R U supposed to keep playing same 'cold' machine?

[FAA]

Larry and Ted spend so much time under lucky stars. They should be paying some entity rent. )

[Vman96]

"Machines aren't lucky..... players are lucky."

Yep. Machines are just random card boxes.

[FAA]

Where the RNG stops, nobody knows! That said, I always brace for the worst on the four to RF deals. Such swell guys, those programmers.

[billryan]

   If I offered to buy your four to a Royal Flush draw for $30, would you sell?

[FAA]

Only on a single coin quarter wager. Which I no longer even undertake. Enjoy the 2% shot at $62.50!

[Lucky Larry]

LLLArry, you have been one of the forum's most successful players in terms of reporting legitimate hits and big hands.....obviously you seem to know what you are doing.  Can we assume you are a Positive/Profitable long term player (i.e. U have WON more money than you've lost long term)?    Do you follow any of Bob Dancer's tips or strategies for "Advantage Play", whereby you conscientiously compare ALL the different promotions, giveaways, comps etc and make your choice on where to play (and what to play and HOW long to play) based on all this "Dancer Info"?   Or is your determination of success and profit simply dollars and sense from each of your sessions (and Sweet Wife's sessions too?)    [/QUOTE]

DaBurglar,
Since 2006 when we started playing "WE" have had only one combined monetary winning year, some years one of us is positive in wins but the other's losses make up the difference. But, we play for entertainment, pleasure, and to keep our minds sharp. VP gambling is one of the few entertainments where you have a chance to get back $$ while enjoying your entertainment. We have friends who pay big amounts of $$ to keep season tickets to our local professional teams. They pay more than we play in a year when you count their extras (tailgating, watch parties, season playoff tickets, etc.) If we were playing professionally, we'd approach from a totally different strategy. Since we don't live in Vegas that's not in the cards. But, we allocate only disposable $$ into our "G" account.

More to the point, I continuously gather VP information all the time. Yes, we do try to take advantage of promotions, special offers, give aways, whenever we can. We try to maximize our play at each casino we play whether at home or on the road. At home we watch offers and for example recently went to a favorite and stayed/played 4 consecutive weekends to pick up the promotional items for our family and us. Since the casino offer was good for all regular players we walked out with 5 sets each weeks offering: pillows, sheets sets, comforters, and pillow shams. One set for each of us and the kids (we keep at least one of each of their cards and pin #'s) as we can swipe their cards at the kiosk, get their gift coupon and pick up their gifts in their absence. In January, we got 20 jackets (4 different style coats, jackets and windbreakers) the same way. Two of the kids received really nice cooking sets and knife/cutlery sets when they moved out on their own-thanks casino. I assume these are "advantage play" gifts. We don't give them a value toward deciding if we are positive for the year but they sure are nice to give to our kids or others. The homeless shelter took all the unwanted jackets (yeah, sometimes it does get cold in Houston) and they take all our other unwanted toiletries, coffee/creamer etc from our travels.   

Soapbox editorial: We really encourage everyone to do this. There is such a need in our country. Just collect them and fill a laundry bag and donate them to the nearby women's shelter. Travel size is perfect for temporary shelters.


My advice-learn all you can about the casino system where you play. Learn about their player tier levels, their official play day, learn the staff (who often give you great info. - a young dealer learning VP occasionally sits by me and shares insider information about the casino operations) and knowing the casino staff will improve your service. I can’t tell you how many times I can quickly get sticky button fixed or a screen recalibrated by the slot techs that we’ve gotten to know personally. Finally, in our case, we work as a team. On the road we always play on one card to increase the cash back and comps. At one of our home casinos we know that top tier get 10¢ back on every point ($4/pt VP) versus 4¢ at the next lower level. While the difference between these two levels in other comps are not worth it we keep Sweet C on top tier by playing on her card to get her the higher cash back return. Sometimes this can lead to interesting situations like recently when I hit a nice hand pay and had to tell the slot attendant Sweet C had ran to the RR after the hit - while I'm frantically texting/calling her to get to me from another part of the casino. The slot attendant accepted my story since we are regulars and we talk frequently (like 20 minutes before) when I was playing alone on that machine.   

By leveraging your play with knowledge about the systems you can often take advantage of lots of monetary and non-monetary perks. But, we never really assigned a monetary amount to the non-cash components. In spite of what some our family thinks we're professionals but having a professional level of knowledge about the things in life can often make a huge difference whether VP, investing, etc..

Learn to play well and learn the system so your not just making deposits when you visit the casino to see your previous investment, you're visiting your money and hopefully you are making occasional withdrawals. It is YOUR money.

[tech58]

Excellent post LL.The details of your approach will help a lot of us.One question,the multi-gift thing, once in a while our home casino has a good one going but always require ID to claim.My question, where is your gift-mine located?

[Lucky Larry]

Excellent post LL.The details of your approach will help a lot of us.One question,the multi-gift thing, once in a while our home casino has a good one going but always require ID to claim.My question, where is your gift-mine located?

tech58,

You are right, most casinos require an ID to pick up gifts, even if the other player is your spouse. Coushatta, (Kinder, La.) one of our home casinos, is a Native American casino and allows anyone to swipe their card as the kiosks and enter their pin # to print a voucher for the gift. They are not stingy on giving out gifts. We have all of our kid’s cards and their pins so we print a voucher to pick up their gifts.   Coushatta provides monthly gifts and then weekly gifts usually set: 4 types of jackets; sets of bedding (pillows, comforter/shams, sheets,); 4 sets of luggage, etc.

Let me expand on our strategy by going through our current dilemma and the process we are going through.

We enjoy Coushatta, it has great VP pay returns 98-99% on all denominations 1¢ and up. We love our host and the VIP office that handles all of our needs. Many of the staff (techs, slot attendants, drink staff) have become our close friends and as a result of this friendship we get incredible service including quick fixes on sticky button repair or bottles of water by Gabe when he sees me sit down at my normal machines as he makes the drink rounds. (He saves $1 coins for his son, so I try to keep a supply to tip him for my water.) To maintain our VIP status we have to earn 125K points (every six months-$500,000 coin in) or $1M coin in over a year. My normal play averages 500-600K points/year.

But, we have a dilemma. While we love Coushatta, we are not pleased with the restaurants and some of the comps compared to other nearby casinos.

We also really enjoy the Golden Nugget Lake Charles. While the VP is lower. (97% on average) the casino is truly Vegas quality in every aspect. The Golden Nugget is owned by Tilman Fertitta (Billionaire Buyer) and he has spared no $$ to build this jewel just 2 hours away from his hometown. The Golden Nugget hosts 7 of his top quality restaurants-Salt Grass Steak, Landry’s, etc. The first year GN opened it matched my VIP status at Coushatta and we enjoyed the play/stay. Additionally, two of our former hosts moved to GN. Among the comps were two free cruise vouchers, excellent food comps, tremendous cash give away, and only 100K points/year to maintain Elite status. However, the 100K points/year for VP is at $10/point for VP or $1M coin in - the same as Coushatta.

Sweet C and I therefore gathered information on both player club tiers, comps, amenities, and had serious discussions about what we wanted to do this upcoming year. After comparing the tier requirements, tier comps, and amenities, we decided to try to reduce my play at Coushatta and use the play at GN.

By using our teamwork strategy we reached the next highest level (Chairman) by April. As a result our cash back, room offers, and food comps went from every two-week offers to now weekly offers for each of those. At that point we also qualified for cruise vouchers. We’ll pick that up next month. We also re-evaluated our probability of reaching the 100K by December. We used the GN tier chart to compare the Chairman vs Elite status. In reality, there were few differences. At Chairman, we get free tickets to all concerts, cruises, top quality gifts, and priority check-in and priority restaurant seating. After review, we decided it was more beneficial to get Sweet C to Chairman level and thus doubling our offers and comps. We wouldn't get priority covered parking on the bottom floor. To do that we'd probably have to use our "Elite" level daughter's card. Hard for mom and dad to walk too far at our age.

I know this has been a long post. I hope it helps you view how we evaluate our opportunities for advantage play. By working together, gathering data, evaluating options you can increase you comps and benefits.

Best Wishes to all,

LL

[onemoretry]

Good post!   And, an excellent example of the effort needed to intelligently evaluate the merits of playing at one casino versus another. It's not handed to you on a silver platter.

[BobDancer]

   If I offered to buy your four to a Royal Flush draw for $30, would you sell? Assuming I were playing quarter single line (not a likely scenario!), I would!Four to the royal in most quarter games is worth about $24.