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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.

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Feb. 9, 2010

A Meaningful Distinction?

I was teaching a 9/6 Jacks or Better class. Near the end of the class I was going over long-term bankroll requirements using the "Risk of Ruin" feature on "Video Poker for Winners."

Long-term bankroll is a calculation that presumes you're going to be playing the current game forever and ever. It's an impossible extreme, of course. You're not going to live forever nor will you be playing this one particular game 24/7 until you do.

Still, it can be useful to examine these calculations so long as you treat them as an outside limit. If you know you can play forever on your current bankroll, you certainly can play a small fraction of forever.

Since this was a beginner's class, I set up an important beginner's question. I told the class they were playing for quarters (i.e. $1.25 per hand) and had a gambling bankroll of $50,000. I suggested that this size bankroll was substantially larger than most quarter players possessed. We also posited that they were playing without a slot club.

The question was: How frequently would a perfect 9/6 Jacks or Better player go broke under these conditions? The answer I wanted, of course, was "always." 9/6 Jacks returns 99.54% to the perfect player, which means the house has almost a half-percent advantage. When the house has the advantage, you're going through your entire bankroll in the long run, no matter how large it is.

Before I got someone to give me the answer I wanted, "George" gave me the answer "almost always." I told him that was wrong. When someone finally gave me the correct answer, George complained that he should have gotten credit for "almost always."

When George uses the phrase "almost always," it includes the possibility of "always." Not to me. I didn't want the video poker class to devolve into semantics. So I had to decide whether this was a meaningful distinction or not. If it wasn't meaningful, I could go on to a different subject in class. If it was meaningful, then this was an important educational moment right now.

Although others might disagree, I decided this was important. Limiting your betting to whose situations where you have the advantage is THE key to successful gambling. There is no more critical "secret" to winning gambling.

George wasn't ready to give up on this. "How come you're teaching a game where everybody who plays it eventually goes broke? No wonder the casino pays you to teach us."

Fair question. The example assumed "no slot club." I agreed that the game was unplayable without a slot club but usually slot club benefits are available. I was teaching at the South Point at the time and the slot club (0.30% on single-point days) and the mailers (more than that -- depending on what mailer level you're playing for) easily take you up to over-100% territory.

In the class we entered various slot club amounts and saw how that would affect the necessary bankroll. In the end, George's questions were answered and he understood. Yes you will go broke playing 9/6 Jacks without a slot club, but with a good slot club it's possible to have an advantage once you learn the game well enough.