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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.

Jan. 28, 2009

Life Is Not Fair

Let's start with a hypothetical example based on a true event that happened recently at a local Las Vegas casino. I'm not being more specific because the primary person it happened to wanted to keep his privacy. So I'm changing it enough to do that while still being able to talk about the general principle involved.

"David" and "Sally" (husband and wife) both play on one card at a casino, although the card is in her name. He has his own card, but the accounts are officially linked into what they call a "joint account." Anyway, there was a must-be-there-to-win drawing and Sally's name was called. As it happened, Sally wasn't there but David was.

David went up to where they were calling the names and told them that he and his wife have a joint account so he was there to collect the prize. He said he ALWAYS played on her card and treated it as his own. (The last claim was a bit of an exaggeration.) He let the people know that he had lost heavily this week playing on Sally's card. (This was bigger exaggeration. David almost broke even, and it's because of this that David doesn't want the exact details, including the name of the casino and the exact size of the win, published. He says that whether a loss is big or small is mostly a matter of psychological interpretation, which gives him leeway to stretch the truth.)

This situation was not specifically mentioned in the rules. Therefore the workers on hand, possibly with phone calls to higher-up executives, needed to make a decision, and they needed to do it in a timely manner because about 3,000 other wannabe-winners were standing around waiting to see if their name would be called.

Finally a decision was made to give David the $1,000 prize. I spoke to one of the decision-makers later and learned they really didn't know what to do so they used the "fact" that David was a big loser this week to justify giving him the prize.

In a similar situation at another casino, the person on the joint account but not named on the card was not given the prize.

This type of "contradiction" strikes many players as unfair. The player who is the best "salesman" and willing to stretch the truth a little bit gets the prize. The player who just shows up and doesn't go to any extra efforts to plead his case doesn't get the prize. Does this strike you as being fair?

To me this isn't about fair and unfair. Although the games themselves in a casino are fair, few other things in life are.

To me this is about winning and losing. There are frequently situations where somebody in charge needs to make a decision. If they are going to make a decision that affects me one way or the other, and I'm allowed to speak to the decision-makers before they rule, I'll bring out every skill I have in persuading them to rule in my favor. It's rare that I've actually lied in these situations (well, recently, at least), but I have "exaggerated" the situation sometimes if I thought it would help my side.

Rules are written by humans, who vary widely in their skillfulness. Sometimes the rules cover everything and sometimes there are gaping holes in the rules. Sometimes there are only tiny holes in the rules, but whatever that tiny hole was happened to come about "this time."

When this happens (which is actually much more often than most people realize), players who are good negotiators have better results than those people whose negotiating skills aren't so good and must depend on blind luck.

Is this fair? Probably not, but that's beside the point. That's the way the world works and this is the only world we have.

To be ready for these situations (and I have no idea when the next one will come along or what its exact nature will be), I've studied numerous books on salesmanship, negotiation, and influencing others. I read the rules to almost every drawing or other promotion I participate in and am always on the lookout for an irregularity that I can exploit. When this happens, sometimes people call it unfair that I can get prizes that they think they can't. I call this part of the skill set required to be a winning player.

Over the years, the investment in studying this type of thing has been time well spent as I've "talked my way" into numerous benefits over the years. (It certainly didn't hurt to have some of these skills when I tried to persuade Shirley years ago to marry me. It was the smartest thing I've ever done.)

Another way to be prepared is to be friendly with the workers at all the casinos I play at. If I'm known as a good customer or a good guy, I'll sometimes catch a break. It's simply good business to take care of your good customers. If I'm known as a pain in the butt, someone else is more likely to catch those breaks. If you expect every customer to get exactly the same breaks when it comes to discretionary items, you're naïve.

You are the person with primary responsibility to look after things for you and your family. You can trust in luck if you wish. You can hope life is fair. And you can complain how unfair life is when others are better at looking after their interests than you are at looking after yours.

Personally I suggest you develop the skills to shift the odds in your favor. And learn to speak up to present your side when appropriate. It's been said that those who are too shy to speak up get their reward in heaven. I've always considered this to be a palliative meant to ease the pain of those who recently lost out because they didn't speak up. Being a successful gambler is all about getting rewards on earth.