Closed for maintenance?

[ko king]

A few weeks ago I made the trip down to play some vp and visit with a friend at one of my favorite casinos. We were both disappointed to find that all the old style vp machines were roped off with sign that said "closed for maintenance, will re-open in 48 hours". Both of us love to play there because they still have the old style machines and we've always done pretty well there. Since there are no other casinos around that area and we don't play slots we made our way over to the dreaded vp games at the bar, there are 8 of them and every single one of them have issues. Anyway we played for maybe an hour and got tired of fighting the sticky or non-working buttons and dealing with horrible graphics, two of the machines have graphics so bad you can barely read the cards. After a nice meal I decided to head back home and we decided to meet up next time I was down that way. Funny thing was there wasn't a thing wrong with any of the machines they had closed down, both of us had played each and every one of them and they were in great condition. I called him a week or so later to see if he had been playing and he informed me that he had played and the pay tables had been dropped slightly, still very good around this area. He's like me, plays a good bit of vp and has the W2-g's to prove it. Said he hasn't hit a hand pay since the machines opened back up a week ago. None the less I gave him a call Saturday (been three weeks now since the machines were closed down) to see if he wanted to meet me at the casino, he agreed but warned me that he still hasn't hit hand pay and the machines had been gobbling money up as fast as you could put it in. He's convinced there was far more done to the machines other than routine maintenance. So we meet up there and have a good meal and a few beers and get ready to tackle the machines even though he had warned me over and over again that these weren't the same machines, he said he had only hit quad 3's without the kicker one time in the three weeks and had dumped thousands of dollars into the machines. Played for two days there and dropped a stack of cash, hit a few and only a few small quads the entire time there, never saw a single hand pay the entire time there, in fact I never saw a single person hit quad 2's, 3's or 4's, no quad Aces either. I'm with him now, something other than routine maintenance was performed on these machines. While my time playing was limited to only two days combined with his three weeks of extended play I think I've saw enough to make and educated guess that some adjustments were done, perfectly legal no doubt but not for the benefit of players. Went to check out the machines at the bar to see if they were closed for maintenance and they hadn't had a thing done to them, still pathetic buttons and horrible graphics. I'm now down to two casinos that I trust anymore in this area but I wonder when they will shut down their machines for routine maintenance.

[notes1]

KK, you have been reporting one bad session after another. it has to be getting very frustrating. i hope the luck turns around soon. 

[olds442jetaway]

This confirms what I have been writing about for months if not longer. A while ago, Mohegan Sun closed down their machines too and continue to do so on some machines. The bar machines are almost unplayable. For the last 20 years or so, I have averaged anywhere from 6-15 W-2G's per year. None of the years profitable, but still had some hand pays every year. My play strategy wasn't as good in the old days either. Well, I haven't had a hand pay now since October 2014 and probably have played at least 600k hands since then mostly on single line pay. If anything, betting amounts per hand are more than years ago. Play mostly job, deuces wild, and double down stud. Also, if I remember correctly, only 1 Royal in that time period. No matter what anyone says, those of us in the million hands a year club know that something is wrong with the machines, but we haven't got it quite figured out. My personal opinion and it is just that is that they pay out most of the premium hands on one unit bet to justify keeping the numbers of premium hands within what the paytable would show long term. The only proof of this is experience and seeing other players hitting at the one unit level. In my area most of the vp players are gone and those that remain har switching to table games, slots, or just not playing. Such a shame never mind being brutal on the finances too.

[notes1]

the good ole days are gone and they are not coming back. we have to accept it, adapt to it or quit. i see no other solution.

[ko king]

KK, you have been reporting one bad session after another. it has to be getting very frustrating. i hope the luck turns around soon. 


Didn't mean to give that impression, I just don't report much on the casinos I really like, trying to keep them a secret. I play all over the place and I had three preferred casino to play at, they get the majority of my play now. Every so often I stray off the reservation to see if anything has changed at some of the other casinos. I'm trying real hard to believe all casinos are pretty much the same but it's pretty darn hard to accept that as fact anymore. Just to give an example I visited my favorite casino and knocked down my 4th Royal of the year there, went back a few days later and hit quad aces twice within a matter of minutes, two days later I started out a little rough but made a great comeback without a single hand pay, hit quad after quad, cashed out $2K on that machine, switched machines and knocked down another $1K. Right after that I popped into my second favorite casino and hit another royal along with several other quads. the two casinos I really like are always packed and sometimes it's tough to get a machine to play, jackpots are all over the place there and the casinos are doing very well. I could post all kinds of jackpot hits but I just don't do it. When It's really crowded or I just want to test the waters elsewhere I almost always pay the price. I really wished I could give all the casinos a good or decent report but when you get your pockets picked fast and hard on a repeated basis at certain places without hitting squat it's tough to say anything good about them. Now common sense would say to just stay away from them (as judging from the few players at these casinos have obviously done) but I keep trusting in the odds and statistics that are supposed to govern the game. Don't know why but some casinos just don't deliver the goods and it shows not only in my case but the lack of other players there. I made a post earlier about my latest trip to the dreaded Roadhouse, didn't hit squat and there was only two other players playing the estimated other 70 other vp machines in the place. Why is that I can drive 20 miles down the road and walk into a casino that is packed, my guess is that people will play where the results are better, it's not pay tables because they're all pretty much the same around these parts.

[ko king]

This confirms what I have been writing about for months if not longer. A while ago, Mohegan Sun closed down their machines too and continue to do so on some machines. The bar machines are almost unplayable. For the last 20 years or so, I have averaged anywhere from 6-15 W-2G's per year. None of the years profitable, but still had some hand pays every year. My play strategy wasn't as good in the old days either. Well, I haven't had a hand pay now since October 2014 and probably have played at least 600k hands since then mostly on single line pay. If anything, betting amounts per hand are more than years ago. Play mostly job, deuces wild, and double down stud. Also, if I remember correctly, only 1 Royal in that time period. No matter what anyone says, those of us in the million hands a year club know that something is wrong with the machines, but we haven't got it quite figured out. My personal opinion and it is just that is that they pay out most of the premium hands on one unit bet to justify keeping the numbers of premium hands within what the paytable would show long term. The only proof of this is experience and seeing other players hitting at the one unit level. In my area most of the vp players are gone and those that remain har switching to table games, slots, or just not playing. Such a shame never mind being brutal on the finances too.

Olds I played at one casino for years, loved the place. Every year I'd have around 50 or so W-2G's, knew a couple that played there for years and they showed me their stack of W-2G's one time, well over 100, they said they hit 26 royals that year which was pretty common for them there. The new machines came in and I only ended up with 13 W-2g's for that entire year, not a single royal at all, played as much as I ever did, the hits just quit coming. Finally ran into the couple again and they said the new machines kicked their butts and they couldn't afford to play there anymore, they said they had only hit 1 royal that entire year. Funny thing was I ran into them at my favorite casino and they both said they were enjoying playing again. The other casino is dead as doornail now hardly anyone plays there anymore, no doubt it's because they were doing so well and just decided they couldn't stand having a good time anymore.

[ko king]

the good ole days are gone and they are not coming back. we have to accept it, adapt to it or quit. i see no other solution.


But why, it's not pay tables, I could easily explain that. I can still find good play and it's reflected by the amount of other players. If we're supposed to believe that all vp is the same then why have so many other players gave up trying at so many other casinos, they're still playing just at other places. I still run into familiar faces and we chat about the situation but no one really understands why play has gone sour at certain locations.

[olds442jetaway]

Interesting. I am going to have to give the competition ( Foxwoods ) a try. Only fifteen minutes away from Mohegan Sun. I know their paytables are worse there, but maybe that won't matter anymore. Other than that, I am limited where I can play due to the situation with the folks. Even with live in care for them, I have to be close to home. That is number 1 for now and I am so lucky to still have both of them. VP is a nice diversion from stress even though it has its own stress, but I am strongly leaning toward returning to craps that I played and held my own years ago. That game of course plays just about even up with the house on some bets. The downside is the standing for hours being stuck playing next to some real winners sometines. And I don't mean that literally. We don't have any electronic craps games at the casino yet and I don't think I could trust the programing anyway. One quick note on the plus side. The other night I decided to play low budget on the lone nickel Multi Strike game on Joker Kings. Has a 17/7 paytable which is good for a nickel game and over 98%. I hit 5 of a kind on the 3rd line which made it good for 4000 nickels or 200 bucks. Unfortunately, not content to pack it in and relax for the rest of the evening, I put it back in short order on a quarter deuces wild game using the Phil method. No deuces quads, wild royals, or even 5 of a kinds hit. At least I had the Multi Strike hit money to play with.

[notes1]

KK, at the casinos that you do like, are you net positive ytd, or is the loss, just within a more acceptible range?

[ko king]

KK, at the casinos that you do like, are you net positive ytd, or is the loss, just within a more acceptible range?

I wish I could say positive but that would be a lie, both of the casinos I like have the same pay tables, 98.88%, that's the way they've always been and remain the same to this day. Just like all vp players my back roll moves up and down, never really panic when I hit a bad streak, I just keep playing and it always comes back, I trust the numbers and the system and they tend to deliver. Truth is when in all the dust settles at the end of the year I can't argue with advertised pay tables or the poker statistics. Now I play a lot of vp, always have, found it to be a game that delivered pretty much what it promised. If there was such a thing a a video poker preacher that would be me, I used to preach to folks about the benefits of choosing the game. Many times I would hear people complaining and I would take the time if they were interested to explain about hands played, pay tables and statistics. In most cases the people I talked to began to realize the mistakes they were making and walked away with a better understanding of how the game worked. I've had numerous people comment about my knowledge of the game and how much they appreciated my taking the time to explain and pass along what I knew. Now there were some hardcore cases that still believed the casinos could turn the machines off and on, a magic button they could push to decide if players won or lost. I remember a guy complaining about never hitting quad aces, he asked me if I had ever hit them. I of corse said plenty of times and inquired about how long he had been playing and how often he played. He said he played around once a month and brought $200 to the casino to play $1 denomination at max DDB, when it was gone he left, he said sometimes he would only get to play for a few minutes and other times maybe a couple of hours. We estimated that he probably only played around 6K hands per year as he played very slow, maybe 500 hands per hour. That day he burned thru his $200 in maybe 30 minutes and came by to say goodbye to me. Before he left I inquired about his ability to increase his bankroll and spend a little more time playing, he said that wasn't a problem as he was retired and wasn't hurting for money. I don't know exactly how much time went by before we ran into each other again but he came up to me and said he wanted to thank me for helping him out and he had grown to love playing the game, and yes he had hit aces many times along with a royal flush or two, a happy convert with a renewed respect to the game. Sorry to make such a long post but in order to make my point it was needed. If that same situation popped up at some casinos I wouldn't say a word because I don't trust the system there in the least little bit. I want to believe but the numbers just keep coming up bad. No sir, if I play 250K to 600K at a particular casino and my pay back percentage is fighting to get up to 95%, I have a problem. To aggravate the frustration I can look and find why my pay back percentage is so low below the advertised number, the quality hands didn't show up. So to answer your question my numbers vary a little bit from year to year but they paint a clear picture in the overall scheme of things that the games there are delivering what they advertise, an acceptable level.