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Vicksburg Video PokerAuthor's Note: The next three articles describe an adventure that happened in February 2004. The articles were written soon afterwards, but never published. Since part of video poker success is to adjust to video poker promotions "on the fly," (because that's when they usually happen), explaining how we tackled this promotion may well be useful to the reader. The Battle of Vicksburg --- Part I of IIIby Bob Dancer
Ameristar Casino is the jewel of Vicksburg, and deservedly gets almost half of the casino business. It offers a decent gamble and by far the best restaurants, casino hotel, and overall professionalism in town. Rainbow has slightly looser video poker, but no amenities other than a “Bubba buffet”. The Isle of Capri has the tightest video poker in town. The fourth casino is the oldest. Until November of 2003 it was owned by Harrah’s. It is the only casino located in the downtown area of Vicksburg, and, at least in hindsight, the location was poorly chosen. According to the former marketing manager of the property, Harrah’s was glad to unload it. It is now called Horizon Casino. When Shirley and I visited in early February, they were running different promotions every day of the week. On Tuesday, for example, they had “double the top jackpot on selected machines.” On Wednesday, they had “double points from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.” According to the locals we asked, there were no video poker machines worth playing, and the only machines with the “double top jackpot” were 87% reels. And single points were 0.33%, which is approximately the average of Vicksburg. Whether double points would be a good deal or not obviously would depend on how loose the games were. Still, maybe we’d see something that the locals missed or couldn’t recognize as being a good value. We showed up at about 6 p.m. on the Tuesday after we learned more about Janet Jackson’s breast than some of us wanted to know. We walked through the casino, not very impressed, and then we came upon a special section of video poker machines. There was a 25¢ Fifty Play machine, with the “Double Top Jackpots” sign on top. This could be a good deal. After all, double royals adds about 2% to the return of a game. Surprise! They had 9/6 Jacks (99.5%), NSU Deuces Wild (99.7%), and 8/5 Super Aces (99.9%) on these machines. And royals were doubled! And we still had six hours before midnight? Pull up a chair NOW! During a hand pay, I wandered to the booth to see how cashback worked, and to verify that we were indeed getting the 0.33%. We would have PAID well over 0.33% for this opportunity, but if they said we were supposed to get 0.33%, I wanted to make sure we really got it. At the booth they told me I’d earned $200 so far in cash back, but if I took it in terms of free play on the machine, including the one I was on, they would double it to $400. It took me almost a nanosecond to decide I’d rather take $400 in free play than $200 in cash. We played until midnight. Of the two Fifty Play machines, there were 7 $1,000 royals hit, and doubled, during the six hours we were there. Unfortunately they were all on the other machine and we lost $1,250. Oh well. That’s gambling. But it was still the best promotion we’d played in a long time. How good was it? We played 9/6 Jacks because, even though it was the “worst” of the three good games, it had far fewer hand pays, and hand pays are excruciating slow at this casino. Most of the employees appeared to have a “I don’t care” attitude. Playing this game, we could get about $50,000 through those machines per hour. 9/6 Jacks with a 8,000-coin royal is worth 101.86%. Adding the 0.67% slot club made it worth, in round numbers, 102.5%. A 2.5% advantage on a $50,000 per hour game is worth $1,250 per hour. Although we lost, the guy on the other identical machine took home over $14,000. That could have been us. On Wednesday, double points would mean the game was worth 99.54% + 1.33% = 100.87%. This would mean the game was worth “only” $435 an hour. We could live with that. Unfortunately we had a plane to catch so we didn’t get to take advantage of it. If we were certain the game and the promotions would be there the next week, we would have flown from Vegas. After all, 24 hours at $1,250 per hour plus 8 hours the next day at $450 per hour would add up to a whole bunch. But I suspected that the casino would wise up before long, and besides, we were leaving town on a cruise a few weeks later and had a lot to do in the meantime. And Vicksburg is tough to get to from Vegas. The way we go is to take at least a two-leg flight to Jackson, MS, and then rent a car and drive 45 miles to Vicksburg. You can fly into somewhere else and drive further, if you like. Everything considered, we decided not to go back to Vicksburg the next week. But that didn’t mean we sat on the information. We decided to tell two friends of ours, Pedro and Maria, who I’ve written about in the past. We told them that if the Fifty Play still had 9/6 Jacks on it and the promotions were still in effect, it was virtually impossible to lose, and the payoff could be quite large. But there was always the chance that either the pay schedules or the promotions would be changed by the time they got there. Maria was very eager to go. Pedro was a bit more unsure. After all, he didn’t have the 9/6/8000 strategy mastered. I told him it didn’t matter very much. Even using the 9/6/4000 strategy, he’d still have more than a $1,200 per hour game. My clinching argument was that if he didn’t want to go, I was pretty sure I could sell the information to some video poker pros. That did it. They made reservations the next day. We were asked what payment we wanted for the information. The truth of the matter is that they are friends and we were more interested in GIVING them the information than in SELLING it to them. But they thought there should be some price, so I told them that if they were dealt a royal flush on the Fifty Play machine (worth $100,000 when the jackpots were doubled and only $50,000 when they weren't), that they owed us 10% of that dealt royal --- namely $10,000 or $5,000. Otherwise, they owed us nothing. They agreed. We all knew that it was extremely farfetched that they’d be dealt a royal, but if lightening struck, they’d be happy to share a bit of the wealth with us. How’d they do? Come back next week for the Battle of Vicksburg, Part II and I’ll tell you. 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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Historic Vicksburg, MS, lies adjacent to the Mississippi River, about
halfway between Memphis, TN and New Orleans, LA. It contains four
casinos, and whenever Shirley and I are in the area, we stop. 
