Something to Think About

[FloridaPhil]

Gronbog. Let's take a few purely theoretical but altogether possible scenarios. Suppose someone hits 4 royals in one day playing a 97% game. Does this means he/she is not a winner through luck?

We have had numerous posters on this forum who have reported results far outside of what your math seems to predict. One I remember reported not hitting a royal flush in ten years of play. What other explanation could there be except bad luck?

How do you explain my current 45,000 point score on this website playing a negative game poorly?

Suppose through pure luck you won a million dollars playing video poker twenty years ago, you invested your money wisely and lived off the profits for the rest of your life. Should you be able to claim video poker made you rich?

Your math sounds good. In reality, it doesn't reflect what happens inside a real casino. I buy the fact that playing the best games perfectly makes profit more likely. Math is not "likely". Math is exact and there is clearly something amiss with yours.

Please don't take my comments personally. I don't mean to question your intellect or your mathematical ability. What I am questioning are your conclusions.

[onemoretry]

One I remember reported not hitting a royal flush in ten years of play. What other explanation could there be except bad luck?

Here's one - they don't play a lot.

[FloridaPhil]

Here's one - they don't play a lot.

Exactly. Gronbog says each hand has it's own ER. Would it make a difference if the game they played without a royal was positive? Would they be able to say they could have made a profit in time without winning? The promise of a long term win does not spend.

[Gronbog]

Phil, you keep giving examples of short term luck and then asserting that they dispute the math. Things like 4 royals in a day. In the other thread, "Chase the royal or keep the flush?"

https://www.videopoker.com/forum/viewto ... =2&t=10868

we agreed that the long term math predictions don't apply to short term play and that the role of luck starts out as almost 100% and ends up as almost 0% as you play more and more hands.

As for not hitting a royal in 10 years, that's a loaded way to phrase the question. What is needed is the number of hands played during that 10 years. Give me a game and a number of hands and I can tell you what the probability of not hitting the royal is. Then we can decide whether it was unlucky or not.

[FloridaPhil]

We would all like to believe there is a fool proof way to beat the casino. The casino wants us to believe it along with people that make money off the idea. Players want to believe it as well. If there is, why are there so few winners? This is where you reply "Because they don't do what it takes." Out of the millions of players, how many make a long term profit? If it's so difficult, doesn't this make it nearly impossible?

It's sold to us so players will have hope. This is the hope that drives us back to the casino, keeps the bright lights on the marquee burning, pays the slot girl's salary and rewards the stock holders.

Casino gambling is a multi billion dollar industry that sells dreams. I have no problem with that. In fact, I embrace it. I prefer walking in knowing that I am going to pay to play. The alternative is to believe I will profit and pay more than I wish to.

[olds442jetaway]

Tech, I was mainly referring to the boost in our AGI because we had the disposable income to gamble with because we had no debt. Especially in the State of Ct and since the tax laws changed for 2018 tax returns forcing us to itemize and lose much of state and local tax deductions to deduct gambling losses when the doubled standard deduction would have served us much better if we had no gambling income at all. There was a time as well when I just included all gross income on my return and didn’t even offset it with losses on the sch A. We just ate it. In hindsight a bad decision. I also left off the fact in my long post above that we gave up super hi cd interest rates to pay off the mortgage. There was a time I’m sure you remember when Carter was in that cds were paying over 18 percent. Even after taxes, one could have kept at least 2/3 of that income. We chose to pay off the 8 percent or so mortgage anyway. Not a good move money wise either, thats what we did. Anyway, nowdays the income from all of our investments is pretty much gone like most seniors, but we are fortunate enough to have two not huge, but decent pensions we worked 70 years total for. One big bummer on my end is I don’t qualify for ss retirement income because of the kind of pension I have, not having enough quarters, and in my state the ss retirement income offset depending on the type of pension you have. Anyway, for now we have our health and that dwarfs everything. Stay safe all.

[tech58]

Sorry i took your comment out of context OLD's. I totally agree on the insane state tax hits, and the affect of the 2018 tax cut.
A triple whammy coming at some of us. The fed. payments, in the virus bill, are based on AGI, W2G's are in there with no offset for losses that comes in later.
Myself i am not upset. I don't think the payments should have went as high as they did.

[olds442jetaway]

I have no problem with getting a tiny or no check. So many people are paycheck to paycheck. I try not to be judgmental, but unfortunately, I know quite a few “ paycheck to paycheck “ people who are that way because they are covered with tattoos, think nothing of 200 bar nights with 14 dollar drinks, and of course spend a ton on smokes. Oh I forgot. They have to have that 1200 dollar cell phone. Boy am I gonna carch flack for this post.

[OTABILL]

One I remember reported not hitting a royal flush in ten years of play. What other explanation could there be except bad luck?

Here's one - they don't play a lot.

You are both wrong since I was the one who made the 10 year remark. What I said was I have never hit a single line royal flush in 10 years going to Vegas and Laughlin nor did my wife during that time-span. We played over 99.9% of the time/hands DDB quarters. We made numerous trips, at least 20, and played extensively, hour on end most of the time we were in either place. Having said that, both of us hit royals during that period at casinos here in Arizona. Of course we played much more here in Arizona. Ironically we hit a joint royal fooling around in the casino on a cruise ship during that time frame as well. To be completely honest, once in Vegas we played triple play nickels for about 1/2 hour and both of us hit royals. So while between the 2 of us we played a hell of a lot but the 10 years only referred to Nevada.

[notes1]

[quote=FloridaPhil post_id=133044 time=1585686531 user_id=17862]
We would all like to believe there is a fool proof way to beat the casino.
/quote]

you make generalized statements like this, that are simply wrong. i have been playing for years, play at the same place you play and don't believe there is a foolproof way to beat the casino. and, i am guessing that there are many experienced players, who have just a basic sense of math, that also disagree with you. if every machine you play at, gives the casino an advantage, how can one beat them. no one has that much luck.

i believe this is the essence of your negative posts about casinos. YOU believe it is possible and thus it must be true. it seems that no matter how hard you try, you just cannot accept that the machines (including the comps and free play) have changed. the only way you will survive mentally is to stop playing altogether or finally accept that going to most casinos is for entertainment purposes only. accepting this reality may be something you cannot do.