PLAY SLOTS FOR PROFIT, NOT AS A JOB

This last few months has seen all the prices of basic necessities rise. As jobs have come under pressure, the purchasing power of the average household has dropped. Nowhere has the family budget come under greater pressure than with health insurance. All too often, the premiums have been raised (again). This forces yet another tense discussion. Decisions to delay diagnosis and treatment until the sickness can be classed as an emergency and justify a hospital visit. If people are to stay insured, they must accept the best terms they can afford. Fortunately, online sites such as this allow people to get comparative information from multiple health insurance companies. Making the choice from the maximum possible number of quotes gives the best chance of savings. So how should you approach this task? 1. Before you start, write down a list of all the features you would like to see in your ideal policy. 2. Always compare quotes on like-for-like policies. If you use several sites to get the maximum spread of quotes, keep notes to ensure you use the same basic set of information about the policy you are seeking, the level of deductibles accepted, and so on. 3. Never make a decision purely on the premium quoted. Although this is the headline you see first, the devil is in the detail of each policy. You have to be determined and read through all the terms (even the small print). It’s vital that you get a clear picture of what is included and excluded, and see what conditions you have to fulfil to make a claim. Even more important is whether you have a right to renew the policy if you make a claim or you are found to have a disorder or disease that is going to be expensive to treat. There is nothing more devastating than to be diagnosed with a chronic illness and then find your insurance premium hiked up to unaffordable levels or renewal declined. 4. If there is anything you do not understand, ask an agent. Before you accept a quote, insurance companies are helpful and explain things. If you delay asking until you make a claim, this only leads to disappointment and dispute.

Online shopping is accessible round the clock 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can buy whatever you want even at 4 a.m. in the morning. The main advantage of online shopping is that it allows people to browse through many items and categories without leaving their houses. Also they can compare the prices of as many shops as they want, and to order as many items as they can afford without having to worry about shipping or transporting the items, because the online shopping websites also deliver the things to the buyer’s home. Online you can choose a wide variety of things available for you to shop which may not be available in the local brick and mortar stores.

Online shopping is a convenience resulting from modern technology. It could be a hassle, however, if you are dealing with some unknown commercial establishments. At Amazon.com, however, you can be guaranteed of pleasurable online shopping experience - from the time you order until the goods are delivered right on your doorstep. Whatever your needs, you can find it at My Virtual Website Store, an online store that caters only to Amazon products - from apparel and accessories to kitchen and housewares, from computers and video games to tools and hardwares.

When life is going along well, there are rarely temptations. You have everything under control and there’s no need to cut corners. But as the household budget comes under pressure, you have to keep the cost of essentials like cheap auto insurance under control. No-one wants to risk driving out on the public roads without insurance. Cars are essential to most households.

You don’t want to be put in the situation of having to choose between food and insuring the car. Yet, if you have picked up a traffic ticket, there’s a temptation not to pass the news on to your insurer. You’re almost certain the result will be a premium increase, particularly if it was a moving offense - insurers tend to think people who drive too fast or without paying proper attention to the rules of the road are more likely to get into accidents. So what are the issues? Most auto insurance companies treat the ticket as “important” for between three and five years, and raise your premium. The amount of the increase will depend on the offense. A speeding ticket where you were only a few miles per hour over the limit will not have a big effect.

That keeps the premiums affordable. But, as and when the company finds out, your auto insurance policy will be cancelled. Your failure to disclose facts that were material to assessing the risks and setting the premiums can, if deliberate, be treated as fraud and you could find yourself the subject of prosecution or civil suit. Worse, no other insurance company will then insure you. It’s not that honesty is the best policy. It’s the only way you can get and keep a policy in place.

But if you were driving under the influence of drink or drugs, the effect will be significant. For starters, in many states, you will be caught up in the SR-22 scene. This is a certificate issued by your insurance company to your state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. It certifies that, even though you are a “problem driver”, you’re carrying the minimum liability covered required by your state. Except that many insurers are unhappy if you have a drink driving or DUI conviction and either refuse cover or charge a deterrent premium. That means getting the SR-22 can be expensive. So you’re tempted to keep quiet and hope your insurer will not notice the ticket(s).

InternationalResorts.com opened in Atlantic City, the first legal East Coast casino in the twentieth century. Their four- and six-deck blackjack games offered a new form of surrender, dubbed by card counters as “early surrender,” since the casino allowed players to surrender half a bet even when the dealer showed an ace or 10 up, and before the dealer checked for a blackjack. And, ironically, Resorts International was soon the most profitable casino in history, winning an average of $650,000 per day.

A team of professional blackjack players whose founders were from Czechoslovakia that had been playing in Las Vegas flew all of their members to Atlantic City to take advantage of this new surrender rule. This team, which later became known in the casino industry as simply the Czech Team, found the Resorts’ game to their liking and stayed for months.

A New Jersey college student named Tommy Hyland, who had just turned twenty-one, started going to Atlantic City in 1978 when he heard about the favorable black-jack game at Resorts. Within a year, he had organized about twenty of his college and golfing buddies into a team of blackjack players. Hyland’s team continues to this day as one of the most successful casino gambling operations in history.

Many believe these teams owe their existence to the Resorts’ game with its early surrender rule that made the game so easy to beat. College kids found that they could pool their money, play blackjack with a modicum of intelligence, and get rich quick.

In fact, it was a combination of that easy-to-beat early surrender game and Ken Uston’s The Big Player that had just been published in 1977 that worked together to create an environment where new teams of smart young kids could make millions playing blackjack.

So I got me a little snifter here. Jack’s been working his way through some freebies - a new supplier’s trying to break into supplying the casino. Reckons he needs to make sure all the right people get their taste of the good stuff and we’re both of us out to oblige him. Damn, but some of this stuff is good! Makes me wanna give up the poker and the slot machines, and settle down with a bottle or two to enjoy my retirement. Anyways, the young fellah just called. Caught me in a mellow mood for once. He thinks - well, we can suspend judgement on that for so long as he keeps paying me - he thinks I should explain myself. In one piece I’m saying there’s, “a proper mathematical playing strategy for video poker.” In the next, I’m saying there’s a gambler’s fallacy and you can’t predict the cards. He thinks they doesn’t fit right together. So here’s a few words to make it all crystal. Did you ever see Ocean’s 11 - don’t matter whether it was the original Rat Pack version or the new ones with George Clooney and his pals? Did you notice how they always robbed the casinos. There was never a hint of walking through the door with a system for winning at the tables or on the slot machines. Hollywood got it right for once. The only way you guarantee a big score at a casino is as a thief - and you’ve to be lucky to enjoy your “takings” and avoid the hail of bullets if you get caught by wrong people. Look around online. You’ll see a small army of people touting their systems for beating all casino games with a house advantage. Play slot machines, win big. Win at blackjack without counting. When I was growing up, my mother used to play 78s all the time. She loved the musicals of the 1920s. She’d never been on the chorus line, but she’d a hankering for it. Her parents disapproved of theatrical folk and that was an end of that. Anyways, one of my favorites was Banana Oil - kinda like snake oil but always applied to lounge-lizard lines. “When he tells you, ‘I adore you,’ that’s banana oil.” In other words, everything he said to get his mark into bed was bullshit. Well, the same goes for all these salesmen pushing betting systems for slot machines. They’re trying to scam you outa your money. Take it from me. There ain’t no system around that even dents the House edge on games where the probabilities are set in the House’s favor. Math is math. Mind you. It’s not my money - you wanna fool yourself you can shade the odds in your favor on video poker, then feel free. So, how do these systems work? You’re supposed to base your bets on the most recent outcomes. Take roulette as an example. Wait for a run of blacks, then bet on red - the longer the run, the bigger the bets on red. If you see a pattern emerging, you’re supposed to think that the probabilities of the game itself have changed. When I worked for casinos, we always nodded wisely when someone cautiously asked if they could play a system. Another little chicken ripe for the plucking. My father was counting deaths by the million over decades for the life companies. Probabilities and statistics only make sense in the long view. Short-term, you’ll find anomalies in all slot machines but, over time, the basic patterns are set in stone and in the House’s favor. You’ll see lucky streaks that look like they’re never going to end. But, so long as the House keeps its nerve, the winner will lose it all back again. It’s the same with the so-called systems. They aim to build up the small wins to offset the big losses. If you’ve the bankroll, you can often win over a session. But you’re obsessional kind, ain’t ya? You’ve invested that money in a system. You’re not going to quit while you’re ahead, are you? Which means that any small winnings you picked up on the good days will all get given back to the casinos on the bad days. It’s just the way the House edge works. Like I say, you can’t beat the math. Which leaves me with my strategy, which I’ll get back to when I’m good and ready.

Jack and me were shooting the breeze at the bar when the young fellah called. He asked how big a bankroll someone’d need to turn video poker professional. Laugh? I coulda died. If ever anyone was begging to be called a girlie man - Schwarzenegger was right on the money with that - he’s the one. Him a gambler? The very idea of him losing a quarter in slot machines would give him gas. But I guess he’s got a right to ask for you - not that I’m inspired with confidence looking round at you. You’re just playing the pro game in your heads when you read these articles. Ain’t nothing gonna come of it. Anyways, let’s keep the dream going a while longer. That Mr. Ferguson fellah calculates you’d need $10,000 if you wanna turn pro and play the quarter poker machines. Multiply that by four if ya wanna play the dollar machines. But I reckon that’s a tad optimistic. I’ve seen people burn that and never hit a jackpot. The Math God don’t care nothing for you. If you hit a run of cold machines, ain’t nothing you can do ‘cept play through the patch until you come out the other side. Jack could loan me a pen and we’d do the best math you ever seen on the back of these here fancy coasters. You’ve got the proper video poker strategy nailed. All the most probable outcomes are in play. That kinda calculation would make Mr. Ferguson’s number look a smart bet. But ya gotta ask yourself, what kinda assumptions are we making? Are we assuming you’ve got an infinite amount of cash - that you’re gonna play video poker until all the probabilities work out like the book says they should? And you’ve never gotta take a restroom break or sleep some? You can keep playing until you’re on the right side? And then how we gonna exclude the chance that some other player’s gonna hit the jackpot? Don’t matter whether you’re playing a flat top or a progressive. If it’s a flat top, ya take a break and the next player on “your” video poker machine takes the pot. Playing the progressive, that jackpot can always go somewhere else no matter how fast and well ya play. So how much’re ya gonna drop before ya give up? Ten grand might be enough to give ya that cushion. But ya might need the kinda eye-poppin’ wad some whale tosses on the table like it’s loose change before ya break even. Are you ready to lose all that? And don’t you never forget. Once you’re tapped out, you’re outa the video poker game until you get the front money together again. Still reading, are ya? Jack here’s got an expression like he’s sucking on a lemon. He thinks I’m being too hard on ya all. I should make like an angel now I’ve crossed over to your side of the casino. OK. So think of this like video poker boot camp. I’m the ex-marine gonna kick ya round and give ya the tough love ya been missing all these years. You’ll be all the better for it. Well, that’s me done again. Catch ya ’round.

The machine’s most frequent payout is for two horseshoes with something other than a star on the third reel, which pays out two coins when it occurs and should occur 200 times for every 1,000 plays. We pick 1,000 plays because there are 1,000 possible combinations on the three reels (10 X 10 X 10).
That 200 figure comes from 5 (the number of times the horseshoe appears on the first reel) times 5 (the number of times the horseshoe appears on the second reel) times 8. The 8, in turn, comes from the 10 spots on the third reel minus the 2 bells, which, as we shall see, pay more.
So over the course of 1,000 plays, the machine pays out 400 coins because just two horseshoes come up. If that third reel does come up a star, the machine pays off four coins. Out of 1,000 plays, the combination of two horseshoes and a star is expected to come up 50 times (5X5X2; the 2 represents the 10 positions on the third reel minus the 8 positions that don’t have bells on them) for a total payoff of 200 coins.

To see how this works, let’s take a look at a very simple early slot machine, one with three reels and 10 symbols on each reel. The first two reels are identical. Each has five horseshoes, two spades, one diamond, one heart, and a bell. The third reel is different. It has two stars, two spades, three diamonds, one heart, and two bells.

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4. Knowing when to quit. No slot machine will continually pay out. They will “take” and “give,” usually in cycles. Sometimes a machine will shower you with coins, while at other times you may get one of the better-paying slots machines but one which is in the “take” cycle. To know when to quit is to protect your investment. That’s where strategy comes into play. (See “The Big Secret,” which follows.)

5. When is enough enough? Well, that’s a toss-up. It depends on what the value of the money happens to be for you. Generally, I’d say that any win over and above

your initial starting investment is profit, and therefore something you should pocket and keep.

6. How often to play? That depends on your available time. Generally, I’d say about once a month, and in dedicated periods for profitable play. But that depends, to a large extent, on your time, access to a casino, and available capital. Find slot games the best for your situation.

7. How long to play? On a $1 machine that takes 2 coins as maximum, about two hours should be enough to run the machine through its paces. However, you should monitor your pay and
adapt your playing time according to the relevant requirements listed earlier. For $1 machines that take 3 coins as maximum, this time period will be determined by your bankroll. So is the case for $5 classic slots machines and higher.