by Bob Dancer

In last month's article, I said that your decision to play or not to play should be based on your calculations for what will happen, not your experience of what did happen. Another way to say this is that we must act as though we are always in the long run, and shouldn’t pay much attention to short run swings.
Assume we calculate that in the next 500 hours of play, our net score will be positive $1,500. We conclude, then, that this is a $3 per hour opportunity (Don't give up your day job!). We assume, going in, that every hour will return $3. Strangely, we know that our actual results will vary dramatically. Some hours we will lose $200 and others we might win $1,000. So why assume something that we know won't be true?

We make this assumption in order to help us decide which game to play. If we calculate that one of our choices is a $7-per-hour loser and the other is a $3-per-hour winner, the choice is very clear.

The way I see it, if we always go with the game that has the highest average return, we will end up just fine. If we never go with a game that has a negative return, our net score will wind up positive.
Stating this philosophy is one thing, but I'm frequently asked how to actually go about doing it. That's the purpose of this month's column—to discuss how to determine how much a game is worth. First, you need to evaluate the game itself. If it's a common game, you can probably find its return percentage in books or magazine articles. For example, 9/6 Jacks or Better returns 99.54 percent.

If you can't find the game listed anywhere, you'll need to calculate it yourself. For this, you need a computer. If you don't have one, get one! Anybody who gambles more than 50 hours a year can probably save enough using a computer to pay for it. And anyone who claims they can't afford a computer but can afford to gamble is just plain fooling himself.

The software, "Bob Dancer Presents WinPoker," developed by Dean Zamzow, will give you the return for the vast majority of all video poker games. Those that check in below 99 percent should probably be ignored if you want to have a realistic shot at winning. So Step 1 is to determine the "perfect play value" of the game.

Step 2 is to evaluate your personal "error-rate" factor. Play 200 hands or so and check your results. If you play at the 100-percent level, great! If you play at the 95-percent level, you're probably not ready to invest real money. Keep practicing until you regularly come in above 99 percent. You may want to invest in strategy cards or reports to help you play better. If you want to win, you have to do what it takes to learn to play well.

Step 3 is to evaluate the slot club. I try to assign a dollar value to slot club benefits, which is easy when the slot club returns cash. The formula is to divide 1 by the number of dollars it takes to earn one point and then divide that by the number of points it takes to earn one dollar in cash back. For example, if it takes $2 to earn one point and 200 points to earn a dollar in cashback, you divide 1 by 2, then divide that by 200. You end up with .0025, which is a .25 percent return. If the game returns 99.54 percent and the slot club returns .25 percent, you now have a game worth 99.79 percent—as long as you play perfectly. Of course this is still not good enough to play. If a game doesn't return more than 100 percent, you're better off staying home and reading a book.

A lot of what a slot club returns is intangible, but it's still useful to try to quantify it. Free rooms are of real value if you're from out of town. Free meals are also important.

So we add these things in, and now we have a percentage return. Let's say 100.5 percent, for example. How do we turn this number into "dollars per hour"?

The first thing you need to do is estimate how fast you play. I use 600 hands per hour for my calculations. I know that I play some games faster than this and some games slower, but this is a fair average. Six-hundred hands per hour comes out to $750 per hour played at quarters (600 times $1.25 per hand), $3,000 per hour at dollars, and $15,000 per hour at $5. A half-percent advantage playing at this speed is worth $3.75, $15, or $75 per hour for the three coin denominations listed.
I assume I play twice as many hands on Triple Play machines as I do on single play machines. That is, for dollar Triple Play I play $6,000 through the machines per hour rather than $3,000.

Promotions may also be calculated on a dollars-per-hour basis, but this is frequently a big guess. For example, if you get a drawing ticket for something, the exact value of the ticket can be extremely difficult to calculate. There are a lot of things to consider. For now, just keep in mind that promotions add real value to the mix. For example, playing on a double-point day is always better than playing on a single-point day at the same casino. Of course, double points at Casino A may be significantly less valuable than single points at Casino B.

Comps are important, too. When I evaluate them, though, I don't calculate retail price. I use what I would have been willing to pay for something similar if I wasn't comped. For example, even if I get a comped $100 meal for two, I credit it at about $20, which is what I would willingly spend on dinner.

So add it all up. The game's base return (multiplied by your accuracy factor) + slot club benefits + promotions and comps. Once you have that number (say it's 100.6 percent), subtract 100 percent from it and multiply it by the dollars played per hour. For quarters, the equation is (100.6 percent-100 percent) x $750=$4.50 per hour.

If the resulting number is negative, you might reconsider your choice to play. If playing is fun and exciting and you're willing to lose a few hundred dollars (or thousands or tens of thousands), then by all means, go ahead! Casinos will treat you very nicely while they extract this money. But if your goal is to win, you must avoid playing games where the casino has the edge.

You'll find that the most important element in the equation is the game itself. If you're playing 8/5 Double Double Bonus (which returns 96.8 percent when played perfectly), you have no chance of a good result in the long run. Sure, you'll hit your four Aces with a kicker on occasion (about once every 27 hours) and have a good score today. But if you add up all of your "todays" over time, your score will certainly be negative.

Video poker is a gambling game where, for the most part, you get what you deserve. Most people who've played more than 100 hours have played long enough for the odds to assert themselves fairly well. They'll have a good days and bad days, but those aberrations even out.

Video poker is also a game where one result will not change your life. With the possible exception of a 50,000 coin sequential royal, the jackpots just aren't big enough. You will have days during which you lose half the value of a royal. The only way to win in the long run is to grind it out. Being dealt a royal flush is just not going to make that much difference. Go ahead and hope for it if you like, but when you finally get it, you'll just want another one—no one ever gets enough of these. You hear people say things like "if I could just get even I could die happy!" Don't believe them! Whatever anyone's current score is, you can be certain that they want a little more. That's okay, as long as you pursue it in intelligent situations.

That's it for this month. Until next time, go out and hit a royal flush.