vpFREE2 Forums

Encouraging Casinos to have high meter progressives

#1

I was just listening to last night's Bob & Frank Show and they brought up a thread/question recently mentioned on VPFree by Nightoftheiguana. Iguana had asked the question how to get casinos to put in high-meter progressives.

Bob & Frank made a good point that it is difficult to make suggestions to casino execs because of the perceived adversarial relationship. In other words, they don't trust us. lol

I think that's a pretty good point, and I don't see how that would ever change. There's probably always going to be mistrust between players and casinos.

My point in posting this is what if somehow someone was to take another avenue to trying to convince the casinos that it is in everyone's behalf. What about the slot manufacturers? Would the casinos listen to them? Could someone who has clout with the manufacturers like Bally and IGT, etc., convince them to convince the casinos?

#2

I don't know what "clout" is needed. They can add as well as us. They can tell that an 8-5 JOB machine with a 2.5% meter will make them money every minute.
They just don't want people "making money" on their machines by "outsmarting" them. It's as simple as that. That's why the Piggy Ban type games are gone-they did nothing but make money for the casino too.

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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "bobbartop" <bobbartop@...> wrote:

I was just listening to last night's Bob & Frank Show and they brought up a thread/question recently mentioned on VPFree by Nightoftheiguana. Iguana had asked the question how to get casinos to put in high-meter progressives.

Bob & Frank made a good point that it is difficult to make suggestions to casino execs because of the perceived adversarial relationship. In other words, they don't trust us. lol

I think that's a pretty good point, and I don't see how that would ever change. There's probably always going to be mistrust between players and casinos.

My point in posting this is what if somehow someone was to take another avenue to trying to convince the casinos that it is in everyone's behalf. What about the slot manufacturers? Would the casinos listen to them? Could someone who has clout with the manufacturers like Bally and IGT, etc., convince them to convince the casinos?

#3

Mike, I meant clout with the machine manufacturers, not the casinos. In other words, convince IGT and Ballys to convince the casinos.

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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "mike" <melbedewy1226@...> wrote:

I don't know what "clout" is needed. They can add as well as us. They can tell that an 8-5 JOB machine with a 2.5% meter will make them money every minute.
They just don't want people "making money" on their machines by "outsmarting" them. It's as simple as that. That's why the Piggy Ban type games are gone-they did nothing but make money for the casino too.

#4

Would the comparison between progressive VP machines and live poker tables be appropriate?

In poker, the money generally flows from bad players to smart players and the casino takes a cut (rake).

In progressive VP, the same thing generally happens and the casino's cut is built into the paytables and added onto by bad play and strategy changes. Why wouldn't casinos encourage this? They don't 86 Daniel Negreanu or Doyle Brunson from live poker tables. In fact, they encourage their play.

With non-progressive VP, smart players take their edge against the casinos. With progressive VP, smart players take their edge against other gamblers and the casinos get their money from both groups.

Seems like a no-brainer to me to put in more progressives.

#5

There are a few relevant differences between live poker and video
poker. One is that professional poker players help keep games alive,
whereas a progressive jackpot doesn't "break up" if too few players
play it. Another is that a progressive is usually either good or bad
for both professionals and non professionals, whereas live poker is
usually good for the professionals and bad for the non professionals.
To be consistent, since professionals, whether video poker or live
poker, tend to not lose back their winnings in other games in the
casino as much as non professionals do, maybe they should 86 the Doyle
Brunsons.

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On Sun, 13 Mar 2011 09:24:14 -0000, DesmondT wrote:

Would the comparison between progressive VP machines and live poker tables be appropriate?

In poker, the money generally flows from bad players to smart players and the casino takes a cut (rake).

In progressive VP, the same thing generally happens and the casino's cut is built into the paytables and added onto by bad play and strategy changes. Why wouldn't casinos encourage this? They don't 86 Daniel Negreanu or Doyle Brunson from live poker tables. In fact, they encourage their play.

With non-progressive VP, smart players take their edge against the casinos. With progressive VP, smart players take their edge against other gamblers and the casinos get their money from both groups.

Seems like a no-brainer to me to put in more progressives.

#6

Being smart players here we can all agree with you.
HOWEVER,
that is not how casinos look at it. In poker everyone at the table, even Doyle Brunson, is playing at negative expectation games due to the rake.
In progressive VP and Piggy Bank type games sharks like us will ONLY play them when they are over 100%. Casinos simply don't like to feed us. I have been told this by 2 mid level management types who are personal friends. Mostly it is just spite and there is not a thing any of us can do about it-unless we can buy a small casino of our own!
Take my word for it-the days of Piggy Banking games and high meter progressives have gone the way of the Hacienda's prime rib buffet and they ain't comin' back either.

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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "DesmondT" <dtongpo@...> wrote:

Would the comparison between progressive VP machines and live poker tables be appropriate?

In poker, the money generally flows from bad players to smart players and the casino takes a cut (rake).

In progressive VP, the same thing generally happens and the casino's cut is built into the paytables and added onto by bad play and strategy changes. Why wouldn't casinos encourage this? They don't 86 Daniel Negreanu or Doyle Brunson from live poker tables. In fact, they encourage their play.

With non-progressive VP, smart players take their edge against the casinos. With progressive VP, smart players take their edge against other gamblers and the casinos get their money from both groups.

Seems like a no-brainer to me to put in more progressives.

#7

Aside from disagreeing with what you said about poker players playing at "negative expectation games", my point of this thread was asking if perhaps the slot companies could takeover the burden of influencing the casinos to alter their lineups. Look at all they are doing in terms of inventing new games? Ultimate X, Double Super Times Pay, etc., why not talk IGT and Ballys into doing it somehow? They're the geniuses, after all.

Which leads me to another question I was wondering recently. Does Konami, Aristocrat, and others like that make any video poker? If so, I have not seen it. And if not, then why not?

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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "mike" <melbedewy1226@...> wrote:

Being smart players here we can all agree with you.
HOWEVER,
that is not how casinos look at it. In poker everyone at the table, even Doyle Brunson, is playing at negative expectation games due to the rake.
In progressive VP and Piggy Bank type games sharks like us will ONLY play them when they are over 100%. Casinos simply don't like to feed us. I have been told this by 2 mid level management types who are personal friends. Mostly it is just spite and there is not a thing any of us can do about it-unless we can buy a small casino of our own!
Take my word for it-the days of Piggy Banking games and high meter progressives have gone the way of the Hacienda's prime rib buffet and they ain't comin' back either.

#8

A smart player would understand how mind-bogglingly wrong your claim about
poker is. Were you just being sloppy with terminology or do you truly
not understand how Doyle has positive expectation?

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On Sun, 13 Mar 2011, mike wrote:

Being smart players here we can all agree with you. HOWEVER, that is not
how casinos look at it. In poker everyone at the table, even Doyle
Brunson, is playing at negative expectation games due to the rake.

#9

DesmondT wrote:

Would the comparison between progressive VP machines and live poker
tables be appropriate?

In poker, the money generally flows from bad players to smart
players and the casino takes a cut (rake).

That might be an apt analogy. The key distinction is that progressives with strong meters are more likely to induce some players to engage in behavior that alienates other players and creates floor management problems. (I'll let you use your imagination for examples of what I'm referring to.)

Given the general attractive prospect of progressives for a casino, I can only imagine it's this factor that discourages a more widespread inventory.

#10

No matter how you cut it, if $100 goes into the pot and only $95 gets paid out, poker, like sports betting is a negative expectation game.
Which of course doesn't mean it can't be beaten by the sharpest players.
Obviously a smaller rake in high limit games and tournaments makes those much, much of a negative expectation.

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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Peter M." <midnight1626@...> wrote:

On Sun, 13 Mar 2011, mike wrote:
> Being smart players here we can all agree with you. HOWEVER, that is not
> how casinos look at it. In poker everyone at the table, even Doyle
> Brunson, is playing at negative expectation games due to the rake.

A smart player would understand how mind-bogglingly wrong your claim about
poker is. Were you just being sloppy with terminology or do you truly
not understand how Doyle has positive expectation?

#11

No matter how you cut it, if $100 goes into the pot and only $95 gets
paid out, poker, like sports betting is a negative expectation game.

You are correct as it pertains to the population of poker players as a
whole. But for individual players who can beat the game, like Doyle, they
have positive expectation, as you yourself observe:

Which of course doesn't mean it can't be beaten by the sharpest players.

"Beat the game" is more or less what "positive expectation" means.

To put this another way, suppose for the sake of discussion that Doyle
could make $200/hour in the absence of a rake.

If the actual rake is $140/hour ($4/hand at 35 hands/hour is in the
ballpark), Doyle still makes $60/hour even if he pays the rake fully by
himself, which he obviously doesn't -- it's spread across all the players.

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On Mon, 14 Mar 2011, mike wrote:

#12

I know we're saying tomato and tomahto here, Mike, but you have an odd way of looking at it.

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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "mike" <melbedewy1226@...> wrote:

No matter how you cut it, if $100 goes into the pot and only $95 gets paid out, poker, like sports betting is a negative expectation game.
Which of course doesn't mean it can't be beaten by the sharpest players.
Obviously a smaller rake in high limit games and tournaments makes those much, much of a negative expectation.

#13

Staford Wong used ot refer to blackjack tournaments as either negative equity, neutral equity, or positive equity. In negative equity tournaments the house was taking a percentage of the entry fees. In neutral equity tournaments all the money was returned to the public. And in positive equity tournaments the house added money to the prize pool. Wong shied away from the negative equity tournements.

Poker tournaments are negative equity affairs but if a player is good enough, he/she can have a positive expectation.

In cash game poker the player who wins the pot is paying a "rake" or "commission" for services provided. It can have a big effect on ones bottom line, especially at low limits. But some players do have positive expectations in these spots. I remember one 3/6 game where I was making about $8 an hour, but if the rake hadn't been there I would have been making about $22 an hour.

Most winning players I know believe one has to be playing at the 10/20 level or higher to have any kind of decent hourly rate. Poker is essentially a percentage game. There is a big difference, percentagewise, between $4 coming out of a $40 pot, and $4 coming out of a $100 pot.

The Big Game, hosted by Chip Reese and Doyle Brunson, moved out of the Mirage so Bobby Baldwin, Mirage exec, could play in the game. It moved around town to spots like Sam's Town, Rampart, Golden Nugget, Planet Hollywood. Chip and Doyle pretty much dictated there own terms. They wouldn't pay more than $100 an hour for a table and dealers. The house collected every hour and the money was paid by whoever won the next pot.

Eric Drache let them play for free, for publicity purposes, when the Golden Nugget reopened it's poker room.

#14

If the casinos are basically scared of having winning players (which they are), then the influence of IGT, etc. won't matter one bit. Think of all the times that casinos have installed these newer games, but so often they insist on installing them with abysmal 97% pay tables, so that the fancy new VP games sit idle most of the time. Is it logical for the manufacturers to spend all that money to develop a new game, and for a casino to spend a lot of money to buy the new machines, only to set them up so that nobody except the most clueless of the clueless will play them - probably playing one coin / one line at a time at minimum denomination? Of course not, but casinos are not known for their logic.

EE

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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "bobbartop" <bobbartop@...> wrote:

... my point of this thread was asking if perhaps the slot companies could takeover the burden of influencing the casinos to alter their lineups. Look at all they are doing in terms of inventing new games? Ultimate X, Double Super Times Pay, etc., why not talk IGT and Ballys into doing it somehow? They're the geniuses, after all.

#15

Frankly, with the vast numbers of people from Maine to California blowing their money on 91% penny slots, 6-5 BJ, Hit 17 8 deck BJ, double zero roulette, Prop bets at craps, Big 6 Wheel, 7-5 JOB 50 play (just seen being played for max coin at Taj Mahal), keno, lottery, 2-4 poker with punishing rakes and more the casinos are a hell of a lot shrewder than given credit for.

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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "eecounter" <eecounter@...> wrote:

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "bobbartop" <bobbartop@> wrote:
> ... my point of this thread was asking if perhaps the slot companies could takeover the burden of influencing the casinos to alter their lineups. Look at all they are doing in terms of inventing new games? Ultimate X, Double Super Times Pay, etc., why not talk IGT and Ballys into doing it somehow? They're the geniuses, after all.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

If the casinos are basically scared of having winning players (which they are), then the influence of IGT, etc. won't matter one bit. Think of all the times that casinos have installed these newer games, but so often they insist on installing them with abysmal 97% pay tables, so that the fancy new VP games sit idle most of the time. Is it logical for the manufacturers to spend all that money to develop a new game, and for a casino to spend a lot of money to buy the new machines, only to set them up so that nobody except the most clueless of the clueless will play them - probably playing one coin / one line at a time at minimum denomination? Of course not, but casinos are not known for their logic.

EE

#16

Unfortunately, many people are ingorant of how the casino industry works. The casinos are the one's who decide what games, what paybacks (based on par sheets), etc, and the various slot manufacturers are competing for these limited number of slots.

For some reason, the "slot director" knows his market best and knows what his customer will play and it's hard to convince this so call "know-it-all". Many slot directors are biased or superstitious or caught up in old-school "casino holds" as opposed to new-school of daily win-rates.

Additionally, many people are simply clueless in that they don't understand the average lifespan of a slot machine in a casino or the amount of money spent by slot manufacturers to get a slot machine to market. To take a page from Buddhism, having the "right view" is critical.

So my (rhectorical) question to "bobbartop" and others is: Why should casinos have progressive video poker machines if the casino can make more money from progessive slots, other things being equal? Additionally, once you consider the costs of bring in new progressive vp machines, new signage, a new marketing program, etc, try to justify that project on a net present value basis (or IRR or payback for the old-school folks). A project like that is DOA due to pros.

In summary, the number one reason casinos don't have good progressive video poker is due to pro's.

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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "bobbartop" <bobbartop@...> wrote:

My point in posting this is what if somehow someone was to take another avenue to trying to convince the casinos that it is in everyone's behalf. What about the slot manufacturers? Would the casinos listen to them? Could someone who has clout with the manufacturers like Bally and IGT, etc., convince them to convince the casinos?

From my experience talking to various slot directors, casinos don't have high meter progressive vp is that it is COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE. From a casino perspective, why have progressive vp meters where the locals or the core customer base build up a high jackpot only to have pros and "outside scum" come in and p*ss off my customer base? It's just not worth the hassle factor and aggravation. The same casinos DON'T MIND having progressive slots because these paybacks are harder (not impossible) to verify. I know a lot of VP pro's who make a significant amount of income from progressive meters from slots (that includes Keno) than vp.