Big Casino Wins and Jackpots

[coach belly]

VPW shows a probability to win is 29.97%. Probability to lose is 69.77%.

For a session of 2400 hands played, what is the probability of being ahead at one point during the session?

[mickeycrimm]

What does that mean?

I personally consider 25 cycles to be the long run. If its five-spot keno progressives then we're talking 40,000 games. If its royal play then I consider 1,000,000 hands to be the long run.

[bocce ball]

But Rob doesn't do that when he hits his win goal. He immediately leaves the casino and drives home. He sits at home with the money then drives back a week later and starts the progression all over again.

Yes, that's definitely the ideal. I figured maybe Rob tweaked his system to allow for awkward situations such as flying to Vegas for a one-week vacation and hitting your win goal in the first five minutes. In that situation, maybe you'd be allowed to play for fun at the nickel machines.

But I guess my main point of confusion involves the intervals between sessions. Alan didn't say I needed to wait a week before playing again. He just said I needed to go home.

[coach belly]

Coach, read and try to understand these terms. Although they are on a blackjack site, they pertain to any gambling game, negative or positive EV in nature.

https://www.blackjackapprenticeship....dvantage-play/

Thanks for the link...one of the few posts I've read of yours that didn't contain an insult.

You seem emotionally invested in all this...what's your problem?

[coach belly]

I personally consider 25 cycles to be the long run. If its five-spot keno progressives then we're talking 40,000 games. If its royal play then I consider 1,000,000 hands to be the long run.

A million hands seems like good standard for the long run. That sounds like about a year of full time VP play...right?

Is it possible to be ahead after a million hands of -EV VP?

[slingshot]

Yes, that's definitely the ideal. I figured maybe Rob tweaked his system to allow for awkward situations such as flying to Vegas for a one-week vacation and hitting your win goal in the first five minutes. In that situation, maybe you'd be allowed to play for fun at the nickel machines.

But I guess my main point of confusion involves the intervals between sessions. Alan didn't say I needed to wait a week before playing again. He just said I needed to go home.

It would help to know your gaming bankroll. That's the first thing he'll ask.

[mickeycrimm]

A million hands seems like good standard for the long run. That sounds like about a year of full time VP play...right? Is it possible to be ahead after a million hands of -EV VP?

All negative expectation games are not created equal. But if one plays a 98% game I would put the probability of being ahead at 0.0000000000001 after 1 million hands.

[bocce ball]

Is it possible to be ahead after a million hands of -EV VP?

This was also addressed by redietz:

Reality is probabilistic. Practically, you can say that a person won't win the Mega-Millions. You can't say with absolute certainty he won't. Practically, I can bet that the sun will come up tomorrow. Can I say that with "absolute certainty?" No -- because we may get bonked by a meteor that will blot out the sun for hundreds of years. Or maybe one big enough to whack the earth in half.

It depends what you consider "certainty," and how you value "certainty." We could get struck by lightning as we step outside tomorrow, but almost all of us are going to step outside, anyway. If we decide to not do so out of probabilistic fear, most of our kind would consider that behavior unnecessarily risk averse and debilitating.

Technically, I wouldn't "assert with absolute certainty" that a player playing millions of hands of 95% video poker WILL lose. But I'll assert (state fact or belief forcefully and confidently) it and take my chances.

[coach belly]

All negative expectation games are not created equal. But if one plays a 98% game I would put the probability of being ahead at 0.0000000000001 after 1 million hands.

That's pretty grim. Can you show your work?

[coach belly]

This was also addressed by redietz:

Thanks, but I was asking about a million hands...not multiples of a million.

I'm actually looking to work backwards from a million, the probability of winning in the short term...not the long run.

[mickeycrimm]

That's pretty grim. Can you show your work?

It was an estimation on my part. You can add or subtract a couple of zeros. It won't make any difference. Through a million hands the chance of being a winner on a 98% game is somewhere between slim and none.

[bocce ball]

Thanks, but I was asking about a million hands...not multiples of a million.

Oh, well then no, I don't think it's possible to have a million hands. I've heard of millipedes having a lot of feet, but not actually anywhere near a million. AFAIK, that rumor was started by an entomologist suffering from blurred vision.

[coach belly]

It was an estimation on my part. You can add or subtract a couple of zeros. It won't make any difference. Through a million hands the chance of being a winner on a 98% game is somewhere between slim and none.

Your math may be off by more than a couple of zeros.

You have been so good with the math formulas...do you want to try again?

[coach belly]

Oh, well then no, I don't think it's possible to have a million hands.

mickey crimm claims to have played millions of hands.

[RS__]

My agenda is to discredit people? I don't think I've gone there...but I can tell that you're nervous about it.

From what you've written during this discussion, you are the pot calling the kettle black.

I believe that's what your agenda is, yes. Why else would you be saying or insinuating things that are simply untrue?

And what is the point of your anecdote? That a player can win frequently on -EV games? That he can quit while ahead for almost every session? And what then? The player is prevented from quitting after reaching a loss limit? The player must/will/is guaranteed to lose way more than he can win?

My point was this -- it doesn't matter how frequently you win or lose, what matters is how you end up overall.

Has he "ended up" losing, or is he still in the middle of his playing days, having so far been the victim of variance?

I assume Alan plans to continue gambling. He's played for quite a long time, put in many hours at the craps table and hands at the video poker machines. I don't know if he's been on the right side or bad side of variance. However, he has hit two $100K royals on the $25 denom, and unless he gambles much more than he lets on, I don't see him having lost $200k on the $25 machines [excluding the RF's]. If anything, I'd suggest he's been on the good side of variance.

Variance doesn't mean losing (or winning), it's the difference between the expected value or expected outcome versus the actual outcome. A -EV player can have positive variance and still lose, while a +EV player can have negative variance and still win. The -EV player lost less than he was expected to, while the +EV player won less than he was expected to. Of course, both players can have positive or negative variance.

To suggest Alan is in the hole because he's the victim of negative variance would imply he has a winning system. I have yet to see any math whatsoever he has a winning system based on win goals or stop losses.

No you don't remember exactly what it was...he qualified his math..certain conditions must exist for the math to apply:



I asked earlier...what's "in the long run of things" mean? It sounds ambiguous...undefined.

What's your point? You can't lower that number and definitely cannot make it negative (if it was negative, then the cost to produce the royal would be negative, which would be a positive return for the player) just by playing, using a strategy other than optimal strategy, or pausing & continuing on. For the condition Mickey wrote to not exist, then that would mean the cost would become a luck factor (actual vs theoretical). In that case, winning or losing comes down to luck. Unfortunately, you don't know if you're going to be extremely unlucky, extremely lucky, end up right where you should, or anywhere else in between.

The average RF should cost him X amount. The average ALL/TALL/SMALL should cost him some other amount. The average AAAA (or any other hand) will cost some amount, as well. None of the payouts exceed the average amount it should cost to get that hand.

[RS__]

After 1 million hands of VP, let's say 7/5 BP (~98.01% return). I get the following, betting $1/hand (ie: 20c denom). --


EV:
1,000,000 * -0.019853 = -19,853

SD:
(1,000,000) ^ 0.5 * (20.75) ^ 0.5 = 4,555


To profit, the player would have to be up 19,853/4,555 standard deviations (4.3585 SDs) to break even. I don't know the likelihood of being up 4.35 or more SDs, but it's very low, given that being 3+ SDs is about 0.15% chance.


The long run is infinity, unless you mean the long run to mean something like, "having an X% chance of being at $Y or higher (or lower)".

[mickeycrimm]

Your math may be off by more than a couple of zeros. You have been so good with the math formulas...do you want to try again?

I would have no problem laying someone 100 to 1 that they won't be ahead on a 98% game after 1 million hands.

[mickeycrimm]

mickey crimm claims to have played millions of hands.

Years ago I had a bread and butter video poker play called Unlinked Flush Attack. I worked it for several years. It was 7/5 Double Bonus where every fourth flush payed 25 for 1, a 100.78% game. But I didn't play the game straight through, unless some promotion prompted me to.

I played this game at Tahoe, Reno, Verdi, Minden, Elko, and the Pioneer in Laughlin. In this game the first three flushes you make pay 5 for 1, then the top of the screen will light up saying "FLUSH ATTACK!!!! Next Flush Pays Bonus." When you made that flush you got payed 25 for 1. Then the game went back to reset. You had to make 3 more flushes paying 5 for 1 before the flush attack light would come on again.

In the late nineties Dan Paymar had a book out called THE BEST OF VIDEO POKER TIMES. There was an article by Doug Reul on Flush Attack. Doug developed a strategy for the game based on the average value of the flush being 50 coins. The first three flushes pay 5 for 1 and the 4th flush pays 25 for one. Thats a total of 40. Divide that by 4 and the average value of the flush is 10 for 1 or 50 coins. He called the strategy FLUSH 50.

Doug also strategized about ploppies making one or two 5-coin flushes then getting up and walking away from the machine. The player that sits down next on that machine would only have to make 1 or 2 flushes to get to the bonus flush that payed 25 for 1. So if a player sat down and played until he made the bonus flush then cashed out, moved to the next machine and did the same thing, then moved to the next machine and did the same thing, the player would be picking up all the 5-coin flushes left by the ploppies. So instead of a player getting the bonus flush every 4 flushes he might get the bonus flush every 3 flushes. That would put the average flush value at 11.66 to 1 or 58 coins.

Here are the stats for the game if you play it straight through. Notice that the %contribution of the flush is 18.2%.....then I will continue in the next post.

http://www.imgur.com/UHbeGkT

[mickeycrimm]

http://www.imgur.com/UHbeGkT

My first trip across northern Nevada I ran into the unlinked Flush Attacks at the Red Lion in Elko. There were ten machines. The Red Lion brought novice gamblers in on flights from around the west on 3-day packages. There were no hustlers there except me. It was the perfect set-up. The ploppies gave the Flush Attacks lots of action.

I would come in early in the morning and sweep through the Flush Attacks. I would sit down on the first machine and play until I collected the bonus flush, then move to the next machine and do the same thing until I had been through all ten machines. Then I would come back in early afternoon and sweep through the machines again. Then come back in around 10 PM and sweep them out again.

A sweep generally took a couple of hours. I kept a pocket notebook where I recorded how many flushes I had to make on each play in order to monitor the payback percentage. It was a steady $40 an hour gig. I was playing 5000 hands a day for months at a time. Sometimes better plays would pop up so I would hit them. But when things slowed down I went back to sweeping Flush Attacks. I would do a million hands just playing this game 200 days a year.

This is what the stats look like if you average having to make just 2.6 flushes per play. Notice that the flush now represents 22.65% of the payback, up from 18.2%. And the game has a 104.49% return. Also notice that the royal represents 1.81% of the payback and the straight flushes represents .73% of the payback. I'll continue in the next post.

http://www.imgur.com/zRH1DAw

[mickeycrimm]

http://www.imgur.com/zRH1DAw

I averaged having to make 2.9 flushes per play. That put the payback at 104%. I would do about 30 plays a day, or about 5000 hands per day. It was a $250 a day gig. Then there was the cashback, comp, and mailers.

This was the beauty of sweeping Flush Attacks. The royal represented 1.81% of the payback and was on a 44,000 game cycle. If you discount the royal out of the equation I was at 102.2% just making high pairs up through straight flushes. The straight flush was on just a 6800 game cycle. And if you also discount the straight flush out of the equation I was at 101.5% just up through the 4 Aces which was on a 4600 game cycle.

In other words, I was making money on my way to making the royals and straight flushes. I literally averaged making 4 Aces everyday. My position in the game was so strong that if I were on my case $2000 today I would take it to a bank of unlinked Flush Attacks....and the chances of me going broke on the play would be somewhere between slim and none. In five years and somewhere around 6 million hands the worst losing streak I ever suffered was just $1100. It was a steady $40 an hour gig.