The Hourly Wages of Sin

I was looking at my win/loss total over the last two years and decided to do a quick calculation on how I am doing on an hourly basis. Factoring in travel time to/from the casinos it works out that I am earning a whopping $9.21/hr. Nice that I'm in the black but its nicer to know I still have my day job to pay for the groceries.
Curious to know if anybody manages to come close to a decent hourly wage when all expenses and time spent are factored in.

Quote: TumblingBones

I was looking at my win/loss total over the last two years and decided to do a quick calculation on how I am doing on an hourly basis. Factoring in travel time to/from the casinos it works out that I am earning a whopping $9.21/hr. Nice that I'm in the black but its nicer to know I still have my day job to pay for the groceries.
Curious to know if anybody manages to come close to a decent hourly wage when all expenses and time spent are factored in.

Yes i do quite better than that hourly with or without factoring in travel time

Curious if u had a $9.25 per hour job would u factor in travel and time expenditures and arrive at the conclusion you only make $4.35 an hour

No one i know working for small wages does that. Why should you in comparing the two?

Quote: darkoz

Yes i do quite better than that hourly with or without factoring in travel time

Curious if u had a $9.25 per hour job would u factor in travel and time expenditures and arrive at the conclusion you only make $4.35 an hour

No one i know working for small wages does that. Why should you in comparing the two?

It depends on the number of commutes to and from casinos he needs to make in a week. If it is 5 simple to a casino and back to home trips then that is equivalent to what most workers do. If he has to drive to 3 or 4 different casinos in a day then the inter-casino driving time should be factored in.

I sometimes work 7a-3p, but also sometimes work 3p-7a. If I do the 3p-7a shift I only have 1 round trip of driving per 16 hours of work. It is a slight factor in why I sometimes prefer that shift to the two 7a-3p shifts it replaces.

I've worked as a consultant for 27 years charging my clients an hourly rate. If a project requires travel then the meter starts running as soon as I walk out my door, the justification being if I have to spend hours on a plane or train for their project I am unable to do any work for other clients. You are probably correct that somebody working for small wages wouldn't do this but its pretty common for professional consulting situations.
Bottom line is that your time is a valuable resource. If you are factoring in gas and tolls, you should also consider the time spent in traffic IMHO.

By the way, just to clarify... I only gamble for fun and have no expectation of making significant $$$. But if I did, that''s how I would approach the calculation.

Not many recreational activities will pay you anything per hour.
I'd be happy if my following the Yankees and NY Giants paid me even $5 a day.

Quote: billryan

Not many recreational activities will pay you anything per hour.

Agreed. I'm just kind of curious what the members of the forum who view gambling as a profession, rather than an entertainment, would estimate as their hourly income.

Quote: TumblingBones

Agreed. I'm just kind of curious what the members of the forum who view gambling as a profession, rather than an entertainment, would estimate as their hourly income.

when I was unemployed for a few months, I was making $15/hr playing poker. (yeah, I know.. small sample size.)
now that I'm back to being employed, I'm making $5/hr playing poker.

even though im making less, im having MUCH more fun playing

Quote: TumblingBones

I've worked as a consultant for 27 years charging my clients an hourly rate. If a project requires travel then the meter starts running as soon as I walk out my door, the justification being if I have to spend hours on a plane or train for their project I am unable to do any work for other clients. You are probably correct that somebody working for small wages wouldn't do this but its pretty common for professional consulting situations.
Bottom line is that your time is a valuable resource. If you are factoring in gas and tolls, you should also consider the time spent in traffic IMHO.

By the way, just to clarify... I only gamble for fun and have no expectation of making significant $$$. But if I did, that''s how I would approach the calculation.

So while you were relaxing watching seinfeld and the latest oceans eleven film on your flight you were charging your consultant clients

Cool hustle!

I used to ride to AC with my friend in his company provided town car. Along the way, he would make a three or four minute call to a client, thus making the trip billable.
Great work if you can find it.
The value of time often comes up, but if you weren't in traffic for an hour each way to the casino, would that time be used in revenue gathering mode or television watching mode? If travel time cuts into your income stream, it matters. If it doesn't , why should it count?
I wake up on Monday and watch TV for eight hours.
I wake up on Tuesday and ride the bus to and from AC for eight hours.
Why include one set in my profit/loss reckoning but not the other.
Now, if I take off from work and lose out on $200 for the day in order to go to a casino, that time and money should be factored in.
That is how I view it.

Quote: billryan

The value of time often comes up, but if you weren't in traffic for an hour each way to the casino, would that time be used in revenue gathering mode or television watching mode? If travel time cuts into your income stream, it matters. If it doesn't , why should it count?

Yup, that's pretty much my take too. I'm not going to bill for the time I spend eating a meal while traveling since I would be doing that regardless of location. As to your buddy's 4 minute call scam, I wouldn't do that either. I would bill for the 4 minutes only as the trip has no business purpose (i.e., wasn't at clients request).

We seem to have drifted from the original Q of whether anybody feels they've even come close to making a decent wage as an AP.

What he would do is get a list of people who had called from his assistant and call them back. Thus, at least in his mind, the trip was partly company business.

Quote: TumblingBones

Yup, that's pretty much my take too. I'm not going to bill for the time I spend eating a meal while traveling since I would be doing that regardless of location. As to your buddy's 4 minute call scam, I wouldn't do that either. I would bill for the 4 minutes only as the trip has no business purpose (i.e., wasn't at clients request).

We seem to have drifted from the original Q of whether anybody feels they've even come close to making a decent wage as an AP.

I make quite a lot. Enough that people on here sometimes dont believe me wen i say how much

I've met some pretty intelligent people through these boards. When they run off out of state to pursue an advantage someone turned up, I assume they make a good living doing it. Despite the way they dress and the cars they drive.
Myself, I'm slightly in the black the last year, maybe fifty cents an hour, give or take a dime.

Heck, you play the game you like in the manner that you like betting the amounts that you like, so you might as well do your acccounting in whatever manner you choose.

I think it would be reasonable to consider travel times and any 'excess' meal costs, such as eating at an expensive casino rather than a cheaper one. I would add in parking expenses, time of actual play, time of any sort of 'image shaping' behavior, tips, etc.

One guy who owned a store said that upstairs in my old pushcart, everything else is profit.

Short term, long term.... I keep telling the roulette wheel about that stuff. It doesn't listen to me.

Gambling involves a never ending cost / benefit analysis, at least for those not pathologically addicted.

Just as with any hobby, if the pleasure netted is less than the expense, better drop it.

It just seems like a slippery slope to start including travel time. As in time away from home?

So if i stay overnight in Vegas or ac i need to count the 8 hours i slept in the hotel as business hours

If i go shopping in ac for few hours?

Juat saying i walked out the door pf my house now im on the clock seems ridiculous

Unless you are doing three roundtrip China Town buses to AC to ake advantage of the $20fare/32 coin back, I wouldn't include travel time in my hourly.

Quote: billryan

Unless you are doing three roundtrip China Town buses to AC to ake advantage of the $20fare/32 coin back, I wouldn't include travel time in my hourly.

Oh the memories!!$

Actually never did ac from chinatown it was the sands in Pa from chinatown 3 times a day

$18 got u $45 freeplay. Three times a day using vbj to turn it around was about a $100 per day profit

I would say that no one is going to put their hourly rate. I can say that I have a nice six figure "job" that requires at a minimum 2000 hours per year, last year was closer to 2500 hours. I have a couple of serious AP side gigs that require about 16 hours per week including travel time and I am on track to double my income this year. Starting to make me wonder why I even want a normal job.
Some plays the hourly is rediculous but those come with a lot of what ifs and you usually wind up having to jump thru hoops to get paid once the casino catches on. Figures from this type of play is not included in the above. Bottom line is most professional AP's don't view what they do as a job. They determine what they need, develop a plan, implement the plan, and do what they gotta do to get where they want to go.
Some AP's are more successful than others. The ones who don't have leaks, a strong commitment to the craft, and good work ethic will be the more successful by outward appearances even though they may not be the best or most astute at the craft.

best game at particular casino is 99.2% vp.
multiplier day = .8% cash back
comp rate = .1%

so i'll be +.1% for that day.
guess im getting old and will be skipping it. (50k coin-in = $50 theo profit but in food comps. I can only eat so much)

Quote: MaxPen

I would say that no one is going to put their hourly rate. I can say that I have a nice six figure "job" that requires at a minimum 2000 hours per year, last year was closer to 2500 hours.
I have a couple of serious AP side gigs that require about 16 hours per week including travel time and I am on track to double my income this year. Starting to make me wonder why I even want a normal job.

now you're making me think about going to a casino where a little old lady plays $1 Ult X 10play every weds around 1am.
she plays multiple games and leaves 2x/3x multipliers all over the place (bp, deuces wild, db, ddb).

loved her when I was unemployed and playing poker to survive.
but after getting a 6figure job, I thought it wasn't worth the 2hr round trip plus being dead at work in the morning.

now you're making me begin to rethink that...

So I'm new at this AP thing and still learning. I hope I'm not being too honest.

I've been at it for ~326 hours so far and I'm making about $25 per hour. Now, sometimes I do just play game with - EV for fun and if I take my "party hours" and wins / losses out, I'm closer to $35 per hr when sticking to +EV tactics.

Sometimes I even buy drinks and rooms, but I treat that more like a withdrawal or a divendend. Gambling (I hate that word) operations income, which is simply the time I spend either scouting or betting is all I count in my hourly calculation.

I work next door to two casinos, so I just go on lunch breaks and a few extra hours here and there. Home to casino is about 20 minutes. Lunch breaks are about 5 minutes each way. Every once in a while I do drive about 40 minutes each way to a casino that has more opportunities... When I have time. Either way, I consider gas and car maintenance sunk costs.

I'm convinced I could make a higher hourly, but I'm worried I'd burn out the local casinos. I mean, it's not my full time gig, and I enjoy doing it part time, but I think full time would burn me out. Also, my full time gig gets me better than 2/3 of the way to state level 1 percenter status for my state, so why push it?!?

The other thing worth mentioning is that one trip, I was there about 30 minutes and walked away with $4400 profit from a +EV move... $13 / hr of my total hourly rate is one trip that lasted 30 minutes... So that one half hour could be making my hourly look high as a result of variance. On the other hand, I've lost $1k in just over an hour with + EV plays, so maybe it all balances out in the end. Who knows... I'll find out as I log more hours. I'm thinking roughly $10 / hr in outliers, + or -, could be in there somewhere.

Bottom line... Read the books... Surf the forums... Think about what you are seeing and how you might play what you see. Then look for better plays. Then rack up hours. Math works, and you don't need to sweat that part if you have enough money to ride out variance.

One last thing... A 1% edge sucks bad unless you have a lot more money than I do or you can knock variance down to non-existent... I can't figure out how to knock variance down to non-existent and I have more than my fair share of income.

I wish you luck, but hope you don't need it.

Quote: 100xOdds

Quote: MaxPen

I would say that no one is going to put their hourly rate. I can say that I have a nice six figure "job" that requires at a minimum 2000 hours per year, last year was closer to 2500 hours.
I have a couple of serious AP side gigs that require about 16 hours per week including travel time and I am on track to double my income this year. Starting to make me wonder why I even want a normal job.

now you're making me think about going to a casino where a little old lady plays $1 Ult X 10play every weds around 1am.
she plays multiple games and leaves 2x/3x multipliers all over the place (bp, deuces wild, db, ddb).

loved her when I was unemployed and playing poker to survive.
but after getting a 6figure job, I thought it wasn't worth the 2hr round trip plus being dead at work in the morning.

now you're making me begin to rethink that...

I like that lady too. I miss $2 10 play ult x.

Quote: darkoz

Actually never did ac from chinatown it was the sands in Pa from chinatown 3 times a day

$18 got u $45 freeplay. Three times a day using vbj to turn it around was about a $100 per day profit

I'm not sure if it an urban legend or not, but I often heard a Chinese gang was organizing adult day care and putting elderly Chinese people on these buses.
Get them out of the house and off their kids hands for the day. Get forty people riding the bus all day and you are pulling in a couple hundred a day ,seven days a week, as well as charging the kids for daycare.
I do know that one trip, from Flushing, they stamped my hand. When I asked why, they said only one bonus per day.

I don’t figure my income “per hour,” but rather “per year.” I also don’t know exactly what to count as hours.

I have “related jobs” such as teaching classes, writing articles, and a radio podcast that most of you don’t have. Those yield a positive revenue stream but eat up hours. Still, doing all that related stuff makes me a better player at my “main job” which is playing video poker. And the related things keep me in Vegas for most of the year. If I traveled regularly there would be more opportunities.

Whoever complained about a 1% edge at blackjack eating him up, video poker players usually deal with smaller edges than that --- with a bigger variance game. And video poker opportunities are drying up everywhere --- including Vegas.

I average low six figures (including the “related jobs”) but 3 of my last 10 years have been negative. If you need the money to live on, video poker is a tough way to do it. If you have the bankroll to ride out some losing years, some people can still do well with the game. But not nearly so many as could do so in the past. And the comps are not nearly so generous as they used to be.

Quote: BobDancer

If you need the money to live on, video poker is a tough way to do it. If you have the bankroll to ride out some losing years, some people can still do well with the game. But not nearly so many as could do so in the past. And the comps are not nearly so generous as they used to be.

thats why after getting 5fgiures in w2-g in a day in vp, I decided to be a flea and stop gambling for the year.
just go for the free food at diamond lounges plus get whatever freeplay/gifts.
then on jan 1, do $50k coin-in (aka Diad).
and hopefully freeplay/gifts return (at least for a short while).

there are many other forms of entertainment out there.
if the casinos didn't cut back on comps, that gambling profits would be going back to the casino.
instead, it's financing other fun.

I get RFB comps when I go to Vegas. Still, when you factor in gas for travel, 10 hours on the road round trip, the fact that I practice playing blackjack 10 times more than I actually play it--even if you add in extra play cash, promos, free slot play, etc., I still don't make much on a per hour basis.

But I have a juicy offer coming up: $200 in free slot play, two free nights and $100 food credit.