Can You Keep From Losing?

[Eduardo]

So to summarize:

If you want to lose money playing video poker, you need to make money doing other things, otherwise you won't have money?

[FloridaPhil]

So to summarize:

If you want to lose money playing video poker, you need to make money doing other things, otherwise you won't have money?

Essentially yes. I will go further and say that in order to play video poker successfully you need some outside source of revenue. That revenue can come from savings, an associate, a family member, a business, selling products and services, investing or dozens of other sources. Without a consistent source of funds, the swings of the game will bust you every time. This is one reason why I do not believe stories of someone starting with nothing and becoming a millionaire playing VP. Somewhere that person had to have the funds to play long enough to build an ever expanding bankroll.

As for us, we play negative VP games because we have no choice unless we play at a level that is not in line with our personal risk tolerance and financial goals. If we lived down the street from South Point, we would play positive quarter games. We would not play dollar games even if they were positive. We are not in the gambling risk taking business and do not wish to invest the time and effort it takes to be. The little amount we spend playing VP compared to the enjoyment we receive is well worth the money.

[Eduardo]

I will go further and say that in order to play video poker successfully you need some outside source of revenue. That revenue can come from savings, an associate, a family member, a business, selling products and services, investing or dozens of other sources.

So you're saying I can get my bankroll from my sister? I don't think her boyfriend is going to like this...

[billryan]

money. Saving to build a VP bankroll seems easier because there is a reward and a purpose. We got into the habit of stashing a little extra money into our VP bankroll whenever...

The funny thing was, we didn't quit building our bankroll at $5,000 each. One unintended consequence of VP bankroll building is it's addicting. Eventually we found we had over $30,000 in our bankrolls, all from VP play. It wasn't all profit because we added money along the way. With this money, we could both easily switch to dollars.
[/quote]


" $30,000 in our bankroll,all from VP Play"
Start playing VPFree, bet small and retire rich. Amazing.
Why do you have $20,000 tied up in a video poker bankroll you'll never need.

[FloridaPhil]

Why do you have $20,000 tied up in a video poker bankroll you'll never need.

I keep asking myself that very question. I guess it's because it makes us feel secure. We believe in math, we just don't believe VP math is as predictable as some people think. We have seen far too many crazy things to rely on it. Gambling is wasteful enough without stashing 30 grand in the ground with no return. The really funny thing about it is I rarely take money from my bankroll. It took me so long to build it, I don't want to spend it. I use it primarily when we go on long VP road trips. We take a lot of money with us so we don't run out of money on a long vacation. I know we could use an ATM, but I don't trust any machines in a casino that are directly connected to my bank account.

[FAA]

I have sworn off casino ATMs. Six dollar min fee. Better to take a walk, clear my head and get fresh oxygen. If I want to go double or nothing, a $2 ATM is available.

[Vman96]

As I have posted the long term is not guaranteed. Therefore you cannot define long term for individual. Furthermore, as I also posted, my wife and I made 1 - 1 /12 trips a year to Vegas and Laughlin for 10+ years, played almost exclusively (99%+) single line VP and neither of us hit a rf. And we played between us for hours virtually each day we were there. Now we have health issues that may prevent us from going back to Vegas and even playing locally due to smoke in the areas where VP machines are placed. How do you calculate life events that impact the long term. You can't and that's why calculations are often meaningless. For us, the long term may have ended.

How many trips total did you take in those 10+ years? "1-1/12" is confusing. If you made a dozen trips a year for 10+ years and played VP for hours a day, I'm surprised you aren't in the "VP is rigged" camp here. You probably played over a million hands if that's the case. Odds of no royals in a fair game for a million hands is roughly 1 in 72 billion.

How many hands do you think you have played? How many royals have you hit?

[FAA]

OB, sorry about both your poor health and bad luck. Two RFs into my fifth year. Three including the min coin fiasco. It truly is the pot of gold, if ever attained.

[FloridaPhil]

As I have posted the long term is not guaranteed. Therefore you cannot define long term for individual. Furthermore, as I also posted, my wife and I made 1 - 1 /12 trips a year to Vegas and Laughlin for 10+ years, played almost exclusively (99%+) single line VP and neither of us hit a rf.

This is a truly remarkable and eye opening result. I play about 300,000 hands a year and average about 3-5 royals a year. I have gone as long as two years without one and have hit four in one day.

There is risk in everything you do. You could wake up tomorrow with cancer, go to the doctor at 10 AM and have him say you have three months to live. You can walk up to a slot machine and hit a million dollar jackpot on the first spin. Gambling is taking risks with your money. If you have enough, no harm done. If you don't have money already and are counting on VP to fund a "nice lifestyle" you are taking a risk no matter what the odds say.

[onemoretry]

How many trips total did you take in those 10+ years? "1-1/12" is confusing. If you made a dozen trips a year for 10+ years and played VP for hours a day, I'm surprised you aren't in the "VP is rigged" camp here. You probably played over a million hands if that's the case. Odds of no royals in a fair game for a million hands is roughly 1 in 72 billion.

How many hands do you think you have played? How many royals have you hit?

When I saw the post, I also tried to estimate how many hands might have been played without a royal.

I took it as 12 or 13 trips over the 10 years, i.e., 1.2-1.3 trips per year. How long is a trip? I assumed 7 days. Thirteen trips at 7 days per trip comes to 91 days. Assuming 2500 hands per day, (4 hours at 625 hands/hour), the hand total without a royal comes to 227500. Certainly not great, but if there's anyone here who plays a lot of video poker and has not had at least one bad streak like that, I'd be surprised.

It's definitely not fun when it happens.