A new year and time to go to the virtual file cabinet and check some that have been begging for my attention. These are files that contain good little tidbits about gambling and casinos that I’m always collecting as I continue to read and research, even though I’m not able to do as much exploring on-site as when I lived in Vegas. Some of these might end up being expanded to full articles in the future, but many can be useful shorts. I’ve always said that the key to successful gambling is not just one blast of a big informational bomb, but hundreds of thousands of tiny information lobs that come your way.
First, here are links to some of the gaming stories/articles you might helpful and/or interesting.
1. My Top Ten Casino Pet Peeves. This is a commentary by Dennis Conrad, a casino-management expert and my good friend, describing his top-10 list of casino pet peeves. I bet you have a lot of the same ones! If you enjoy his down-to-earth writing, you might want to check out some of his other articles listed at the end of this one.
2. Faces of Gaming: Anthony Curtis — Gambling Guru, Las Vegas Expert, Customer Advocate with Street Cred Read this in-depth profile if you want to know more about the fascinating life and times of my boss, Anthony Curtis. I’ve worked with him for over 25 years, but still found out a few interesting details about him that I hadn’t known before.
3. Want to know all about the big 25th anniversary of the Blackjack Ball? It was an extravaganza held last year at one of the most unique buildings in Las Vegas, the Cleveland Clinic – Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health. You can find them in the two-part article by Henry Tamburin: Part 1 and Part 2.
4. Sometimes I help out Deke with a Question of the Day answer. Here’s one that covers some questions that I have often been asked about comps.
5. Are you more a recreational gambler than a purely advantage seeker? This video gives you many hints on how to stretch your fun time in a casino no matter what game you play. You can’t always win these days, but losing less is always a good goal. And you might be shocked by who is giving all the advice on this video. Then again, you might not.
And now for answers I’ve promised to some of your personal questions.
Q: Where do you like living better, Las Vegas or Georgia?
A: I get this question a lot. In fact, I asked it of myself when I visited Las Vegas in the fall. Would I be sad when I went back, wishing we still lived there? However, although I had a good time being there, especially getting to visit with old-time friends, I realized the Vegas of the present is not the same Vegas as before we moved away. Even the last year or so when we still lived there, I got tired of the intense work needed to find good advantage plays and during this visit, I saw that this was even more so the current situation.
I think of the scripture: “To EVERYTHING there is a SEASON and a TIME for every matter or purpose under heaven.” Las Vegas was a happy place for Brad and me for 20-plus years. But Columbus, Georgia, is a good spot for me right now. I live in a place where I can conveniently take care of Brad with the help of a loving family nearby.
Q: I know you’re able to go to a casino and play VP a few times a year, because you write about that, but do you have any gambling opportunities locally?
A: Not gambling, but lots of gaming goes on here at Legacy, most of which I instigate. That shouldn’t surprise you if you read about my early life in the Frugal books. I came from a gaming family and I played a mean game of Uncle Wiggily and Chutes and Ladders before I even went to school. And when my two younger sisters were growing up, we played family Scrabble games for blood. So I’m back to my competitive roots, teaching and organizing games: Phase 10, dominoes, Rummikub, and especially Mah Jong, in which I love the extremely challenging opportunity to play with an advantage. I not only play it often here, but I also play a couple of times a month with a group in the Newcomers Club I joined.
Legacy does occasionally run a bus trip to a local casino over in Alabama, the tribal Wind Creek. It’s slots-only (Class II bingo-based), but looks pretty much like a small Vegas casino, so I’ve taken Brad there several times just to give him the general bright-lights-and-exciting-clamor casino atmosphere that he may remember with pleasure. And we actually won money one trip!
Q: How is Brad doing these days? Has he been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s?
A: When someone has dementia and memory loss, as Brad does, there’s rarely a specific label; there are so many different causes with so many different symptoms. Most cannot be given a diagnosis with certainty until an autopsy is performed. However, the doctors believe he probably has vascular Parkinsonism, an atypical form, produced by one or more small strokes, rather than by gradual loss of nerve cells as seen in the typical neurodegenerative Parkinson’s disease.
He sleeps off and on for about 18-20 hours a day, and when awake, it seems as if he’s in his own little world. Still, it looks to me like he’s very happy and peaceful there. Most days I can bring him into my world for short periods: to go to the dining room for our evening meal, or visit with the family, or even play bingo. He doesn’t talk much; it seems such a struggle to process conversation and then to find words to respond. So he just smiles a lot and everyone here at Legacy sees the sweet person he has always been and happily helped celebrate his 91st birthday January 18.
Fun Trip to Atlantic City – Part 3
Back home after a relaxing Florida beach vacation, I continue the story of my first totally recreational-only casino trip. And once again, as I found when I was writing about this earlier, I realize that I’m constantly using frugal tips that I picked up during the many years of advantage video poker play.
One of my top recommendations for any casino player of any game is to constantly look for promotions. Especially strong ones are often bonuses for joining the players club and we found two very good ones on this Atlantic City trip. Both the Hard Rock and Oceans gave us each $25 in free play just for signing up. We had to run the $100 through a machine once, but whatever we won after that was free money we could add to our shared bankroll.
A couple of caveats about this kind of promotion. It’s for new members only, although some casinos clean out their member lists after some years and you may be eligible if you hadn’t used the players card for long time. However, we found out that some casinos never forget you. We checked at the Tropicana for Susan, but she was still on the CZR players card list, although she hadn’t visited one of their properties for 10-12 years.
There could be another reason why you wouldn’t take advantage of this promotion: You won’t put much play on the card that first time, but later you might want to establish yourself as a higher-level player and put in major play on your first day. However, we knew we wouldn’t be going back to either of those casinos in the future, so this was a great benefit for Susan and me.
This promotion also had an extra benefit for us. It was another way to use a popular frugal suggestion for stretching a small bankroll: find free interesting activities outside the casino. In fact, any player, no matter what their goal or bankroll size, will find leaving a noisy smoky casino environment an oft-needed mental and physical break. Susan and I wanted to sightsee the whole length of the Boardwalk anyway, so this promotion paid for our tram transportation when our feet balked at making the six-mile roundtrip trek.
I know many of you have been waiting to hear about our slot machine play. I’ve left it for last, because it probably provided more fun than any other single activity. And that surprised and puzzled me. But after analyzing my feelings, I realized that it had to do with goals. With skilled video poker play, I was enjoying it, but my goal was long-term financial profit. With slot play, my only goal was to have fun.
However, I knew that I wouldn’t be having fun very long if I lost too much money too quickly, though I didn’t have a specific loss-limit figure in mind. I also knew Susan was feeling the same way. So we each contributed $200 to our trip bankroll and added the $315 surprise free play I found in my account at the kiosk.
Then we set a new goal: to do everything to stretch that bankroll so we could have more fun time.
At first, we used the technique of doing a lot of looking around for machines that looked fun, jumping from one machine to another for short-term sessions. We concentrated on finding those with smaller top jackpots, since they generally give more frequent payouts than those with big ones. But then we ran across some “Wonder Woman” machines. I’d played them briefly a couple of times some years ago in Vegas and on hearing that catchy theme song again, I remembered they were fun machines.
Well … once we sat down and played a little, we were both hooked and didn’t want to look around for any other machines. They fit our stretch-the-bankroll goal better than any machine we could find. They had very small top jackpots compared to most other machines, just $2,000-$3,000, so they had frequent hits and bonuses. One bonus was 21 free spins and that gave us a long period of play without any additional cost. They also had a tiny minimum bet – just 50 cents. Of course, if you made bigger bets, like the top $2.50, your wins would be bigger, but your bankroll would disappear very quickly and your fun time would be shortened. Another plus on this machine was that unlike on many others, you’re eligible for the top jackpots on all bet levels.
Although we loved playing “Wonder Woman” slots, we didn’t play for extended sessions, usually about an hour, before heading out for other activities. I didn’t keep exact records this trip, but we played 8-9 sessions during the 3 days. And when on the flight back to Georgia we counted and divided the remaining bankroll, we were pleasantly surprised. From all our gambling, including table games and slots, we found that all those hours of fun had cost us each just a smidgen over $50. We decided that was a very reasonable entertainment cost!
I want to close out this report with a mention of one of the highlights of the trip, the Frugalite get-together. The group that met us in the food court of the Tropicana wasn’t large, but represented a real cross section of our gambling friends. Some were long-time friends we ‘d previously met in person, while others were online acquaintances; some lived locally or just happened to be in A.C. on vacation; and some had made a special effort and traveled a long distance to attend.
We didn’t have any special agenda for the meeting; we just pulled our chairs close together and for over 2 hours chatted about our casino experiences. We shared past thrilling gambling moments and, of course, moaned over the recent decline of good plays. And when we finally broke up and went our separate ways, I think everyone would remember this as an enjoyable meeting of kindred souls.
Thinking about this recent happy event reminds me again about the importance of friendships. One of the most cherished benefits of Brad’s and my casino life these last 38 years has been the opportunity to make so many friends that shared our enthusiasm for being wise gamblers. We’ve met many in person, during organized get-togethers or often running across each other in a casino. However, there are hundreds more we never met in person, but who have become our Internet friends, some who have written to me that they have been following our casino life story since my first book came out in 2000. Many of these are getting old, as we are, and no longer can visit casinos, but still like to read about the frugal good ol’ days.
And recently, I’m surprised and very pleased that a new generation of casino lovers is looking for information on social media. I see gamblers of all ages enjoying my Jean Scott Facebook page. And it’s amazing how many are commenting whenever I appear in a YouTube video and then buying Huntington Press products. Yes, frugal gambling isn’t just for old folks!
Keep sending your questions. I’ll try to answer them in future posts and always feel free to post in the comment section here. I still want to hear from old friends and make new ones!