Visiting the area a few times a year, seems like there is very little to no information available for this area. Seems like a great opportunity for some local to set up a "current" web site. Other than VPfree2 (is there a way to tell when last updated?); the VPfree sites seem to not get any action; BiloxiOne seems to have stopped updating in July --- Is there any other info out there?
Biloxi, New Orleans
the VPfree sites seem to not get any action; BiloxiOne seems to have stopped updating in July --- Is there any other info out there?
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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "casinoredwolf" <iso3@...> wrote:
Join this group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vpFREE_Biloxi/
*i'm here now, playing at both harrah's nola and grand biloxi. i haven't
done an inventory, but i haven't seen any changes to machines i usually
play. also, i'm not sure if you mean any inventory, or only fp inventory. in
any event, there are two variations of all-star machines now in nola (maybe
there have been and i didn't realize it?): one with 3/5/10 play, and one
that also has super times play and double pay. and there also is now a bank
of non-full-pay quick quads, multi-line, multi-denom.
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*
On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 10:09 AM, staninnv <arnot@cox.net> wrote:
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com <vpFREE%40yahoogroups.com>, "casinoredwolf"
<iso3@...> wrote:
the VPfree sites seem to not get any action; BiloxiOne seems to have
stopped updating in July --- Is there any other info out there?Join this group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vpFREE_Biloxi/
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I've gotten some emails asking about the Mississippi Coast and figured I would put my response here. I have friends who have experience there but I've never played there myself. So this is word of mouth.
Mississippi law forbids games at 100% or higher. Progressives are allowed as long as the base game is lower than 100%. Mississippi taxes each W-2G jackpot a non-refundable 3%.
So if you were playing a game like $1 Super Aces, 99.94%, in Mississippi the game would be only 99.59%, because the royal would pay only $3880 and the 4 Aces would pay only $1940.
No matter what the game is, if you are playing high enough, you could be eating W-2G's for every quad or straight flush which is gonna cut into the payback percentage quite a bit.
Everybody makes their own decisions but if I were gonna go down there and check things out, I think the first thing I would check is the progressives. They were strong in the past. The database lists 9/6 DDB progs at the Grand, 50 cent and $1 denom, 50 cent, $1, $2, 8/5 BP progs at Imperial Palace, 25 cent, 50 cent, $1 9/6 Jacks progs at Island View, and 25 cent, 50 cent, $1 9/6 DDB progs at Island View.
The one move I would make there is time all the meters on every progressive on the coast. That tells a big story. Meter strength tells me how many hands the royal has to miss to put it on a playable number. If the royal only has to miss 60,000 hands I'm gonna get a lot of plays, if it has to miss 200,000 hands I'm not gonna get a lot of plays on that bank.
Here's an Al story from 1999 on the Mississippi coast. Slot Techs changed three $5 denom video pokers from 5 coin to 3 coin. One was a 9/6 Jacks, the other two were 8/5 Bonus Pokers. The techs forgot one little detail....they forgot to chop the royal from $20,000 to $12,000. The 9/6 Jacks was stronger than the 8/5 BP right off the bat, but there was another factor in the equation. The Mississipi tax at the time was 5% refundable. Al would eat W-2G's for royals on both games, but he would also have to eat a W-2G for 4 Aces on the Bonus Poker.
He stuck with the 9/6 Jacks. He didn't work the game night and day but kept a wary eye on the machine for action by others. It go very little action from others. He hit 22 royals in a 7 month span.
Then the game got posted up on Stanford Wong's BJ 21. Within a couple of days a Tuna Lund associate showed up. Al called a buddy and they locked the game down for two weeks. They came off with 6 more royals before the game got shut down and they changed it back to 5 coin.
Over time some slot directors have interpreted this to mean overall machine return can not exceed 100%. About 10 years ago Copa Gulfport offered $1 10/7 Double Bonus progressives, $1 FPJW, and 25c FPDW. The trick was they always put them on multigame machines with other lower paying games. Don't know if any slot director has tried this recently or the regulations have been tightened.
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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Mickey" <mickeycrimm@...> wrote:
I've gotten some emails asking about the Mississippi Coast and figured I would put my response here. I have friends who have experience there but I've never played there myself. So this is word of mouth.
Mississippi law forbids games at 100% or higher. Progressives are allowed as long as the base game is lower than 100%.>>>>>
The few remaining >100% games on the MS coast were washed out to sea during Katrina. Since then, no casino in the area has been so inclined to offer any VP with a positive base game. But I put that down more to the general overall tightening of games by the casinos, rather than any increased scrutiny by the gaming commission.
You didn't mention it, but the $FPJW and 25c FPDW games on the old COPA cruise ship boat were also progressives! The meter on the Joker game was slow, but a dollar game worth over .9% at reset (including cash back) was a good play even without the progressive. The quarter FPDW games, on the other hand, had an extremely fast meter. It wasn't unusual to see these get over $2000.
EE
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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "vegasvpplayer" <vegasvpplayer@...> wrote:
Over time some slot directors have interpreted this to mean overall machine return can not exceed 100%. About 10 years ago Copa Gulfport offered $1 10/7 Double Bonus progressives, $1 FPJW, and 25c FPDW. The trick was they always put them on multigame machines with other lower paying games. Don't know if any slot director has tried this recently or the regulations have been tightened.
I thought that was the case, but only remembered the game I played for sure. They or someone in Biloxi had 25c All American at about the same time as I recall.
The insightful Slot Director at Copa was John Mott. Last I heard of him, he was affiliated with Compdance Consulting.
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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "eecounter" <eecounter@...> wrote:
You didn't mention it, but the $FPJW and 25c FPDW games on the old COPA cruise ship boat were also progressives! >>>>
Sounds like you guys were doing pretty good before Katrina. My uncle's timeshare also got washed to the sea. "Didn't even leave rubble" he said.
Katrina brought up old memories for me. In August of 1969 I was a 16 year old kid working as a janitor in the Seafarer's International Union Hall in New Orleans, down on Jackson Ave in the Irish Channel, just a few blocks from the Mississippi River and the Gretna Ferry. Behind my father's back I had talked my stepmother (she and I didn't get along at the time) into driving 60 miles from Gonzalez, LA. and signing off to get me into the Union.
They paid me $7 and a carton of cigarettes a week. But promised Union papers and Seamen's papers if I could keep my nose clean. I got there sometime in late July. By mid August a bitchin' hurricane was headed our way. I lived in the Union Hall and it was a very secure 3 story building. But the Irish Channel was 9 feet below sea level.
Camille skated the coast of Louisiana but the eye went over somewhere around Pass Christian, MS. as a Category 5 with sustained winds over 190 miles an hour. What saved New Orleans then was Camille was a small hurricane, the eye was only about 8 miles across. The winds in New Orleans probably never went over 90 miles an hour.
Right in the middle of it another kid and me ran down the sides of the buildings to the River and up onto the levee. There were big waves in the River. I didn't stay long. We were out in the open and crap was blowing everywhere. Even a 16 year old kid has to say to himself "This is stupid, I'm outta here!"
Not long ago one of those redneck comedians said "It's not that the wind is blowing, stupid. It's what blowing in the wind." That's right brother.
The eye even went over my hometown, Forest, MS., about 130 miles north of Biloxi, with 90 mile an hour winds. The danm thing was so strong it went up through Tennesse then turned east through Kentucky and Virgina, got back into the Atlantic and reached Tropical Storm status again. It didn't blow out until it got somewhere up off the coast of Canada.
The Union Hall was used as a shelter for Union Members and their familes who lived on the Mississippi Coast.
In early September I sailed out of the Port of New Orleans with a job in the engine room of the freighter John B. Waterman.
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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "eecounter" <eecounter@...> wrote:
The few remaining >100% games on the MS coast were washed out to sea during Katrina. Since then, no casino in the area has been so inclined to offer any VP with a positive base game. But I put that down more to the general overall tightening of games by the casinos, rather than any increased scrutiny by the gaming commission.
You didn't mention it, but the $FPJW and 25c FPDW games on the old COPA cruise ship boat were also progressives! The meter on the Joker game was slow, but a dollar game worth over .9% at reset (including cash back) was a good play even without the progressive. The quarter FPDW games, on the other hand, had an extremely fast meter. It wasn't unusual to see these get over $2000.
EE
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "vegasvpplayer" <vegasvpplayer@...> wrote: [See below]
REPLY: In those days, the Copa had bartop quarter AA in addition to all the other great games. I wish I'd known then half of what I learned later.
I recall reading somewhere that Hurricane Katrina damaged the Copa beyond repair, and that it sank while being towed to a scrapyard. Any metaphorical comparison to good VP is mostly coincidental.
I've been told that the Copa's owner now owns Gulfport's Island View Casino on the site of what used to be the Gulfport Grand Casino. No quarter AA or FPDW or $DB progressives there, but better VP offerings than most places still open in 2010.
The GMan
PS: "The Isle" in Biloxi (then the "isle of Capri) also once had a few quarter AA machines sans progressives. Not today.
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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "eecounter" <eecounter@> wrote:
>
> You didn't mention it, but the $FPJW and 25c FPDW games on the old COPA cruise ship boat were also progressives! >>>>I thought that was the case, but only remembered the game I played for sure. They or someone in Biloxi had 25c All American at about the same time as I recall.
The insightful Slot Director at Copa was John Mott. Last I heard of him, he was affiliated with Compdance Consulting.
GMan - that's reasonably accurate. The Copa had moved into a nicer floating barge type building prior to Katrina. After the move, they sold the old cruise ship for scrap, and it did indeed sink while being towed to the scrapyard.
The new Copa building had many (but not all) of the good video poker games from the old ship, although the better games were gradually being downgraded or removed as time went on. Then, after being open only for a year or two, the new Copa barge floated away during Katrina and settled on land in a nearby parking lot. It had to be completely torn down in place.
EE
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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "ggman444" <gleng4444@...> wrote:
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "vegasvpplayer" <vegasvpplayer@> wrote: [See below]
I recall reading somewhere that Hurricane Katrina damaged the Copa beyond repair, and that it sank while being towed to a scrapyard. Any metaphorical comparison to good VP is mostly coincidental.
I've been told that the Copa's owner now owns Gulfport's Island View Casino on the site of what used to be the Gulfport Grand Casino. No quarter AA or FPDW or $DB progressives there, but better VP offerings than most places still open in 2010.
The GMan