Ask the Slot Expert: Thoughts on Video Poker Analyzer

Question: An interesting article about the analyzer, and since it needs to be connected to the players card and the machines could only be of value to the casinos, not the players.

Obviously the only help the players can get is by using software that lets them know if they make mistakes, but it is on pretend play, not real money play.

I do have 2 observations.

1. Why would a casino increase the benefits for a poor player? They are not in the habit of giving you anything without bragging about it. Poor players will not know they are getting anything extra because the casino isn't going to say "you're a lousy player so we're giving you extra comps". That would just clue in the player that he needs to play better.
2. The casinos don't seem to care if you play correctly. Don't they even sell you strategy cards that tell you the right plays?

If they think they are giving away too much, they do exactly what you observe, giving less opportunities, less benefits, etc. They really don't need to know whether or not you are a better player than the next guy. They already factor play into benefits and don't need software to tell them which players play better.

As I have said to you before, here in Illinois and Iowa (and Indiana, too) they just don't have pay tables good enough to worry about giving players an edge.

Thanks again for your articles.

Answer: You are very welcome.

The article is my article from last week about Acre's Manufacturing's newish product, Video Poker Analyzer. It's a tool that casinos can use to determine how good a video poker player you are. It looks at the hands you were dealt and compares the cards you held with the mathematically correct set of cards to hold.

The product is a double-edged sword. According to the marketing literature, it will let the casino "create an individualized marketing fund derived entirely from the player's suboptimal decisions." It will also let the casino identify "highly skilled players - known as advantage players - [who] are able to achieve a positive expected return that causes casinos to lose money. These losses are increased when factoring marketing offers such as free play or other rewards that are designed to incentivize play."

Addressing your first point, casinos give better benefits to poor players all the time, though I may be using a more inclusive definition of "poor player."

If you consider someone who plays low-paying video poker paytables or slot machines a poor player, casinos give those poor players better benefits. Both of the two big locals casinos companies in Las Vegas now require $2 played on video poker to earn 1 point. Slot players, in addition, earn more status credits per dollar played than video poker players. Boyd, moreover, even ties the dollars required for one status credit to the payback on the video poker paytable you are playing.

Some benefits, like free play, are a black box and we don't know why we get the offers we get. One of my video poker friends plays more frequently than I do and plays longer on each visit. He also switched from playing NSU to 9/6 Jacks. He gets much better free play offers than I do. How much of the difference is due to paytable, frequency of visits, and daily action? Only the marketing staff knows for sure.

This reminds me of a new wrinkle in casino marketing that started about 25 years ago. With players card use expanding from the casino floor to restaurants, casinos were able to use your dining preferences to tailor your dining offers. One casino exec said, "There's no value in giving a fine-dining credit to a player who only eats at the buffet." The holy grail, he said, was determining what a player really wants and the minimum amount of it to give him to, well, incentivize him to come back.

Casinos can use Video Poker Analyzer to do the same thing: use data that is available to fine tune a player's marketing offers.

I see your point about not giving something away if you're not going to get credit for it. Even though I do it, there's no recognition in my giving an ex post facto tip in the Starbucks app.

Poor players may not know they're getting something extra, but they may be getting something that will make them come back again. Repeat business is the only recognition the casino wants.

Moving on, what's the worst thing that can happen if you play NSU correctly? The casino earns only 0.3% of your play in the long run. And how many people play correctly even if they a strategy card?

The casino only cares how well you play when you play well enough to beat it.

Craps was the dominant table game long before my time. Thorp's Beat the Dealer told everyone that blackjack was a beatable game. Players flocked to blackjack tables even though they didn't know how to count cards or couldn't do it well.

That's the same reason there are positive-expectation video poker paytables but no positive-expectation slot machines. Players may be drawn to positive-expectation paytables even though they don't know how to play them and will lose in the long run, but a monkey who can press a button can be a long-term winner at a positive-expectation slot.

Finally, let me repeat your last point. Haven't casinos already taken care of the supposed "advantage-play" problem by decreasing the number of advantage-play opportunities and giving fewer benefits for video poker?

And let me add, do casinos really care how well someone at a mid-90 percent payback paytable is playing?

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

I didn't know that the Nevada State Legislature meets for only a few months every other year and I had missed the deadline to propose new legislation when I started the petition. We'll be electing a new legislature this year, so let's keep gathering signatures.

Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert™, at slotexpert@slotexpert.com. Because of the volume of mail I receive, I regret that I can't reply to every question.

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