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Bob Dancer writes a video poker column for beginners to experts. He also writes a column with Jeffrey Compton, "Player's Edge", featuring information on promotions at various Las Vegas casinos. Player's Edge is published each Friday in the Neon section of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Click here to send Bob Dancer an e-mail.

For more details and a schedule of Bob's free classes, visit www.bobdancer.com.

June 03, 2008

Almost an Advantage

As I write this Shirley and I are in mid-Pacific in mid-May, aboard the Royal Caribbean Radiance of the Seas, courtesy of Harrah's New Orleans. The first four days of our cruise visited various Hawaiian Islands and now the ship is headed towards Vancouver so the ship can begin its summer Alaskan runs.

We were selected for the cruise based on our play at various Harrah's properties --- especially New Orleans but not entirely. Last year we got to go to spend ten days cruising the Mediterranean. Next year they're talking about a Panama Canal passage. We'll see.

Harrah's must have gotten a good deal on the cabins since it was bringing along "guaranteed good gamblers." It's likely that the shipboard casino picked up part of the cost. The gambling conditions aboard are dreadful, of course --- typical of a cruise ship. The best video poker is 7/5 Bonus, but that's only if you are playing the $5 denomination or higher. $2 and $1 players get 6/5 Bonus. Quarter players get worse.

Stiffing the casino totally is probably not smart --- even with no good games to play --- assuming we want to be invited next year, which we do. The casino has no slot club, but they are recording your name. Playing basic craps --- i.e. betting the Don't Pass and laying full odds --- single odds on this ship --- will probably suffice. Even betting $50 for the basic bet costs you relatively little per hour in expected value if you play when the table is full.

Basic line bets cost you 1.4% at craps, so a $50 bet on the Don't costs 70¢ on average. Laying odds ($75 on the 5, 6, 8, and 9 and $100 on the 2 and 4) doesn't affect the 70¢ per decision cost --- but is sometimes recorded as part of your "average bet." Also buying in for $5,000 or so makes a noticeable splash even though the betting pattern mentioned here won't come close to losing that much money.

Playing on a slow table might mean 50 decisions per hour --- i.e. an expected loss of $35 per hour. I certainly don't want to play on a fast table where I get a lot of decisions because I have the worst of it. Plus I try to slow things down a bit. Whenever it's my turn to throw the dice, you can bet that I'll take my time, toss the dice off the table at least once, and otherwise try to hit stacks player chips at the other end of the table. It takes time to retrieve the dice and to figure out what everyone's original bets were. (Arguments sometimes break out. These are wonderful, assuming I'm not part of the argument. They slow the table down even more!)

Although losing $35 per hour isn't trivial, here the reward is a $4,000 10-day cruise for two next year so long as we don't stiff them entirely. (You can book the cruise for less, but Harrah's has us in a balcony suite with all tips and port fees prepaid. In addition they give us $100 towards shipboard expenses, gifts every day, and the casino has given us $200 to "get us started." Not a bad package!) The object, of course, is to reduce the number of hands played. If playing zero hands is not an option, at least play as few as possible.

And you can bet that I spoke to all four Harrah's employees who were in the casino while I was playing. It's hard to know who has a vote as to who goes next time. I kiss up to even the low-level employees --- just in case.

Every cruise ship has a daily calendar of events that they place in your cabin the night before. On the night we left our last port in Hawaii the daily calendar announced double jackpots in the casino between 9 a.m. and noon, "on selected machines." Since 7/5 Bonus with an 8,000-coin royal returns 100.3%, I'd much rather play that than 99.6% craps (or whatever the exact amount is for betting the "don't" laying double odds.) And since there were going to be five consecutive "sea days," perhaps this would be offered daily.

It would take awhile to learn 7/5/8,000 Bonus, but I could master it well enough in half an hour or so. (I have Video Poker for Winners with me on my laptop, of course. I wouldn't go to a place where there was going to be gambling without it. To be sure I'm writing this column and others so I have "extra" reason to have it than most others do, but anyone who travels to casino destinations without having it handy is making a mistake.) But I don't want to spend the time learning this game if the promotion doesn't include it.

So I go to the casino as soon as I see the announcement, find the slot director, and pop the question: "Are video poker machines included in the promotion?" He answered in the negative. Oh well. I guess I'll play craps.

This may appear to be a "nothing" sort of column where not much information was imparted. Maybe so, for some. But not everyone is sophisticated gambling-wise and these points may well be important to some of my readers "next time."

1. When you're on a casino cruise awarded by arbitrary methods to their customers, stiffing the casino is a bad idea if you want to go again next year. (If you won the cruise via a drawing or something similar, stiff the casino all you want. Nothing you do this time affects your chances for returning.) And when you do play, make sure you get the most bang for your buck by letting casino and ship employees know you are gambling. If you're forced to play a negative game (typical of cruise ships), play when crowded.

2. Always be on the lookout for promotions in the casino. This time the promotion turned out to be a "false alarm," but it didn't have to be. I wouldn't have known had I not checked. Shipboard casino employees tend to not be as savvy as the ones in Las Vegas casinos. It's not unreasonable to expect some mistakes.

3. Having computer software with you whenever you travel is a smart idea.