A Reply To Just Criticism

[johnfiske]

<<<<<If you think for a moment that the casinos
somehow don't understand optimum play and what the theoretical ER is on
every machine they have, well ... then my opinion is that you are
naive.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Bill,
Below is a message which I posted on vp-mail a little while ago (edited
slightly) which I think helps illustrate that I think casinos do
sometimes make mistakes and are not aware of what is on their floor ...or
maybe I am just naive.

···

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 13:07:21 -0600 Bill Velek <billvelek@alltel.net> writes:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
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     I don't know the whole situation at Imperial Palace but I get the
impression they may have a new inexperienced slot manager. This play was
never reported on the lists but now that it's long gone I may as well
tell about it. Around the 20th of November I was walking around IP and
came across some new IGT MG/MD machines. About 8 of the machines had a $5
denomination and about 30 machines had a top $2 denomination. Well all
games were typical short pay at the lower denominations but at the top
levels they were full pay. We are talking 9/6JB, 10/7DB, 99.92% 2-pair
Jokers, NSUD, 9/6 Bonus Deluxe, etc. In November they were offering 2X
points at night or 1% cash back & 1% comps. I played the $2 10/7 DB on a
few nights and only saw one other knowledgeable player in the place. I
was holding my breath knowing on December 1st the 3X points was going to
start with 1.5% cashback and 1.5% comps. A newbie reported the $2 NSUD
on the lists obviously not recognizing their significance and the even
better plays available. Then people started talking about the 1.5%
cashback. (Thanks Skip and Jean!) All the time I'm saying to myself
shut-up people this is too good to be talking about.

     Well much to my surprise when December 1st rolled around the play
was still alive and there were not that many advantage players around. I
played the $5 JB a couple of nights. I knew the $5 10/7 DB was a better
play but thought if I was unlucky on quads I could lose a lot of money
but if I was lucky I would draw a lot of unwanted attention with W-2G's.
I stuck mostly with the $2 10/7 DB. Each night a few more advantage
players would arrive. I last played there December 5th and unfortunately
by then there was a pro there not content with playing just one $5
machine but two $5 10/7 Double Bonus machines at the same time. I know
the play was not going to last forever but I don't understand why anyone
plays two positive expectation machines at the same time anymore. It
just draws way too much attention when good plays are getting harder and
harder to find. Well after that night all the $5 and $2 games were
downgraded and the best remaining play was the $1 NSUD & 9/6 JB.

      Speaking of mistakes the IP also accidently set the computers to 4X
points on December 5th so we were getting 2% cashback & 2% comps on top
of the great paytables. Just seems like too many mistakes for an
experienced slot manager to be making.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Harry_Porter]

johnfiske wrote:

Below is a message which I posted on vp-mail a little while ago
(edited slightly) which I think helps illustrate that I think
casinos do sometimes make mistakes and are not aware of what is on
their floor ...or maybe I am just naive.

John,

You've simply mistaken what you observed at Imperial Palace. These
were actually well executed marketing techniques, including employment
of some very seductive "loss leaders".

"Attention I.P. shoppers: We have a special in machine row 6 ..."

- Harry

[Bill_Velek1]

Harry Porter wrote:

johnfiske wrote:
> Below is a message which I posted on vp-mail a little while ago
> (edited slightly) which I think helps illustrate that I think
> casinos do sometimes make mistakes and are not aware of what is on
> their floor ...or maybe I am just naive.

Well, of course there is apt to be the occasional mistake, which is yet another good reason to keep quite about a positive play -- but as a _general_ rule, I think it would be naive to think that the casinos don't know any more about VP than the uninformed masses. I think that when the Stratosphere had its 100%+ JoB (10/7 or 10/6 or whatever they were), they were not ignorant of the fact that they were advantage machines. I figure they must have estimated the percentage of people using optimum/perfect strategy vs. the percentage not using any real strategy, and that it would be worth having a few seats filled with people who were costing them a small amount of money in order to advertise that they had the highest paying Video Poker in Las Vegas ... or however they tried to market it.

John,

You've simply mistaken what you observed at Imperial Palace. These
were actually well executed marketing techniques, including employment
of some very seductive "loss leaders".

Harry, you may have made that remark tongue in cheek, but there might be a little more truth to that idea than we realize.

Bill Velek

[jelway_1997]

Bill -

I think you are very much wrong. My experience is that the
casinos are not staffed by very adept people. The years go by
and still this crazy stuff happens that nobody in the facility
can see is a very big error. So many caisnos have offered 2-1
on Blackjack I can't remember them all. And then the pit fills
up with people playing 2 hands of the table maximum and you
hear the pit boss say "This is great! We should run this promo
all the time!" And they end up shutting down the promo when
they realize that they are losing a buttload of money - not
because they realized *why* they are losing a buttload of money.

Read
http://www.21forum.com/Library/surpriseparty.htm

Note that the casino managers assessment of why they
were losing, was nowhere near the reality of the situation.
But at least he was able to figure out that a place that
usually has $5 bettors being full with table max bettors was
probably not a good thing.

If your garden variety slot manager was so smart, he wouldn't be
a slot manager. Working in a casino isn't that great. If it were, I
would quit my job as a chip designer and go be a casino manager.
With my knowledge base I would think it would not take too long
to move up the food chain - my primary obstacle would be top
level brass that might consider some other guys MBA to be worth
more than my MSEE and 10 years of serious gambling. The real
smart guys are working the casinos on Wall Street instead.

My personal reaction to the post about the Silver Legacy FPDW
was that I better get up there fast and pound away. Not so
much for the $20 an hour I will get from playing them, but that
puts me back in the good graces of the Silver Legacy for a while
and they might send me some concert tickets or something. Because
once those machines are gone, I will stay there and they will
blacklist me again for stiffing them. I really like the freebies
but as Robert Redford said "I try to keep the Gambling to a
minimum".

The machines are brand new. You can't even say for sure if a
real decision was made on how low or high to set the paytables.
Maybe a slot tech just turned them on and the factory default
was full pay. Or the slot manager said "Set them on the loosest
pay" not knowing that FPDW was implied in that statement. But
when the hold sucks, they will go.

The Silver Legacy used to have 2 $1 FPDW machines. Me and my
friends played them a lot. The machines stayed a long time.
We were getting killed because we *NEVER* hit a Royal there.
I "made the mistake" of telling Jean Scott about them. She went
there and her and her husband basically molded themselves to
the seats for 3 days and hit like 3 Royals. The machines were
gone the next week.

The new machines are already seeing serious play. As soon as
someone (or everyone collectively) goes on a Royal binge, the
machines will show a next to zero (or negative) hold and the paytables
will be adjusted. Not because they are FPDW, but because
the machines are not holding any money.

My experience is that casinos are reactive, not proactive.
Machines not holding money - change or remove them. Bunch of
people show up from out of nowhere and start pounding away - "Must
know something we don't". The Rio BJ Blitz machine was probably
removed because the slot manager looked at the guy who was
playing all 5 spots, running back and forth, and said "OK, something
is wrong because that certainly doesn't look like a gambler out
enjoying himself."

Anyway, the Reno line on those machines being removed is Jan 5.
From what I saw this weekend, I am thinking about betting the
UNDER. They would still have been removed even without the
disclosure here, but they would have probably lasted longer.
The machines would still have gotten decent play from random
people because they are nice machines, fast, clean TITO.

YMMV

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, Bill Velek <billvelek@a...> wrote:

Harry Porter wrote:

> johnfiske wrote:
> > Below is a message which I posted on vp-mail a little while ago
> > (edited slightly) which I think helps illustrate that I think
> > casinos do sometimes make mistakes and are not aware of what is on
> > their floor ...or maybe I am just naive.

Well, of course there is apt to be the occasional mistake, which is yet
another good reason to keep quite about a positive play -- but as a
_general_ rule, I think it would be naive to think that the casinos
don't know any more about VP than the uninformed masses.

[paisonvp]

Bill, I believe you are missing a major point. There is an enormous
difference between quarter super-pay JB with minimal cashback (the
Strat) and $2/5 DB, etc. along with 1 to 1.5% cashback. Sure, the
Strat management knew what it had on its floor. And I think that
most, if not all, slot directors know exactly what they have ordered
to be placed on their floors. (Not the case just a few years ago.) But
that has little to do with the mistakes that still get made and which
lead to very lucrative opportunities. For instance, the IP's Dec error
reported by John Fiske of inadvertanetly setting the machines to 4X
cashback also happened (on a smaller scale) earlier in November. A
slot tech mistakenly set two of the .25 AA machines so that they were
registering 2X cb all the time and 4X from midnight til 6 am. I played
these machines every night during my trip and said nothing to anyone.
However, when I returned home, I emailed a couple people to let
them have a go at the play. Two days later, the play was gone. That
could be coincidence, of course, but much more likely is that word
about the play led to 24/7 play on the machines or that someone
with a bigger mouth than brain said something to a bartender or
some such similar thing. IMHO, QZ has got it about right. When a
play's expected yield is better than $25 an hour, silence is golden.

Pete

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, Bill Velek <billvelek@a...> wrote:

... I think it would be naive to think that the casinos
don't know any more about VP than the uninformed masses. I think that
when the Stratosphere had its 100%+ JoB (10/7 or 10/6 or whatever they
were), they were not ignorant of the fact that they were advantage
machines.

[Chandler1]

Sarcasm aside, I don't think there is much doubt that casinos make mistakes and miscalculations that can benefit the quick and observant gambler who can catch them.

···

At 02:33 PM 12/29/2003, you wrote:

You've simply mistaken what you observed at Imperial Palace. These
were actually well executed marketing techniques, including employment
of some very seductive "loss leaders".

"Attention I.P. shoppers: We have a special in machine row 6 ..."

[Jean_Scott1]

<<The Silver Legacy used to have 2 $1 FPDW machines. Me and my
friends played them a lot. The machines stayed a long time.
We were getting killed because we *NEVER* hit a Royal there.
I "made the mistake" of telling Jean Scott about them. She went
there and her and her husband basically molded themselves to
the seats for 3 days and hit like 3 Royals. The machines were
gone the next week.>>

The real facts differ a bit from the above description. We played only about 4-5 hours on each of 3 days - and hit only 2 royals. I don't consider that an unusual amount of play for an out-of-town visitor staying in their hotel. As for hitting 2 royals - one can't help that sort of thing. I had heard some of the locals were playing them quite steadily - I'm sure a local who plays many days a week "for a long time" would be more noticeable that a visitor who only played 3 days.

···

____________________
Jean $¢ott - The Frugal Gambler
Pre-pub sale on for January release of
"Tax Help for the Frugal Gambler"
at http://www.FrugalGambler.biz

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[tooncesthecatwhocou1]

Well, I have a solution to all this. If anyone is thinking of
posting a good opportunity in Vegas, simply e-mail it to me first.
Free of charge, I will analyze the opportunity and determine if this
is a "too good to post" play or not.

Actually, on second look, this isn't as silly of an idea as I
suspected, since I live in Chicago, and am W-2-phobic, so I usually
can't abuse the good stuff.