Players respond

11 September 2018

By Frank Scoblete

FROM K**THEY: Just read your article today and wanted to confirm that I've taken your advice from previous columns and twice in one week, it's paid off for me.

Last week, at Chinook Winds Casino/Resort, on the Oregon coast, I had $10 free slot play on my player’s card. For the heck of it, I went to a dollar machine and instead of playing $3 a whack; I just played one and walked away from the machine with $98 actual cash, to play the rest of the day on.

Last night while at the Spirit Mountain Casino/Resort, I played a quarter machine. I put in a $5 bill and played one quarter at a time. On the first machine, I only got about $1.50 for my $5, but when I moved to the next machine with another $5, on my second or third push, I hit 7 7 4x symbol and walked away from that machine with a $100 win.

Your slot blasphemy is shared and it works!

FRANK RESPONDS: I think playing one coin or credit on all machines, with the exception of the monster jackpot ones such as Megabucks, is the way to go. You might give up a little in the jackpot win but your losses are reduced significantly over time if you play as you normally would in terms of time spent at the game.

Take the traditional three-coin machine. Play one coin and not full-coin and you reduce your overall losing expectation by almost two-thirds. That is some savings of money.

I wish I could offer a winning method for all slot machines and not just the banking ones I wrote about in my book Slots Conquest: How to Beat the Slot Machines. Those banking machines have largely disappeared. But the one coin or one credit is the method I think all slot players should use. Saving money is almost as important as winning money because bucking the house edge can be hard on your bucks over time!

FROM SAUL: Really enjoy your columns. I have a question about comps. You wrote about how you used to get meal comps from the pit bosses. Today, have those comps been superseded by the casino points systems or are the comps in addition to the points? Can you still ask for comps? It seems that the casinos are really cheap in their point awards. Thanks for the great reads.

FRANK RESPONDS: Most casinos no longer have pit bosses offering comps when the player asks for them. They’ll just say to check the computer at the comp desk, or the boss just goes to the computer, figures out what the computer will give you and gives you that – subtracting that from your reservoir of comps. It is therefore not any different than you going to the kiosk to get your comps.

Slot clubs are even more restrictive than table games as you have to find the slot manager and “plead your case.” That requires more good luck than hitting a jackpot. Video poker players will often find that they do not get the same level of comps as slot players because proper play on good video poker games reduces the house edge remarkably from the edge the casino has on the slot machines.

So in general the computers rule most of the days, most of the nights, and most of the time. That, my friend, is the way of the world.

FROM JOSIE: If I want to play the roulette or blackjack electronic games am I getting the same game in terms of percentage as people playing these games at the actual tables? It seems a lot less hassle to sit at a machine and play games that have relatively good house edges. Am I missing something here? Isn’t a roulette game or a blackjack game better than most slot machines?

FRANK RESPONDS: Most electronic games I have seen use the same percentages as the table games; that would include roulette, blackjack and craps. There may be some minor differences as there are minor differences at various tables as well. So, yes, you are getting a better game at these machines than you would at regular slot machines.

In general you can assume that the electronic games are giving you the same return as those games at the tables but I am not exactly sure if the comp value of those games is the same as if you were playing them at the tables.

The only bad situation you might face concerns the speed of the games. At the table the speed is largely determined by a combination of the dealer and the swiftness of the players placing their wagers. That means you can probably have slower games – slower games are better for the player. Yes, players can slow down table games but it is hard to slow down an electronic game short of taking a hammer to the machine – and you wouldn’t want to do that as it would ruin your comp rating.

[Read Frank Scoblete’s books I Am a Card Counter: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Blackjack, I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps and Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! All available from Amazon.com, on Kindle and electronic media, at Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores. Visit Frank’s website at www.frankscoblete.com.]