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Dancer's Answers

We publish a brand-new video poker article from Bob Dancer every Thursday in this section. These columns are called "Dancer's Answers". Click on any of the links below for more Dancer's Answers:

Bob Dancer Articles - Main Page
May 1, 2008

Vicksburg Video Poker - May 8, 2008

Vicksburg, MS Video Poker - Part 2 - May 15, 2008

Vicksburg Casino Video Poker - Part 3 - May 22, 2008

Common Deuces Wild Mistakes – Juan or the Other – May 29, 2008

Figuring Out Quick Quads - June 5, 2008

Breaking Full Houses in Quick Quads - June 12, 2008

A Quick Quads Puzzler - June 19, 2008

Let’s Go Scouting - June 26, 2008

When You're Not Sure of the Game - July 3, 2008

Can it be Right to Play Hunches - July 10, 2008

Good Hearted Woman in Love With a Good Timin’ Man - July 17, 2008

One-Way Versus Two-Way Straight Penalties - July 24, 2008

Effectual versus Ineffectual Straight Penalties - July 31, 2008

Unusual Dealt Royals - August 7, 2008

Learning from a Horse Handicapper - August 14, 2008

When Bad Is Good - August 21, 2008

I Live For These Moments - August 28, 2008

Las Vegas Do It Different - September 4, 2008

Figuring the worth when there are Multiple Progressives - September 11, 2008

Which is the Better Play? - September 18, 2008

How Much is Too Much? - September 25, 2008

Evaluating a Promotion - October 2, 2008

Sometimes the Jack, Sometimes Ace-Jack, Never the Ace by Itself - October 9, 2008

Why I Don't Play Poker - October 16, 2008

What is a Royal Flush Cycle? - October 23, 2008

A Logical Puzzler - October 30, 2008

Another Look at Changing Machines - November 6, 2008

Testing Matters - November 13, 2008

An Easy Yet Important Quick Quad Puzzler - November 20, 2008

Some Quick Quad Mathematics - November 27, 2008

Barona Improves its Video Poker - December 4, 2008

An Interesting Quick Quads Puzzle - December 11, 2008

Shirley Plays Suduku - December 18, 2008

How Often Does One Time in 360 Occur? - December 25, 2008

Earning a Free Cruise - January 1, 2008

Next Dancer's Answers column coming on January 8, 2009!

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An Opportunity Too Good to Pass Up - Part I of II

This article and the one next week were run as one column in April 2000 Casino Player. Although fictionalized, the gist of the story is true and happened at the MGM Grand on their $25 “coin dropper” machines. Now everyone has ticket in ticket out machines and this couldn’t happen, but there were a variety of situations “back then” where dealing with coins made things different. If I wrote this today, of course, I’d reference “Video Poker for Winners” rather than ‘WinPoker.”

I got a letter recently from a California man I have never met. It turns out that he and his brother had a rather interesting experience over a prizefight weekend some time ago that they shared with me. I cannot verify its accuracy, but I have been around Las Vegas enough during various special events to know that this kind of thing CAN and DOES happen. I can verify that I found it fascinating and I found that its denouement appealed greatly to my sense of justice. See for yourself. He wrote:

My brother Henry and I come to Las Vegas for a lot of the prizefights. He has the bankroll and I know how to play 9-6 Jacks or Better almost perfectly (thanks you your reports and WinPoker) so we each have our role. We regularly play $25 machines on these weekends. Our rule is either play 6 hours or stop when we lose $10,000. Our host seems to find this rule very acceptable because we always get a nice room, eat like kings, get two nice cigars apiece and good seats to the fight. Not bad for an even-money gamble!

Henry makes me promise every time that we will not lose more than $10,000 per trip. No need to, really, as that kind of action gets us everything we want. Sometimes we lose the $10,000 in a very short time and want to still keep playing. When that happens, I travel off the Strip and go to one of the local properties that has quarter Deuces Wild and play with my own money.

I don't know how much experience you have with them, but $25 machines are very tedious to play. They will hold 47 credits, but that's all. Since a full house pays 45, usually that causes the coins to spill into the tray. If it happens you had zero credits when you hit the full house, you will end up with 45 credits. Now you hit maximum bet (so you have a balance of 40 credits), and two pair, three of a kind, straights and flushes each cause spillage too. You can never build the credits up very high, so you are constantly either feeding coins or $100 bills in. Very slow compared to lower-denomination machines.

When the hopper empties out, the casino we play at fills it with $5,000. Five black trays each holding two rows of 20 coins are emptied into the machine. Every casino has its own procedure, but we've played here a lot and are used to the way they do it here.

When you play on special-event weekends, though, be ready for the unusual. Casinos are crowded and service suffers. To compensate for this, the casinos usually have their employees working longer hours and sometimes out of position. Interesting things can happen!

On the weekend in question, we came to Las Vegas to see the fight and play some more. I fed our usual machine with $100 bill after $100 bill. It took us about ten minutes to lose $2500. At this rate we wouldn't be playing very long. It took us another hour to lose a total of about $9500. I know you say that today's score doesn't matter. I feel that way too, but it wasn't my money we were playing with. Henry, on the other hand, was turning a little green.

But then something interesting happened. By luck I hit a full house and the coins started to fall into the tray. First time this had happened in an hour! Forty-four coins splashed into the tray. The machine had one coin too few and the light flashed for a hopper fill. Since the High Limit Slot area was very full, it didn't surprise us that it took awhile to get service.

We were used to the hopper-filling routine at this casino, but this one was different. Instead of emptying five black trays into the hopper, a floorman we had never seen before threw some coins in by hand and then emptied one purple tray into the hopper. He announced, "There's your $5,000. Continued good luck to you," and walked away to handle a flashing light somewhere else. Henry and I looked at each other quietly. We knew that purple trays held $100 coins, not $25 coins. When the one remaining coin from the full house payoff hit the tray, we examined it. Sure enough, it was a $100 coin. At this casino the coins were almost exactly the same size but the $100 coins were two-toned, with gold in the center and an outer ring of silver. Also they were not dinged up very much because, let's face it, $100 coins don't see much action. The two denominations are easy to distinguish when you are looking at them. But maybe the machine couldn't tell! Very strange.

So what to do? Obviously the right thing was to call over the floorman and tell him that he had made a mistake. With a supervisor watching, he would have opened up the machine and taken out all of the $100 coins and replaced them with the proper ones. That's what we should have done. But we didn't. When you are down over $8,000 or so, your sense of right and wrong gets perverted a little. I'm not proud of this, but Henry and I greedily tried to figure out how to get these coins.

"One full house and we'll get almost all of them." I told Henry. "Won't somebody get into trouble?" he asked. "Probably not. The records show $5,000 went into the machine and $5,000 did. So the books will balance. Nobody will know. But hide the coins when they come out. We can't make it obvious."

Continued next week

Bob Dancer is America's best-known video poker writer and teacher. He has a variety of "how to play better video poker" products, including the software "Video Poker for Winners," Winner's Guides, strategy cards, his autobiography Million Dollar Video Poker, and his two novels, including Sex, Lies, and Video Poker. Dancer's products may be ordered at www.bobdancer.com or by telephone at 1-800-244-2224 M-F 9-5 Pacific Time.

Click here to visit River Belle Casino and play video poker games, including Jacks or Better and Deuces Wild.

Classic Dancer

We republish a classic Bob Dancer article every Sunday - often these articles are updated with new insights from Bob Dancer, the master of video poker writing.

Video Poker Questions and Answers - May 4, 2008

More Answers to Questions About Video Poker Machines - May 11, 2008

Losing is a Major Part of Winning at Video Poker - May 18, 2008

Video Poker VS Blackjack - May 25, 2008

The Art of Tipping Slot Personnel - Part 1 - June 1, 2008

The Art of Tipping Slot Personnel - Part 2 - June 8, 2008

Putting Your Ducks In a Row - June 15, 2008

Luck and Skill in Video Poker - June 22, 2008

Strategy Adjustments in Video Poker - June 29, 2008

One Coin vs Five Coin - July 6, 2008

Video Poker Progressives - July 13, 2008

High Pairs versus Three Cards to a Rolal in Kings or Better Joker Wild - July 20, 2008