Dan Paymar

Dan Paymar is perhaps the most respected living expert on the subject of video poker. He writes articles about both playing and dealing cards at the casino. He is also a best-selling author on video poker, writing columns for Card Player, The Intelligent Gambler, The American Casino Guide and Video Poker Times.

Some Biography

Paymar began life in Flint, Michigan. He attended college at Michigan Technical University, where he earned a degree in engineering. Like many peers, Paymar enjoyed gambling as a relaxing alternative way to hone his mathematical talents. He entered the computer design industry.

This career began in the early 1960's, when the field was still new and untapped. He would work a variety of jobs in the industry, building his resume as an employee at Bendix Computer, Control Data and Encyclopaedia Britannica.

He eventually started his own firm, calling it Educational Data Systems. This firm wrote a disc operating system for computers of the time, and wound up developing products for the Apple-II computer system. In 1980, Paymar left this business to start a mail order business. He moved to Durango, Colorado, which he considered a fine place to raise a family.

Paymar's restless spirit got the better of him in 1988. He moved to California to manage a computer repair business. This did not last long. By the year 1989, he had reached a crossroads.

Moving to Vegas

In 1989 Dan Paymar moved from California to Las Vegas. For the next five years, Paymar worked as a card dealer. On breaks, he played the video poker machines. The dealer began to form his own ideas while working in the casinos.

In 1992, Paymar wrote a directory of video poker machines, detailing which games in which casinos were the best opportunities for profit. This directory was included in Video Poker - Precision Play. This apprentice work would lead to a career in gaming publications.

Other books about video poker strategy and other gambling subjects would follow. To date, here are Dan Paymar's list of published books:

Video Poker - Precision Play - 1992
The Best of Video Poker Times - 1996
The Professional Poker Dealer's Handbook - 1998
Video Poker - Optimum Play - 1998

Video Poker - Optimum Play is considered among the best of all how to books on video poker. Paymar tells his readers that perfect or near-perfect play is not practical, but the best players can achieve "optimum" play. Paymar defines optimum play as utilizing a combination of strategy and tactics tailored to yield a particular player's maximum win rate. Paymar's earlier work, Video Poker - Precision Play, has gone through 10 editions since 1992.

Besides authoring books on video poker, Dan Paymar has taught poker and blackjack dealer classes at the Casino Gaming School of Nevada for several years, ending in 2004 when he moved to New Mexico..

Dan Paymar started a newsletter named Video Poker Times in 1994. The newsletter stopped publication in 2006, but all back issues are still available. Paymar now resides with his family in New Mexico. You can visit Dan Paymar on the web at the following websites:

Dan Paymar's Optimum Play

Paymar's latest product is Optimum Video Poker, an analysis and trainer program for both Macintosh and Windows platforms. It offers the fastest game analysis available, many bankroll consideration calculations, and is the only such program being marketed and supported by its principal developer.

Dan Paymar is a member of the Video Poker Hall of Fame. You can learn more about video poker online at this site.

Dan Paymar

Some Biography

Moving to Vegas

Other Video Poker Player and Author Profiles