VIDEO POKER

Moving Up?

Mr. Dancer:

My wife and I live in Phoenix and are in Las Vegas or Laughlin three or four days a month. We've been playing quarter over-100% machines and have had profitable scores for the past three years. We have the bankroll to play for dollars and maybe even $5. We think we'll like the comps better. What games should we play and what casinos should we play at?

Ready to Move Up

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Ready:

First of all, congratulations. Playing video poker well enough to be a net winner is an accomplishment that many players never achieve.

That said, there's a world of difference between succeeding at over-100% quarter games and at under-100% dollar games. To succeed at under-100% games you need to extract enough from cashback, monthly mailers, and other casino promotions (like double points) to make up for the shortfall.

Coming to Vegas three or four days a month is a lot more than most tourists. But it's not enough to succeed at dollar video poker. Assuming you're limiting your play to South Point, Eastside Cannery, Rampart, Silverton, Gold Coast and a few others, you're going to need to be in Las Vegas considerably more than three or four days a month to be successful.

Each of these casinos has a different calendar that tells when they offer multiple points. While many places offer point bonanzas on major holidays, there are only 24 hours on these holidays. You can't possibly play enough at each of the places unless you're happy with very low-level mailers.

Some of these casinos offer free play on Tuesdays through Thursday of each week. Another one regularly offers cash Saturday or Sunday only, and still another Sunday or Monday only. One requires three separate visits to obtain your weekly free play. Sometimes the pattern for free play differs from one week to the next, and certainly from one month to the next.

Three months ago Station Casinos (possibly including their "little brother" casino, Fiesta) might have been on your list of good places to play. Likely this is not true anymore. They appear to have stopped marketing to thousands of video poker players who play loose games on multiple point days. Will they back off from this stance in the future? Who knows? Will other casinos join them in this stance? Who knows that either? But players who depended on Station Casinos for a significant part of their annual Expected Value took a big hit recently.

Sometimes players find friends in Vegas to collect free play for them. A fee of 25% - 50% for this is fairly typical. Casinos frown on this, of course, and have strict rules against it. If you're not physically there to collect, the casinos want you to forfeit the free play. Still, if your friend plays on a quarter machine while collecting the free play, and is reasonably smart about moving to a second machine before collecting someone else's free play, there is little risk of being caught. If you can work out such a deal, this will get around some of the problems of not being in town to collect free play. But there's a price to this of 25% - 50% of your mailer. And this still doesn't address the problem of playing on multiple-point days.

Take South Point casino as an example. They have a much better-than-average video poker inventory, although they no longer have any 100% games. If you play $1 or $2 NSU Deuces Wild (99.73%) on a regular point day (0.30% cash back), you're playing essentially a breakeven game. If you're playing $60,000 a month (to earn the top mailer, which is worth $200 in free play plus meals, show tickets, and other goodies), the difference between playing on a 1x point day versus a 2x point day is $180 a month. The casino averages about two of these 2x point days a month, although this month they are having them every Friday. You may be able to arrange your schedule to be in town on one of those days, but what about the same problem at Gold Coast or Rampart? The multiple point days are frequently not the same, and even if they are, there aren't enough hours in a day to earn the top mailer at all the casinos in one day a month.

A non-trivial part of the equity of video poker players are the nightly or weekly drawings at many casinos. On seven separate years I collected more than $25,000 from such drawings, and I'm on track for the same this year. (To be sure I frequently play for larger than $1 or $2 stakes.) Most of these drawings require winners be present. Out-of-towners have a tough time competing in these. Even if they make it to the weekend drawings, frequently the entries must have been earned during the week. Yes you can win with only one ticket in the drum, but I like the chances of the guy with 5,000 tickets a whole lot better.

Some casinos, like Wynn, offer better mailers to local players than they do to out-of-towners. This is one reason to live in Vegas or pretend that you do. Obtaining a mailbox from Mailboxes R Us, PostNet, UPS Store, etc., is very easy. If you obtain box 123 you can always write your address as Apt 123 and it will usually suffice.

My conclusion is that it is very unusual to make it as a profitable $1 or $2 video poker player in Las Vegas unless you live there. And we haven't even addressed the cost of getting to Vegas and the cost of a place to stay. The casinos that are the most generous with giving away free room and reimbursing air fare are often not the same ones with the best games. Playing enough at the lesser games to keep the "free" room and airfare offers coming makes it that much more difficult to be a net winner.

Assuming you're not willing and able to move to Las Vegas, you are probably better off playing on over-100% quarter machines than you are moving to higher denominations. These machines should exist in Las Vegas for another year or two. The quarter 100% machines earn little if anything from the mailers, and these machines are frequently ineligible for point multipliers. While your profit potential seldom exceeds $10 per hour on these machines, this is a higher return than most dollar players receive without being able to take advantage of being a local.

Playing for considerably higher stakes than dollars can yield enough good offers from Strip casinos to make that a profitable way to go on weekends. I'm excluding these folks from the discussion as the original letter was looking at moving up from quarters --- not playing $10 and higher machines.