Don't talk about fight club or this...

[Dan Druff]

Yeah I don't think that this is much of a news flash. I'm sure lots of properties have been aware of these vulnerabilities and it's a pretty simple matter to see which customers you're not making money on over time. But I think the author is exaggerating a bit, saying a group was moving $2B... 2 billion?? Maybe coin in, but profit in a year, or even a few years... give me a break.

And it's getting more and more difficult to find 99% VP games, they act like they're everywhere?

And how much is slot APing really costing them? Maybe it lowers the perceived RTP so less ploppies play them, but if you had under-performing games, then you'd get rid of them, right? So what's the problem?? It all seems overblown.

Sure if a gaming outfit really wants to reduce freeplay vulnerabilities, they can. But it will ultimately cost them recreational player revenue if they take it too far so I am of the opinion there will always be opportunities for those willing to work hard.

This is a good summary of the situation.

The article acts like it is exposing a shocking truth of which most casinos are unaware, but that's not true at all. The casinos are very aware, and have been for a long time. It's just been a matter of whether doing something about it would have too much collateral damage against the business of legitimate recreational gamblers.

There's also the matter of how deep the pockets are. Large casinos or large casino groups can take some losses to APs without blinking, as long as it doesn't either become an epidemic or start interfering with their other customers (such as slot hustling or vulturing). Smaller operations can't take the beating as easily, and will sometimes shoot off their foot in the process of trying to stop it.

Aside from the eye-popping "$2 billion group" claim, which I find doubtful, the only really noteworthy part of the article involves AP pattern recognition. Similar to how blackjack counters were largely thwarted by watching betting patterns, the same could be done to a lot of slot advantage plays and new card plays.

Say you were hired for a lucrative consulting job with a casino to thwart advantage play. Let's also say you instantly forgot all the names and faces you got to know over the years within the AP community, and had to go strictly on data and play patterns. Let's also say you were not allowed to re-infiltrate AP communities to find out people's identities.

Could you identify APs this way, using data/patterns only?

I easily could. I wouldn't be able to catch all of them, but I'd catch some of them.

The "new card" plays are especially easily to catch, as those fall under a clear pattern.

Slot plays are a little tougher to identify, but if you had data as to which machines were being played, for how long, and the win/loss/jackpot data, you could again deduce who is an AP and who isn't, with a reasonable degree of certainty.

There's also the simple method of pushing out all low value players. If someone signs up for a new card and sticks to the very best paytable VP, it can quickly be inferred that this is either an advantage player, or a low value player who will end up generating little money for the casino once it's all said and done. So you can safely give these people shit offers, and not be losing much.

Of course, any countermeasures will result in APs catching on, and some might start engaging in different patterns to throw the casino off. But if the engagement in these patterns costs too much in EV, the APs won't do it, and will not bother with that particular property.

One area where I feel casinos are currently lacking offer-wise is doing some better number crunching to figure out the gamblers who have almost no chance, and the ones who almost always walk out of the casino a loser. There are plenty of players like this, but they get under-offered because their coin-in isn't good enough, or they play table games which move too slowly. They should be rolling out the red carpet for players like these, especially ones who have a long history and clearly aren't doing it to fool casino marketing.

Finally, we're in 2024, and casinos could easily get with slot machine makers to do better play analysis. There's no reason that casinos shouldn't be able to see which players are running money at completely idiotic times (such as a $5000 must-hit with the counter at $4100), which seem to be running play with an edge, and which seem to be in between. Given the day's AI capabilities, there should be an easy way to analyze all of this data and figure out pretty clearly who is there with an advantage.

[Don Perignom]

Given the day's AI capabilities, there should be an easy way to analyze all of this data

The AI would no-mail all the white people.

[Rob.Singer]

This is a non-story that's being over-discussed by design.

Successful AP's can and do work around this stuff, at will. It isn't hard. And Dan, did you check with year-after-year winning AP kew before making the statement that card counters are being thwarted?

[DGenBen]

Here’s the easiest way to identify them:

Just look at everyone wearing a man purse AND noise canceling headphones.

[Treeshade]

I suspect the sharper card builders are not playing video poker but rather things like 10K Must Hits, or better yet, high denom Hexes from the 5th level, or Regals at lower numbers that are around breakeven. And probably other games like them.

On Regals most AP's like a yellow 110 or higher because they want a win factor built in. A 110 could be a 10% advantage. But a card builder can cut the other AP's off by taking a lower number that's around breakeven, say a 100 or even 90, maybe even an 85. You'll run a substantial wager on a Regal with an $18.75 bet level.

And when the yellow reaches 121 you can remove the card, then finish the play, to insure the big payoff on the end doesn't get recorded on your coin-in/coin-out. On most plays your coin-in/coin-out will be showing a big loss.

On the 10K's there was a war going on amongst AP's to see who would take the lowest number. Some guys would play as low as 99% to get the mail.

With all do respect “the sharpest” don’t use these machines anymore. These plays have been hot in many casinos since the beginning of 2021. Show me guys doing this in high value casinos and I will show you a trail of killed cards, and trespassing.

[Treeshade]

Yeah I don't think that this is much of a news flash. I'm sure lots of properties have been aware of these vulnerabilities and it's a pretty simple matter to see which customers you're not making money on over time. But I think the author is exaggerating a bit, saying a group was moving $2B... 2 billion?? Maybe coin in, but profit in a year, or even a few years... give me a break.

And it's getting more and more difficult to find 99% VP games, they act like they're everywhere?

And how much is slot APing really costing them? Maybe it lowers the perceived RTP so less ploppies play them, but if you had under-performing games, then you'd get rid of them, right? So what's the problem?? It all seems overblown.

Sure if a gaming outfit really wants to reduce freeplay vulnerabilities, they can. But it will ultimately cost them recreational player revenue if they take it too far so I am of the opinion there will always be opportunities for those willing to work hard.

This is a good summary of the situation.

The article acts like it is exposing a shocking truth of which most casinos are unaware, but that's not true at all. The casinos are very aware, and have been for a long time. It's just been a matter of whether doing something about it would have too much collateral damage against the business of legitimate recreational gamblers.

There's also the matter of how deep the pockets are. Large casinos or large casino groups can take some losses to APs without blinking, as long as it doesn't either become an epidemic or start interfering with their other customers (such as slot hustling or vulturing). Smaller operations can't take the beating as easily, and will sometimes shoot off their foot in the process of trying to stop it.

Aside from the eye-popping "$2 billion group" claim, which I find doubtful, the only really noteworthy part of the article involves AP pattern recognition. Similar to how blackjack counters were largely thwarted by watching betting patterns, the same could be done to a lot of slot advantage plays and new card plays.

Say you were hired for a lucrative consulting job with a casino to thwart advantage play. Let's also say you instantly forgot all the names and faces you got to know over the years within the AP community, and had to go strictly on data and play patterns. Let's also say you were not allowed to re-infiltrate AP communities to find out people's identities.

Could you identify APs this way, using data/patterns only?

I easily could. I wouldn't be able to catch all of them, but I'd catch some of them.

The "new card" plays are especially easily to catch, as those fall under a clear pattern.

Slot plays are a little tougher to identify, but if you had data as to which machines were being played, for how long, and the win/loss/jackpot data, you could again deduce who is an AP and who isn't, with a reasonable degree of certainty.

There's also the simple method of pushing out all low value players. If someone signs up for a new card and sticks to the very best paytable VP, it can quickly be inferred that this is either an advantage player, or a low value player who will end up generating little money for the casino once it's all said and done. So you can safely give these people shit offers, and not be losing much.

Of course, any countermeasures will result in APs catching on, and some might start engaging in different patterns to throw the casino off. But if the engagement in these patterns costs too much in EV, the APs won't do it, and will not bother with that particular property.

One area where I feel casinos are currently lacking offer-wise is doing some better number crunching to figure out the gamblers who have almost no chance, and the ones who almost always walk out of the casino a loser. There are plenty of players like this, but they get under-offered because their coin-in isn't good enough, or they play table games which move too slowly. They should be rolling out the red carpet for players like these, especially ones who have a long history and clearly aren't doing it to fool casino marketing.

Finally, we're in 2024, and casinos could easily get with slot machine makers to do better play analysis. There's no reason that casinos shouldn't be able to see which players are running money at completely idiotic times (such as a $5000 must-hit with the counter at $4100), which seem to be running play with an edge, and which seem to be in between. Given the day's AI capabilities, there should be an easy way to analyze all of this data and figure out pretty clearly who is there with an advantage.

Understand everything they look for to identify these things can be manipulated. You give them what they want, even give up a few by design.

Straight slot Hustlers should play without a card

The 2billion number is probably a typo, but 2 million seems low so maybe it’s not

[Treeshade]

Yeah I don't think that this is much of a news flash. I'm sure lots of properties have been aware of these vulnerabilities and it's a pretty simple matter to see which customers you're not making money on over time. But I think the author is exaggerating a bit, saying a group was moving $2B... 2 billion?? Maybe coin in, but profit in a year, or even a few years... give me a break.

And it's getting more and more difficult to find 99% VP games, they act like they're everywhere?

And how much is slot APing really costing them? Maybe it lowers the perceived RTP so less ploppies play them, but if you had under-performing games, then you'd get rid of them, right? So what's the problem?? It all seems overblown.

Sure if a gaming outfit really wants to reduce freeplay vulnerabilities, they can. But it will ultimately cost them recreational player revenue if they take it too far so I am of the opinion there will always be opportunities for those willing to work hard.

This is a good summary of the situation.

The article acts like it is exposing a shocking truth of which most casinos are unaware, but that's not true at all. The casinos are very aware, and have been for a long time. It's just been a matter of whether doing something about it would have too much collateral damage against the business of legitimate recreational gamblers.

There's also the matter of how deep the pockets are. Large casinos or large casino groups can take some losses to APs without blinking, as long as it doesn't either become an epidemic or start interfering with their other customers (such as slot hustling or vulturing). Smaller operations can't take the beating as easily, and will sometimes shoot off their foot in the process of trying to stop it.

Aside from the eye-popping "$2 billion group" claim, which I find doubtful, the only really noteworthy part of the article involves AP pattern recognition. Similar to how blackjack counters were largely thwarted by watching betting patterns, the same could be done to a lot of slot advantage plays and new card plays.

Say you were hired for a lucrative consulting job with a casino to thwart advantage play. Let's also say you instantly forgot all the names and faces you got to know over the years within the AP community, and had to go strictly on data and play patterns. Let's also say you were not allowed to re-infiltrate AP communities to find out people's identities.

Could you identify APs this way, using data/patterns only?

I easily could. I wouldn't be able to catch all of them, but I'd catch some of them.

The "new card" plays are especially easily to catch, as those fall under a clear pattern.

Slot plays are a little tougher to identify, but if you had data as to which machines were being played, for how long, and the win/loss/jackpot data, you could again deduce who is an AP and who isn't, with a reasonable degree of certainty.

There's also the simple method of pushing out all low value players. If someone signs up for a new card and sticks to the very best paytable VP, it can quickly be inferred that this is either an advantage player, or a low value player who will end up generating little money for the casino once it's all said and done. So you can safely give these people shit offers, and not be losing much.

Of course, any countermeasures will result in APs catching on, and some might start engaging in different patterns to throw the casino off. But if the engagement in these patterns costs too much in EV, the APs won't do it, and will not bother with that particular property.

One area where I feel casinos are currently lacking offer-wise is doing some better number crunching to figure out the gamblers who have almost no chance, and the ones who almost always walk out of the casino a loser. There are plenty of players like this, but they get under-offered because their coin-in isn't good enough, or they play table games which move too slowly. They should be rolling out the red carpet for players like these, especially ones who have a long history and clearly aren't doing it to fool casino marketing.

Finally, we're in 2024, and casinos could easily get with slot machine makers to do better play analysis. There's no reason that casinos shouldn't be able to see which players are running money at completely idiotic times (such as a $5000 must-hit with the counter at $4100), which seem to be running play with an edge, and which seem to be in between. Given the day's AI capabilities, there should be an easy way to analyze all of this data and figure out pretty clearly who is there with an advantage.

Understand everything they look for to identify these things can be manipulated. You give them what they want, even give up a few by design.

Straight slot Hustlers should play without a card

The 2billion number is probably a typo, but 2 million seems low so maybe it’s not

There was a notorious AP who got a state Ban not that long ago in PA. There was speculation what he was doing was money laundering. He wasn’t but maybe a creative mind could connect the dots.

[mickeycrimm]

I suspect the sharper card builders are not playing video poker but rather things like 10K Must Hits, or better yet, high denom Hexes from the 5th level, or Regals at lower numbers that are around breakeven. And probably other games like them.

On Regals most AP's like a yellow 110 or higher because they want a win factor built in. A 110 could be a 10% advantage. But a card builder can cut the other AP's off by taking a lower number that's around breakeven, say a 100 or even 90, maybe even an 85. You'll run a substantial wager on a Regal with an $18.75 bet level.

And when the yellow reaches 121 you can remove the card, then finish the play, to insure the big payoff on the end doesn't get recorded on your coin-in/coin-out. On most plays your coin-in/coin-out will be showing a big loss.

On the 10K's there was a war going on amongst AP's to see who would take the lowest number. Some guys would play as low as 99% to get the mail.

With all do respect “the sharpest” don’t use these machines anymore. These plays have been hot in many casinos since the beginning of 2021. Show me guys doing this in high value casinos and I will show you a trail of killed cards, and trespassing.

I know people that have been banned because of using the hexes.

And someone showed me a mailer from AC that was for $700 freeplay five days a week. I asked him the wager. IIRC he said 35K.

[DGenBen]

Yeah I don't think that this is much of a news flash. I'm sure lots of properties have been aware of these vulnerabilities and it's a pretty simple matter to see which customers you're not making money on over time. But I think the author is exaggerating a bit, saying a group was moving $2B... 2 billion?? Maybe coin in, but profit in a year, or even a few years... give me a break.

And it's getting more and more difficult to find 99% VP games, they act like they're everywhere?

And how much is slot APing really costing them? Maybe it lowers the perceived RTP so less ploppies play them, but if you had under-performing games, then you'd get rid of them, right? So what's the problem?? It all seems overblown.

Sure if a gaming outfit really wants to reduce freeplay vulnerabilities, they can. But it will ultimately cost them recreational player revenue if they take it too far so I am of the opinion there will always be opportunities for those willing to work hard.

This is a good summary of the situation.

The article acts like it is exposing a shocking truth of which most casinos are unaware, but that's not true at all. The casinos are very aware, and have been for a long time. It's just been a matter of whether doing something about it would have too much collateral damage against the business of legitimate recreational gamblers.

There's also the matter of how deep the pockets are. Large casinos or large casino groups can take some losses to APs without blinking, as long as it doesn't either become an epidemic or start interfering with their other customers (such as slot hustling or vulturing). Smaller operations can't take the beating as easily, and will sometimes shoot off their foot in the process of trying to stop it.

Aside from the eye-popping "$2 billion group" claim, which I find doubtful, the only really noteworthy part of the article involves AP pattern recognition. Similar to how blackjack counters were largely thwarted by watching betting patterns, the same could be done to a lot of slot advantage plays and new card plays.

Say you were hired for a lucrative consulting job with a casino to thwart advantage play. Let's also say you instantly forgot all the names and faces you got to know over the years within the AP community, and had to go strictly on data and play patterns. Let's also say you were not allowed to re-infiltrate AP communities to find out people's identities.

Could you identify APs this way, using data/patterns only?

I easily could. I wouldn't be able to catch all of them, but I'd catch some of them.

The "new card" plays are especially easily to catch, as those fall under a clear pattern.

Slot plays are a little tougher to identify, but if you had data as to which machines were being played, for how long, and the win/loss/jackpot data, you could again deduce who is an AP and who isn't, with a reasonable degree of certainty.

There's also the simple method of pushing out all low value players. If someone signs up for a new card and sticks to the very best paytable VP, it can quickly be inferred that this is either an advantage player, or a low value player who will end up generating little money for the casino once it's all said and done. So you can safely give these people shit offers, and not be losing much.

Of course, any countermeasures will result in APs catching on, and some might start engaging in different patterns to throw the casino off. But if the engagement in these patterns costs too much in EV, the APs won't do it, and will not bother with that particular property.

One area where I feel casinos are currently lacking offer-wise is doing some better number crunching to figure out the gamblers who have almost no chance, and the ones who almost always walk out of the casino a loser. There are plenty of players like this, but they get under-offered because their coin-in isn't good enough, or they play table games which move too slowly. They should be rolling out the red carpet for players like these, especially ones who have a long history and clearly aren't doing it to fool casino marketing.

Finally, we're in 2024, and casinos could easily get with slot machine makers to do better play analysis. There's no reason that casinos shouldn't be able to see which players are running money at completely idiotic times (such as a $5000 must-hit with the counter at $4100), which seem to be running play with an edge, and which seem to be in between. Given the day's AI capabilities, there should be an easy way to analyze all of this data and figure out pretty clearly who is there with an advantage.

Understand everything they look for to identify these things can be manipulated. You give them what they want, even give up a few by design.

Straight slot Hustlers should play without a card

The 2billion number is probably a typo, but 2 million seems low so maybe it’s not

What about gay Slot Hustlers?

[Don Perignom]

For management, it's not easy to defend against players with superior intellects and specialized knowledge.

Another addiction thread just came up on VMB, featuring degen all-star TimSpeed:

https://www.vegasmessageboard.com/fo...-do-it.206824/

He says he's down 0.5m for the last 7 years of logged action, but this is what caught my eye:

I must just be gambling wrong because my “treatment” is barely weekend nights comped with some freeplay and meager dining credit thrown in…

In aggregate, it's hard to make a case that players are overcomped. You could argue that rewards should be targeted more toward TimSpeed, but easier said than done.

[Don Perignom]

Treeshade?

[accountinquestion]

Treeshade?

Seedvalue. lol. shrug.

[Don Perignom]

Seedvalue. lol. shrug.

What would you choose as your new user name?

I want to be Austin Spumante.

[Garnabby]

Treeshade?

Shade tree is to tree shade, as seed hater is to the erased. Ha.

[Don Perignom]

Guy over there has "180" trips to Vegas in his profile, and claims to be ahead in 20 years of gambling. Looking at his trip reports, I see ordinary, non-AP slots. And extreme short-pay vp. All the pics are in portrait mode. He plays bj, but no mention of card counting. He bets sports because you can make decisions.

Somebody else says oh, you must have cracked the code. And he replies:

I don't think it is a "code" to be cracked....too many people chase their losses and don't walk away when they are winning or get obsessed with points and theo estimates.

Did anyone here play on the MIT Quit When Ahead team?

I started watching the movie, but never finished it.

[DGenBen]

Seedvalue. lol. shrug.

What would you choose as your new user name?

I want to be Austin Spumante.

I would have thought a new name from him would involve his cock, something like “Cock Monster”

Of course Tree Shade might actually mean he’s just laying outside with a boner & his cock is providing him & / others the same amount of shade a tree would.

[accountinquestion]

Quitting when ahead works if your goal is to maximize winning sessions which is probably the best for many. Not a bad strategy for someone who is negative expectation.

[Don Perignom]

Quitting when ahead works if your goal is to maximize winning sessions which is probably the best for many. Not a bad strategy for someone who is negative expectation.

Yes, although that can go awry. Often they end up martingaling to get more action into their shorter sessions. Or they come back 10 minutes later and call it a new session. From the other board, here's someone who thinks the core advantage play concepts are "quit when ahead" and "don't play for comps":

summation of how people view gambling... it is entertainment with disposable income (at least it better be)...if they lose , well at least they had "fun" playing... if they win, they don't stop playing.

Contrast this with "professional players"... APs are probably looking to grind out a win and get out before they can give it back... they are not concerned with earning comps/tier credits...

[Don Perignom]

If all else fails, rewrite the dictionary:

I think "winning" is a very nebulous term. As for us, we allocate $X for the bankroll, and if we come back with any of it - any - that's a win (subjective interpretation).

So for me a 'winning' trip is returning with some BR.

Those are quotes from two different posters.

[smurgerburger]

If all else fails, rewrite the dictionary:

I think "winning" is a very nebulous term. As for us, we allocate $X for the bankroll, and if we come back with any of it - any - that's a win (subjective interpretation).

So for me a 'winning' trip is returning with some BR.

Those are quotes from two different posters.

That's how these people think.