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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 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! |
Evaluating a PromotionDuring July of this year, the Tropicana Express in Laughlin held 29 drawings --- where at each one had the potential to award $1 million. I wasn’t planning on attending but the casino twice sent me an offer of $1,000 in free play to be on property for four days --- along with other promotions as well. Plus they had games returning more than 100% for me to play.
Each of us has our price, I suppose. Spending that much time in Laughlin in July, two weeks in a row, wasn’t my idea of a good time, but they offered me enough that I couldn’t say ‘no’. Or at least I didn’t. Let me tell you about the drawings. Once they called someone up to the stage there were 27 “boxes” arranged in six rows, as follows:
You got to pick a total of six boxes, one from each row. Hidden behind each box was a piece of paper with a dollar amount written on it, such as $65 or $220 or whatever. The contestant got to keep whatever these amounts added up to. In the four times I watched, the average amount was about $960. Not bad. However, if the six numbers added up to EXACTLY $1,000, you won the million dollar prize. And after each drawing, they showed you the “magic path” that would have worked that time. It might be 2, 6, 9, 18, 19, 26 one time and 2, 4, 11, 17, 22, 24 the next. It is possible, of course, that more than one path would win the award each time, but I assume whichever company was insuring these jackpots took precautions to make sure this slipup didn’t happen. So how much is this worth? You have a 1-in-3 chance to get the right box on the top line. A 1-in-4 chance to get the right box on the second (and sixth) line. A 1-in-5 chance to get the right boxes on the third (and fifth) lines. And a 1-in-6 chance to get the right box on the fourth line. Since you need to get all six of these decisions correct at the same time, the appropriate mathematical operation is multiplication. So we have one divided by 3 * 4 * 5 * 6 * 5 * 4, which turns out to be one in 7,200. A 1-in-7200 chance to win a million dollars is worth slightly less than $140, and your total equity when you were called was about $1,100 (i.e. $960 + $140). While an average of $1,100 is a LOT better than nothing, it’s hardly what you’re hoping for when the casino is screaming “YOU COULD WIN A MILLION DOLLARS!” Another part of the equation is how likely are you to get selected? On the second weekend, I earned about 2,000 tickets with my play. However numerous players in the database were awarded 100 tickets just for showing up! I ballparked that I would have a 1-in-110 chance each time to get called, and a 1-in-220 chance to earn $1,100 was worth $10. If I was sitting there playing and could hear the name over the loud speaker, I paid attention. Otherwise I let it go. Even if I was up my room reading, I wouldn’t spend the time and energy to go down to the drawing. It was too much effort for too little reward. (To be sure my 1-in-110 figure is a lot more “precise” than is warranted. I actually don’t know whether the real number is 1-in-83 or 1-in-343 or whatever. But 1-in-110 makes the math easy, and I’m pretty sure it is approximately correct, so that’s what I used.) If everyone had to earn tickets (without getting any for free) and there were profitable large-denomination machines for me to play, you can bet I’d be at every drawing. Under that scenario, I’d probably have a 1-in-22 chance to win each time, which would make showing up worth $50. But as it was, the drawing was worthless to me. While it’s true that you only need one ticket to win, I prefer drawing where I have thousands of tickets and everybody else has only one or two. For me to take the time to show up, I want the odds in my favor. I mentioned that a company was insuring these jackpots. A million dollar hit would be huge for a casino this size (especially one in financial difficulties, as this one is.) The $960 at each drawing was budgetable. And if an insurance company charged $300 each time for the $140 expected hit, many casinos would choose to pay the premium. (Whether the charge is $150, $200, $300, or $500 each time for this $140 risk is subject to negotiation. I haven’t been in on these negotiations and I don’t know the usual premium markup. And there is more than one company out there agreeing to insure similar scenarios so there is some competition to keep the premiums reasonable.) After they pay the premium, the casino WANTS the million dollars to be won. After all, they get a LOT more mileage out of actual million dollar winners than they do out of 29 people who won between $900 and $990. And you can bet that the insurance company insists on conformance with the rules. Possibly the casino has to tell the insurance company what numbers are behind each box and fax that information to the insurance before the drawing takes place. If an actual winner occurs with a different set of boxes than was indicated on the fax, the insurance company wouldn’t have to pay. I don’t know if this is the actual procedure, but surely there are some safeguards in place. 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.
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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 The Double Up Feature - Does It Ever Make Sense? - Part 1 - July 27, 2008 Doubling Up - Does it Ever Make Sense? - Part 2 - August 3, 2008 Did I Quit at the Right Time? - August 10, 2008 Money Management: What Does and Doesn't Work - August 17, 2008 "I'm Playing The Wrong Game" and Other Video Poker Fallacies - August 24, 2008 You Use To Be Such a Cheapskate - August 31, 2008 Is This a Good Promotion? Part 1 - September 7, 2008 Is This a Good Video Poker Promotion? Part 2 - September 14, 2008 More Video Poker Fallacies - September 21, 2008 Not All Proposals Should be Accepted - September 28, 2008 An Opportunity Too Good to Pass Up Part 1 of 2 - October 5, 2008 An Opportunity Too Good to Pass Up Part 2 - October 12, 2008 Predicting Your Future Results at Video Poker - Part 1 of 2 - October 19, 2008 Predicting Future Video Poker Reulsts - Part 2 of 2 - October 26, 2008 Moving Up in Denomination - Part 1 of 2 - November 2, 2008 Moving Up in Video Poker Denomination - Part 2 of 2 - November 9, 2008 A Letter from a Non-Believer - Part 1 of 2 - November 16, 2008 A Letter Froma VP Non-Believer - Part 2 of 2 - November 23, 2008 If You're Going to Steal From Me... - November 30, 2008 A General Look at Progressives - Part 1 of 2 - December 7, 2008 A General Look at Progressives - Part 2 of 2 - December 14, 2008 Would You Rather Be Lucky or Good? - Part 1 of 2 - December 21, 2008 Would You Rather Be Lucky or Good? - Part 2 of 2 - December 28, 2008 Shirley Wins a Cruise - January 4, 2009 More Classic Dancer coming Sunday January 11, 2009. |
