There are many video poker professionals who talk about winning, and how they have a record of annual wins. But missing from these claims of annual wins are dollar amounts. Just how much are the pros winning?
And is the "winning" worth it?
On several discussion forums, there are pros and semi-pros who report one yearly win after another, but pin them down on what games they are playing and you find out its probably 25-cent video poker where a royal flush that comes around once in 40,000+ hands pays $1,000 and even if they do put $100,000 through the machines a 1% edge would only give them a $1,000 profit. Or doesn't it?
The only time a video poker professional ever revealed his actual numbers (or numbers he claimed were actual) was when I attended a lecture by video poker author and professional Bob Dancer at the Fiest Hotel and Casino in North Las Vegas and this might have been ten years ago.
Dancer reported that his income from video poker was $250,000 for the year, but half of that income came from actual "game wins" and the other half was the value of comps and cash back. Cash back is real money, but comps can represent foods, show tickets, hotel rooms, and gifts such as cameras or bottles of champagne or casino jackets and computers -- yes if you play enough you will get these "gifts."
What I found troubling is that Dancer said that to win his $250,000 in cash and comps and cashback that he was playing three-line deuces wild video poker at the $25 per coin denomination. In other words, each time he pushed the button he had $375 at risk. When these video poker pros can push that button 600 times or more per hour, that's a lot of risk. Yes, 600 plays X $375 per push = $225,000 coin-in per hour. That appears to be a lot of money to risk to pocket $125,000 in cash winnings a year.
Well, here's my point. If Bob Dancer had to risk $225,000 per hour of "coin in" or "play" to pocket $125,000 in cash or $250,000 of total compensation playing video poker in a year, just what chance does a 25-cent video poker play have of turning any kind of profit that's worth more than what you pay for the hotel room or even the gas money and mileage to the casino?
And then there are the "professional teams" who play for progressive video poker jackpots. How much can they possibly earn? After all if there is a team playing, and the team hits the jackpot, the jackpot has to be shared by the team. So how much can an individual get for his share? Another question is about how often a progressive grows to be big enough to attract the team to play it? And what if the team doesn't hit the progressive but the "little old lady from Pasadena" or Shirley from San Diego is at the right machine at the right time and scores the win? What happens to the income of the professional team then?
Unfortunately there are no real stats or income figures for us to know who is telling the truth and who is expanding on the truth. We can check the stats to see who won what at the World Series of Poker or what football players and baseball players and basketball players are getting paid. But I fear the exaggeration meter is peaking in the red when I hear about video poker pros claiming winning years without telling us all how much.
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