vpFREE2 Forums

There's a reason...

#1

There's a reason you rarely see people reporting about the best VP
paytables, the best promotions, the best cash benefits, etc. on lists
like this anymore (mostly regarding Vegas but sometimes at other
locales too). It kills a play when too many people find out about it.

In the 90's it was common for lists like this to be filled with
reports of the locations for all the best machines, when they had 3x
points, who had the best cashback rates, what the best play in town
was, etc. Remember the days of $1 FPDW in Vegas? All gone. $1 10/7
DB? Rare at places that have cashback. Even 25c FPDW is
disappearing, or having benefits cut (like half points at all
Stations/Fiestas).

Good Vegas video poker plays have been shrinking for 5 years. Now the
same thing is happening at other locations. Some of those Vegas pros
have even brached out around the country to find more lucrative plays,
competing with the locals and making it tougher on them. Casinos have
to react by cutting back good paytables and good cash benefits if too
many advantage players hit their machines. This is especially true at
smaller casino towns outside of Vegas, where any significant amount of
advantage play can make a big difference to the casino. It's a simple
yet frustrating reality.

What can people like us do to slow the loss of our good plays? One
easy thing: DON'T BROADCAST GOOD PLAYS. Don't make it easier for
others to come in and kill your most lucrative plays. Many of the
players who used to post good info to lists like this years ago
(including me) figured out that - as noble as it may be to share
information to help others - they're only hurting themselves in the
long run.

Share information about hotel rooms, good restaurants, pretty casinos
with nice atmosphere. But keep information about profitable plays
(best paytables, cashback, cash promotions) close to the vest,
assuming you want those plays to last longer.

This is a public service announcement.

#2

There's a reason you rarely see people reporting about the best VP
paytables, the best promotions, the best cash benefits, etc. on

lists

like this anymore (mostly regarding Vegas but sometimes at other
locales too). It kills a play when too many people find out about

it.

In the 90's it was common for lists like this to be filled with
reports of the locations for all the best machines, when they had

3x

points, who had the best cashback rates, what the best play in town
was, etc. Remember the days of $1 FPDW in Vegas? All gone. $1

10/7

DB? Rare at places that have cashback. Even 25c FPDW is
disappearing, or having benefits cut (like half points at all
Stations/Fiestas).

Good Vegas video poker plays have been shrinking for 5 years. Now

the

same thing is happening at other locations. Some of those Vegas

pros

have even brached out around the country to find more lucrative

plays,

competing with the locals and making it tougher on them. Casinos

have

to react by cutting back good paytables and good cash benefits if

too

many advantage players hit their machines. This is especially

true at

smaller casino towns outside of Vegas, where any significant

amount of

advantage play can make a big difference to the casino. It's a

simple

yet frustrating reality.

What can people like us do to slow the loss of our good plays? One
easy thing: DON'T BROADCAST GOOD PLAYS. Don't make it easier for
others to come in and kill your most lucrative plays. Many of the
players who used to post good info to lists like this years ago
(including me) figured out that - as noble as it may be to share
information to help others - they're only hurting themselves in the
long run.

Share information about hotel rooms, good restaurants, pretty

casinos

with nice atmosphere. But keep information about profitable plays
(best paytables, cashback, cash promotions) close to the vest,
assuming you want those plays to last longer.

This is a public service announcement.

vpanimal:

The wisdom of disclosure vs. non-disclosure can be debated. However,
taking advantage of a host's hospitality and not following house
practices cannot. In Tom's statement of policy it states:

"SUNSHINE POLICY: It is vpFREE's policy to share ALL known positive
VP games and casino promotions with the membership."

To take advantage of his site and not follow the rules is equivelent
to tracking muddy boot through someone's house when everyone else
removes their shoes at the door. Tom has done the VP a great service
and his rules should be adhered to by those taking advantage of this
site. Sometimes plays disclosed in the database have become
unavailable, however I have benefited much more from access to the
database than I would have by not having it and keeping good plays
to myself. To benefit by the databases and non-disclose is to act
like a parasite and puts one on par with the lowest practices by
casinos.

David

···

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

#3

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

The wisdom of disclosure vs. non-disclosure can be debated.

However,

taking advantage of a host's hospitality and not following house
practices cannot. In Tom's statement of policy it states:

"SUNSHINE POLICY: It is vpFREE's policy to share ALL known positive
VP games and casino promotions with the membership."

To take advantage of his site and not follow the rules is

equivelent

to tracking muddy boot through someone's house when everyone else
removes their shoes at the door. Tom has done the VP a great

service

and his rules should be adhered to by those taking advantage of

this

site. Sometimes plays disclosed in the database have become
unavailable, however I have benefited much more from access to the
database than I would have by not having it and keeping good plays
to myself. To benefit by the databases and non-disclose is to act
like a parasite and puts one on par with the lowest practices by
casinos.

David

After reading that Sunshine Policy, I'm not sure if it applies to all
members, or to the vpFREE Administrator. If it is supposed to apply
to all memebers, as in "All members are required to post all positive
VP plays they know about", then I can just about guarantee you a major
portion of the membership is in noncompliance. If that really is the
intent, then there's a whole bunch of us that ought to just
unsubscribe right now. Perhaps a clarification from Tom would be
appropriate here.

Nonetheless, I was simply expressing an opinion. There's little doubt
that many people have benefitted (in the short term) from great plays
being broadcast on bulletin boards. Those that did not already know
about it and then go and play it benefit greatly for as long as the
play lasts. Those people who learned about great plays at the
Suncoast, Barbary Coast, the Stations, NYNY, etc. all benefitted 3-5
years ago when details of those machines plus their cash benefits were
posted on numerous large bulletin boards. Unfortunately those great
plays no longer exist, most likely because too many people found out
about them and they were no longer profitable to the casinos. I have
no proof of that, it's simply an opinion.

Knowing about a good play is valuable information, and broadcasting
that information raises the risk of reducing or eliminating the value
of that information. People can do whatever they like with that
information. My approach is to keep the really good info private, and
I'd prefer to see others do the same, but that's just my opinion.
There's no way I can force anyone to do anything. But I think it's
wise for people to think about the potential ramifications before
posting.

That doesn't mean there's not plenty of other VP topics for bulletin
boards to discuss, without killing the golden goose.

#4

Call me crazy, but I find it hard to believe that spreading
information across about 3000-4000 people scattered across the U.S.
really makes a difference to what games are found in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas has just become less generous in terms of its paybacks for
the past few years. It's not just Video Poker. Las Vegas has cut
the payback on things like Pair Plus (of Three Card Poker) relative
to even the rest of the country. Whoever thought we'd get to the
day when Las Vegas would not have the best paytables available?

Kil

There's a reason you rarely see people reporting about the best VP
paytables, the best promotions, the best cash benefits, etc. on

lists

like this anymore (mostly regarding Vegas but sometimes at other
locales too). It kills a play when too many people find out about

it.

In the 90's it was common for lists like this to be filled with
reports of the locations for all the best machines, when they had

3x

points, who had the best cashback rates, what the best play in town
was, etc. Remember the days of $1 FPDW in Vegas? All gone. $1

10/7

DB? Rare at places that have cashback. Even 25c FPDW is
disappearing, or having benefits cut (like half points at all
Stations/Fiestas).

Good Vegas video poker plays have been shrinking for 5 years. Now

the

same thing is happening at other locations. Some of those Vegas

pros

have even brached out around the country to find more lucrative

plays,

competing with the locals and making it tougher on them. Casinos

have

to react by cutting back good paytables and good cash benefits if

too

many advantage players hit their machines. This is especially

true at

smaller casino towns outside of Vegas, where any significant

amount of

advantage play can make a big difference to the casino. It's a

simple

yet frustrating reality.

What can people like us do to slow the loss of our good plays? One
easy thing: DON'T BROADCAST GOOD PLAYS. Don't make it easier for
others to come in and kill your most lucrative plays. Many of the
players who used to post good info to lists like this years ago
(including me) figured out that - as noble as it may be to share
information to help others - they're only hurting themselves in the
long run.

Share information about hotel rooms, good restaurants, pretty

casinos

···

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

with nice atmosphere. But keep information about profitable plays
(best paytables, cashback, cash promotions) close to the vest,
assuming you want those plays to last longer.

This is a public service announcement.

#5

Call me crazy, but I find it hard to believe that spreading
information across about 3000-4000 people scattered across the U.S.
really makes a difference to what games are found in Las Vegas.

It's not so much the number of people involved as the amount of play
(total coin-in). Compare how many hands the average clueless visitor
to a casino plays in a given day to that of a well prepared advantage
player. A typical visitor playing 25c VP may plunk a few $20 bills
into the machine, play slowly and inaccurately, for a total of $400
total coin-in. A typical advantage player may play 800 hands per hour
for 4 hours ($4000 total coin-in). That means if just 10% of the
total players are advantage players, they account for as much of the
total coin-in on a machine as the ones who actually make money for the
casino.

And the really good machines are even worse (for the casino). Plays
like the (now defunct) 10-coin 25c FPDW at Fiesta Henderson on 5x
Fridays. All day long it was 80% of the same players week after week.
It's no wonder the casinos are finally pulling the plug on the good
machines. They can tolerate some advantage play, but only when it's a
small amount and when it doesn't prevent profitable customers from
getting to those machines as well. But when it starts making up 50,
60, 70% of the total coin-in on a machine, it just doesn't make sense
for them to keep those machines.

Las Vegas has just become less generous in terms of its paybacks for
the past few years. It's not just Video Poker. Las Vegas has cut
the payback on things like Pair Plus (of Three Card Poker) relative
to even the rest of the country. Whoever thought we'd get to the
day when Las Vegas would not have the best paytables available?

Kil

True. Although I'd contend it's mainly for the same reason - there's
just too many people who have learned to exploit the system. It's not
that the casinos are more "greedy" than they were in the past. It's
that their machine and table revenues drop as more people learn how to
play more accurately to lower the house edge (or shift it in their
favor on positive VP + benefits).

While Vegas clearly has more machines and tables than any other locale
in the country, they also have by far the most expert players. And
they're not all locals. Virtually everyone of us on these bulletin
boards frequents Vegas. Individually we make almost no impact. But
add all the advantage players together and throw them on the few
hundred truley good machines left in Vegas, and it's a pretty big
impact to the hold percentage of those machines on average. There
either needs to be more good machines (clearly not the current
direction) or fewer advantage players who know where all the good
stuff is (thus the point of my post).

I can't speak much for games like Pairs Plus. I doubt there's a ton
of people who know the perfect strategy, plus it's a game that I
presume has a 3-5% house edge anyway. Perhaps it's just a matter of
supply and demand. If there's no shortage of customers, why pay out
more than you need to?

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "kilroydq2" <kilroydq@p...> wrote:

#6

Greetings from LV, Home of Positive ER Video Poker:

1. The "Sunshine Policy" is an editorial statement and applies to any
information known to the Administrator.

Incidentally, vpFREE shares all known information, but doesn't always
spell out how to use it in the most advantageous manner. Deciding when
and what to play is the member's responsibility.

2. As I've said many times, I believe that everyone should act in their
own best interest (as they see it) when deciding to share, or not
share, video poker information.

3. Protecting a good play by attempting to keep it secret may, or may
not, be in the best interest of the insiders, but it definitely isn't
in the best interest, or a viable option, for the vpFREE community as a
whole. vpFREE is primarily interested in promoting, sharing and
preserving good video poker situations that can survive and prosper in
an open market environment.

5. The sharing of inventory information is alive and well on vpFREE, as
a glance at the DataBase BLOG shows. And, this sharing doesn't help the
abusers of good plays very much. They have their own grapevines. But
it's a great resource for members, who include experts, novices and
everyone in between.

6. The "sky may fall" someday on video poker, but it hasn't fallen yet.
IMO, video poker opportunities in Las Vegas are better now than they
have ever been since I started playing seriously in 1996. My EV per
hour is dramatically better now than ever before, primarily because of
bounceback cash.

vpFREE Administrator

#7

Don't get me wrong. There is no doubt that there are more people
playing proper strategy (or at the very least far BETTER strategy)
than they were 10-20 years ago at virtually ALL casino games. This
DOES explain the lowering of some paybacks.

My contention is merely that the 3000 people or so on this board
cannot sway the house take by enough to make the overall changes
that have occurred. It's simply bigger than that.

BTW, Pair Plus as played on the East Coast has an edge of about 2%
for the house. In LV, it now has about 4+%.

Part of the explanation for the lower paybacks (across the board) is
simply 'They can'. People are flocking to casinos and throwing in
their money regardless. What made Atlantic City 'up' their paybacks
WAS more knowledgeable players who basically demanded it by not
playing the 'crap' that used to be out there.

Kil

>
>
> Call me crazy, but I find it hard to believe that spreading
> information across about 3000-4000 people scattered across the

U.S.

> really makes a difference to what games are found in Las Vegas.
>

It's not so much the number of people involved as the amount of

play

(total coin-in). Compare how many hands the average clueless

visitor

to a casino plays in a given day to that of a well prepared

advantage

player. A typical visitor playing 25c VP may plunk a few $20 bills
into the machine, play slowly and inaccurately, for a total of $400
total coin-in. A typical advantage player may play 800 hands per

hour

for 4 hours ($4000 total coin-in). That means if just 10% of the
total players are advantage players, they account for as much of

the

total coin-in on a machine as the ones who actually make money for

the

casino.

And the really good machines are even worse (for the casino).

Plays

like the (now defunct) 10-coin 25c FPDW at Fiesta Henderson on 5x
Fridays. All day long it was 80% of the same players week after

week.

It's no wonder the casinos are finally pulling the plug on the

good

machines. They can tolerate some advantage play, but only when

it's a

small amount and when it doesn't prevent profitable customers from
getting to those machines as well. But when it starts making up

50,

60, 70% of the total coin-in on a machine, it just doesn't make

sense

for them to keep those machines.

> Las Vegas has just become less generous in terms of its paybacks

for

> the past few years. It's not just Video Poker. Las Vegas has

cut

> the payback on things like Pair Plus (of Three Card Poker)

relative

> to even the rest of the country. Whoever thought we'd get to

the

> day when Las Vegas would not have the best paytables available?
>
> Kil
>

True. Although I'd contend it's mainly for the same reason -

there's

just too many people who have learned to exploit the system. It's

not

that the casinos are more "greedy" than they were in the past.

It's

that their machine and table revenues drop as more people learn

how to

play more accurately to lower the house edge (or shift it in their
favor on positive VP + benefits).

While Vegas clearly has more machines and tables than any other

locale

in the country, they also have by far the most expert players. And
they're not all locals. Virtually everyone of us on these bulletin
boards frequents Vegas. Individually we make almost no impact.

But

add all the advantage players together and throw them on the few
hundred truley good machines left in Vegas, and it's a pretty big
impact to the hold percentage of those machines on average. There
either needs to be more good machines (clearly not the current
direction) or fewer advantage players who know where all the good
stuff is (thus the point of my post).

I can't speak much for games like Pairs Plus. I doubt there's a

ton

of people who know the perfect strategy, plus it's a game that I
presume has a 3-5% house edge anyway. Perhaps it's just a matter

of

supply and demand. If there's no shortage of customers, why pay

out

···

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

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "kilroydq2" <kilroydq@p...> wrote:
more than you need to?

#8

Not sure I can agree with that. I would concede that if it were ONLY
the members on this board that were involved, the negative impact on
machine inventory and benefits would not be quite as large as it has
been (and will be). But there are other bulletin boards out there
with 1000+ members, there are the spouses/family/friends of members,
there are other players at the casino that members talk to... the
total number of people that receive this valuable information could be
5 or 10 times larger than just the membership number for this list.

Nonetheless, I really don't think it takes as much to sway the house
as people may think. Let's break down the process...

First let's narrow down specifically what we're talking about here,
and that's the removal of machines with very high EV. As an example,
let's talk about the 25c FPDW machines that Barbary Coast had for
years. There were roughly 15 machines, give or take a few. We need
to be careful to focus just on those machines, and don't get caught up
in the "those casinos make so much money they shouldn't need to worry
about losing a few bucks on a few machines" line of thinking. That's
not how the Slot Manager of casino looks at it, nor should he. His
job is to maximize the return of his overall inventory. Not all
machines are equal, some will make more than others, but he has to
continually evaluate each bank of machines to determine if there's a
better alternative that will increase revenues.

There are two primary components to that: the hold percentage, and the
volume of play (total coin-in). Those multiply together to produce
the amount of revenue. Increase the hold percentage too much and the
volume goes down, and vise versa. Other things also affect the volume
(the type of game, denomination, location, etc.) but we'll ignore
those for the moment just to simplify things. We'll just concentrate
on whether they would/should change the paytable or not.

Let's go back to the mid 1990's, before vpFREE, VPMAIL, Dancer, et al
were broadcasting all this great info about beating VP. Hard to say
exactly how many advantage VP players there were back then, but I'd
guess less that 100. Let's say they made up only 10% of the total
coin-in on the 15 FPDW machines at BC. It's a 100.7% game, but the
typical clueless VP player averages about 3% below EV from lack of
proper strategy, thus a 2.3% avg house edge for 90% of the play, and a
0.7% house loss for the remaining 10% of play. 2.3% x 90% + -0.7% x
10% = 2.0% overall machine hold. Total play on the machines is
roughly the same as any other in the casino, let's say $4000
coin-in/day ($400 from experts, $3600 from the clueless). A 2.0%
machine hold is a little low compared to the average casino hold, but
it's still withing reasonable range so the allow the machines.

Let's jump forward to 2003, the last year FPDW existed at BC. Due to
the drastically increased number of advantage players, armed with
information about where the full pay machines are, what the best
cashback rates are, when the 2x/3x days are, etc., the Slot Manager
finds a completely different result on these same machines. Now there
are 30 times the number of advantage players in town at any given time
compared to 1995. And the average advatage player is playing a lot
longer now because they know they need lots of points that day to
cover their room or food or whatever.

The news on the surface looks good for the casino: volume has tripled
to $12,000/day! But wait... what happened to our hold percentages?
We're getting the same amount of clueless play we did before
($3600/day), but the expert play jumped to a whopping $8400/day (70%
of the total). Hold percentage is now 2.3% x 30% + -0.7% x 70% = a
meager 0.3%.

There's no way a 0.3% machine hold can be justified for long,
especially when cashback and free drinks and RFB and other promotional
items get added on. They're simply losing money on that proposition.
There's only two ways to fix the problem: get less play from expert
players, or lower the paytables.

The numbers above are purely made up and we could dispute the
magnitude of some of them, but there's no disputing the overall logic
or conclusion. The more advantage players that exist, and the more
the information propogates, and the more expert play there is on the
good machines, will simply result in the casinos being forced to
remove them. We're our own worst enemies.

It's easy to blame the handful of pros for "hogging" the best
machines. But it really doesn't matter whether it's a pro, a local
expert, or visiting expert. They do the same thing to the hold
percentages. 3 experts probably play about equal coin-in to one pro
in a day, and there's probably a lot more advantaged non-pros than
there are pros. They (we) are all to blame.

There's nothing that's going to turn the clock back to the good 'ol
days where there were few advantage players and information about good
plays was not spread like wildfire. However, the more this thing
propogates (more experts & easy information), the more it will force
the casinos to remove the good stuff. It's that simple. When there
were 50 experts, conditions were great. Now there's a few thousand
experts, and conditions are OK but far from great. What's gonna
happen if there are 10,000 experts 5 years from now, fighting for even
fewer opportunities?

I certainly cannot stop the propogation of experts and easy
information. All I can do is try not to add to it. Just something
for people to think about.

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "kilroydq2" <kilroydq@p...> wrote:

Don't get me wrong. There is no doubt that there are more people
playing proper strategy (or at the very least far BETTER strategy)
than they were 10-20 years ago at virtually ALL casino games. This
DOES explain the lowering of some paybacks.

My contention is merely that the 3000 people or so on this board
cannot sway the house take by enough to make the overall changes
that have occurred. It's simply bigger than that.

#9

Very well written,
I completely concur. You are correctly predicting the future because
the internet VP boards et al are creating the future. I would add to
your talking points that this knowledge about FPVP extends into the
casino management community. This creates paranoia and over-reaction.
Talk about a disruptive technology.
haaljo in boston

>
> Don't get me wrong. There is no doubt that there are more

people

> playing proper strategy (or at the very least far BETTER

strategy)

> than they were 10-20 years ago at virtually ALL casino games.

This

···

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

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "kilroydq2" <kilroydq@p...> wrote:
> DOES explain the lowering of some paybacks.

#10

[Big snip]

Part of the explanation for the lower
paybacks (across the board) is simply 'They can'.

I don't mean to dispute anything shared in this very interesting
dialog. I would add however to the statement above, that in some
ways, because of the corporate structure of many of these
companies, 'they must'. The need to show year over year increases
in both revenue and profits means that once you maximize revenue you
must find ways to cut costs to beef up profits. If you don't your
stock price will languish. While no one is crying for the starving
casino execs it is a very real business pressure that translates
into the need to squeeze more profit off casino floors.

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "kilroydq2" <kilroydq@p...> wrote: