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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.

Dec. 02, 2008

Best Casino Versus the Best Results

I teach classes at the South Point, which is the casino that has my vote for the best video poker in Las Vegas. Lifetime-to-date, however, my score is negative at that casino. To some, this sounds like a paradox. How can I say a casino has the best video poker while personally having not-so-good results there?

Easy. To me, whether a casino has good video poker or not relates to the pay schedules on its games, the slot club, the monthly mailers, and the promotions. If there are a variety of different games on a sizeable number of machines where competent players can come out ahead, then this is a casino with excellent video poker. The South Point passes this test with flying colors.

My personal results there aren't particularly relevant. There will ALWAYS be players with better than average results at a particular casino and there will ALWAYS be players with worse than average results. Which of those categories I'm in so far affects my year-to-date score, but it has no bearing whatsoever on whether I'll want to play there in the future. Where I've been "luckier" or "unluckier" than average in the past isn't a good predictor of where I'll have good results in the future.

At the Rio, for example, with a small amount of play on a large machine last year I hit a $240,000 royal flush. I was ahead before the royal flush and WAY ahead after. Shortly afterwards the casino removed all bonus reward credits from 9/6 Jacks or Better machines. The way their slot club is structured means that the house has much too large an edge on every machine there. It was my biggest score in 2007 but I believe the Rio now has lousy video poker.

This year something similar happened at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas. They had a too-good-to-resist American Express promotion in April and several strong players, including me, jumped on it and a few of us had very good results there. They promptly removed good machines and decided not to market to several strong players, including me. Their video poker inventory is now much tighter than what it was and is no longer competitive with other Las Vegas locals casinos. I'm more ahead there than anywhere else this year, but their games and marketing strategy now make them a video poker wasteland in my opinion.

What brought this subject up was a conversation I was having with some friends about Harrah's New Orleans. Shirley and I visit there regularly. The best game they have there is NSU Deuces Wild (99.73%) but if you add in the incentives they offer players there, we think it's a great play.

These friends, who live on the East Coast and regularly play in Atlantic City, visited Harrah's New Orleans a few times in response to some promotions sent to a national database. The first time these friends played a lot and lost heavily. This happens sometimes to all of us. The next time or two they showed up as invited guests, however, they stiffed the casino. They didn’t play at all and now receive no more offers.

I asked them why they stiffed the casino and they responded that Harrah's New Orleans has lousy video poker. "How can you say that?" I responded. "They have excellent video poker for a Harrah's property and their offers are wonderful."

"We don't think so. We lost a lot there," was the response coming back.

To my mind, my friends' argument is totally off-base. If you do not have the skill to evaluate video poker games and promotions, then the best information you have on how "loose" a casino is might be your results and the results of your friends. But if you DO have this skill (and my friends certainly have that, although they do not always use the skills they have), then your personal results in the past have little to do with whether or not the casino is worthy of play in the future.

This is not a particularly difficult concept but I'm always surprised at how many players simply don't understand it. Or perhaps they understand it in their heads, but not in their hearts.