I played several short sessions of $1 PKM -- all of them losing --
total loss $670. When theo was at 389, I could not get in lounge.
When theo hit 429, I could get in lounge -- so 425 seems to be a good
figure. I forgot to mention that extended hours of play might be an
additional way to get in. On the host's cheat sheet (businees card
size chart), it mentions 12 hours of play on a penny machine as an
estimate to get in. Now if you played frantically for 24 hours
straight for only 1 penny, you would not even get one-tenth of 425 in
theo for the day.
I was also surprised the theo percentage did in fact change a little
from each of my small sessions according to how much I lost. My
average for the whole day was 5.55% but it ranged from 5.3% for my
best session to 5.85% for my worst. Looking back on my log, I
recorded 5.1% on a day that I lost $130 over 2000 hands. I would
like to know what a perfectly break even session yields, and one with
a heavy win in a very short amount of time yields. There might be a
card-pulling strategy lurking here. It is the nature of VP to lose
slowly (eg. -$1200 over several hours), but then gain in leaps and
bounds (eg. +$1199 via an SF in one hand). If this happened to
someone, they would get the standard average % theo. However, if
they pulled their card right after losing the $1200, they would
probably lock in a 1%+ higher rate for the vast majority of their
time. If they put the card back in for the one hand that got them
back $1199, it would take a ridiculously negative theo number (ie.
reverse action) to equate for the difference; and I have never heard
of anyone getting a negative theo number on their screen. I ask if
anyone hits a quad (in pick 'em) or better shortly after arriving,
that they find out their current theo for the day from the host at
the lounge, and also note either their number of points earned or
coin-in.