Ask the Slot Expert: Lessons for game shows from gambling - part 1

Some of the lessons we learn from gambling can be used for playing game shows.

Know the rules

The first lesson is to know the rules of the game you're playing backwards and forwards. This is probably most important when playing blackjack because different casinos -- and even different tables within a casino -- can have different rules. For example, does the dealer hit soft 17? Can you resplit or double down after a split? Can you join a game mid-shoe?

Knowing the rules is somewhat less important on a slot machine because players usually have only one decision to make -- how much to bet -- but it is still useful. You should know how the amount you're betting affects the game. For example, you frequently have to bet full coin to qualify for progressives. On a Monopoly-themed game I played a few days ago, moreover, I could decrease the number of scattered symbols required to trigger the bonus from six to five by increasing my bet.

I could also say that you should know what symbols are wild, what symbols trigger the bonus, whether the game is payline-based, etc., but that knowledge doesn't affect the only decision you have to make. The game does all the hard work for you and you'll be able to figure out how the game works by playing it if you don't want to read the help screens.

There is one thing about how the game works that would be worth knowing and that is whether your choices matter in a pick 'em bonus round. On many games, only one of the possible outcomes has enough symbols in the field to award that bonus amount. I've seen players agonize over which symbol to pick while playing bonuses that I know have a predetermined outcome. It doesn't matter what they pick.

It also doesn't make much sense to agonize when picking in a bonus that isn't predetermined. You don't have any knowledge about which symbol has which bonus amount, so pick in a pattern, pick at random, whatever. It doesn't matter.

Oops, I lied. There's a second thing about how a game works that you should know. Many games now have progress indicators to supposedly show how close you are to triggering a bonus. The bonus is triggered once all of the firecrackers are lit, or the dollar sign is completely filled in, or the rice bowl is full. The progress indicator is almost always bogus and doesn't indicate anything. You're just as likely to get the bonus with an empty indicator as with a nearly full indicator. You should know whether the indicator is real so you don't get fooled into thinking that a bonus is close to being triggered.

Knowing the rules is more important when playing video poker. Foremost, you should definitely know whether the game you're playing has wild cards.

How could someone not know the game had wild cards?

Many, many years ago, I was playing video poker with my cousin at a bank of Deuces Wild machines at Tropworld in Atlantic City. Two older ladies were playing the machines next to us. (I say older, though, my cousin and I are probably as old now as those ladies were then.) Something made us watch the ladies play. We noticed that they were throwing away deuces.

My cousin said, "You know, you're playing Deuces Wild and twos are wild."

One of the ladies said, "Oh, we don't know what we're doing. We're just having some fun."

We were all playing nickels, so we wished them luck and let them go about having their fun.

I've seen contestants on game shows use knowledge of the rules of the games they were playing to their advantage. A long time ago, Boston Rob (from Survivor) and his wife, Amber, ran The Amazing Race in 2007. One leg had an eating challenge, which fortunately the Race seems to have stopped having. They had to eat four pounds of beef at a barbecue in Argentina. f you couldn't complete the challenge, you had to take a four-hour penalty.

Rob said that there was no way they were going to be able to eat that much in less than four hours, if at all. Rather than spending who knows how long to attempt the challenge and then giving up and taking the penalty, they didn't even try and started the penalty clock right away. He also convinced other teams to balk on the challenge and take the penalty.

Another instance of a player knowing the rules of the game occurred on Deal or No Deal Island a few weeks ago. Dr. Will, a former winner of Big Brother, liked to do outrageous things to keep the other players off balance.

He was playing Deal or No Deal. I'll talk about his strategy for picking cases next week. This week I'll cover something he did during the game.

After he opened the first round of cases, the phone rang and the host, Joe Manganiello, answered it to get the banker's offer. After pretending to have a conversation with the banker, he hung up the phone and said some nonsense about why the banker's offer is what it is. He said the offer was $72,000 and opened the plastic case protecting the "Accept the Offer" red button.

Dr. Will immediately hit the button and said, "Deal."

The rest of the contestants got really mad at him for accepting such a low offer so early in the Deal or No Deal game.

Dr. Will said that he really hasn't accepted the offer yet. Joe concurred. The rules say that it isn't official until the host asks, "Deal or no deal?". Because Joe hadn't asked the question yet, Dr. Will's accepting the offer was just to upset the other players. He officially declined the offer and continued playing.

If you would like to see more non-smoking areas on slot floors in Las Vegas, please sign my petition on change.org.

Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert™, at slotexpert@slotexpert.com.

Copyright © John Robison. Slot Expert and Ask the Slot Expert are trademarks of John Robison.