There's been a lot of discussion about why an advantage player would play machines that pay less than 100%. Here's one example of a year of just that.
During 2013, I did a fair amount of consulting in San Diego. Many of my room nights were spent at La Quintas (I do not have expensive tastes, at least in hotels). On average those nights cost me $80-100. So on several occasions I chose to stay in a comped room at Harrah's Rincon instead. These visits were my only Caesars play all year.
My total play at Rincon:
$252,580 coin in (which yielded 35,508 tier score; two early days were $25k coin in each to get Diamond in January, only two other days topped $5k coinin)
My choice of games:
Roughly 80% of my coinin was on 8/5 BP on DreamCard (99.27% with a RF cycle under 8500 hands)
The remaining 20% was nearly all on DSTP 10-play 8/5 BP which I chose to play at 5 coin rather than 7. Yes, I left EV on the table but the variance of DSTP was too much for me. All of it was at 25c denomination.
My total benefits received:
20 free nights valued at $75 per night (yes Rincon is a 4-diamond hotel but it's a longer drive from town so for me it's worth about $75)
32 free buffets valued at $15 each (they charge more than this, but $15 is the value I place on them) - the early part of the year featured a promotion of a free buffet any day you got 50 tier credits. Later in the year they switch to just giving 1-2 free buffets per week
Comps of $620. There were many 5x days during the year but they were usually the wrong day of the week for my visits. I steered heavier play to days with multipliers but averaged barely over 2x for the year
Free play totaling $4,370. This could have been a lot more had I crushed it the last two months I was getting strong offers but I wasn't in town much. Early in the year my offers amounted to $25 a week. Then in July, my only playing session was a $7k coinin loss of $1000. When I got my next round of mailers it included over $1700 in free play spread over all 30 days of the month (some on individual days, some on windows of 3-4 days). I collected over $1100 of that play and had similar mailers the following month, which I collected $1050. After a couple royals those months, my mailers went back to roughly $300 per month spread over 20-25 specific days. Adjusted for BP=$4333
Total value of benefits: $6933
Total EV from $252,580 coin in on 8/5 BP: Cash loss of $2097.
Net EV for my year: 101.91%
I don't pretend that you would value the rooms and buffets and whatnot the same way I do. But that's how the math worked out for me. And to be honest, I left considerable EV on the table once I could predict the mailers.
Strictly as an aside, my expected loss of $2097 actually wound up a win of $1833 since I saw eight royals on those machines. So my results were substantially better. But that part was luck. ;)
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