only acts upon complaints formally brought to their attention.

Various members of this forum have differing views as to what is full and fair disclosure and what is mere advertising puffery. I've often felt the industry is simply too lax partly because they know that ignorance and inebriation are great money-makers for them, even though everyone talks about Basic Strategy and Optimal Play. Some woman focusing on getting drunk and having drunk sex even if it includes a three-some with a stranger she picks up in an elevator is probably not too familiar with gambling theory but might indeed be described as being familiar with optimal play depending upon one's views on such matters.

For some of these idiots thronging to Club Bottle Service or Club Clip Joint, its possible to consider Blackjack to be a Loss Leader. If a taxicab driver gets a minimum of two hundred dollars for bringing a man to Suite 145, Video Poker is a Loss Leader.

The Gaming authority has authority only over the Games, the licensed dealers, key executives and owners. It has no authority over the operation of bars, clubs, movies, arcades and the like other than the authority it exercises over the casino licensee. I know of no survey that has ever shown how many sober experts there are gambling versus how many drunken neophytes there are or what is in between those two extremes, but I fear inebriation and ignorance are too profitable for advertising to ever become truly informative.

Quote: FleaStiff

No... the NGC claims oversight rights to all advertising claims but does not exercise any prior restraint or prior blue-penciling of radio scripts; it only acts upon complaints formally brought to their attention.

Hmmm... Understood.

However, I do not find fault in South Point's "advertising puffery." It doesn't take an inventory audit to tell that they don't have poker 10,000 machines. Hell, it doesn't take an inventory audit to tell that they don't have 10,000 machines of any type. Therefore, I think it's fair to say that it's and acceptable claim. I.E. Unless you're the type to be fooled by a retail price of $xx.99, or to think that 6:5 is better than 3:2, you won't be fooled by the advertising.

That said, if someone wanted to convince me otherwise, I STILL wouldn't find fault with Bob Dancer for repeating the claim every week, or for at least one time, mistakenly saying "machines" rather than "games".

Quote: DJTeddyBear

... it doesn't take an inventory audit to tell that they don't have 10,000 machines of any type.

I am reminded of that Bally's billboard advertising their show "Jubilee". It has a picture of a showgirl with the caption, "10,000 sequins covering practically nothing!"

I've never felt the need to count the sequins.

I'm sure you would be distracted and lose count quite often. I'd worry about any man who did focus on the sequins! Talk about the difficulty in counting cards, try counting sequins under such distracting circumstances.

After all its a festive town, an adult Disneyland, its not a place for fine print but it is a place for fundamental honesty.

Claims of beauty made by a strip club are not a matter for the courts. Claims about a sequin deficit entitle the complainant to a refund only on the basis of pity, not fraud.

And when it comes to honest John's used car lot, it doesn't make much difference between Best Deal in the World versus Best Deal in the Universe: no one really believes either claim.

Dotty is conservative in her descriptions, South Point is a bit overly liberal in their descriptions. The Player is still free to choose either casino. No damages for a loose interpretation of statistics.

Quote: FleaStiff

Claims about a sequin deficit entitle the complainant to a refund only on the basis of pity, not fraud.

Wow. What a great way to put it! LOL

I am reading Jean Scott's "More Frugal Gambling". On page 102 of the paper back she writes "Take a machine that has 12 games, each with a different paytable. Add to that the fact that you can play each game in 8 denominations, from a nickel to $25, with more changes to paytables. You now have 96 different games in just this one spot!" This reminded me of this thread. Jean Scott used the same counting method as the South Point did to make their conteoversial claim.

Go scout Video Poker at any given casino the size of South Point to determine the best game available and come back stating denomination and game variant and bank and machines in a bank aren't "different games."

At South Point, one can always find a slant with 9/6 Jacks and NSU Deuces. Nobody else comes close. They might not have the absolute best games, but the claim is >99% payback.

I'll bet $100 even that you can meet me at South Point on any day, at any time, even a holiday, even a 3X point day, and I can sit my butt down at a VP machine that pays > 99% at 25c or higher inside of 2 minutes. I might even say > 99.5%. I might even go as high as > 99.7%

Trying to call out South Point on this one is just silly. They have >99% VP literally everywhere you look.

Even if they said they had 100 TRILLION Video Pokers paying >99% it would really only matter if you went out of your way to go there and couldn't sit down at something paying >99% right?

I'll add my name to the list of those saying the 10,000 figure is kind of silly. What I'd rather see is a percentage of games paying over 99%.

Would you count different denominations on the same machine with the same pay table as a "game" for the purposes of percentage calculation?