
The Elaborate, Dying Art of Hustling for Money at Dave and Buster's - paulpauper
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pan43y/the-elaborate-dying-art-of-hustling-for-money-at-dave-and-busters-arcades
======
llamataboot
I started advantage gambling when the internet casino craze took off and fell
in with a bunch of people that had been longtime advantage players in casinos,
in arcades, basically anywhere there was to crank out an edge in expected
value.

It was really interesting and I was actually able to build up a bankroll that
I learned to play poker with, and then played poker to put myself through
graduate school. (Poker is always plus EV if you are at the right table for
the right amount of time)

But, wow, was there ever a lot of grinding. People putting in 24+ hour long
sessions playing video poker during specials, people counting cards for hours
to push small edges with an amount of variance that would kill the average
person's emotions, etc.

Internet casinos changed the game a little bit because the really serious
people went towards automating play and establishing many fake identities to
claim new player bonuses with, my first exposure to people running many
computers through multiple VPNs, etc which to me started to push the line away
from advantage play and towards criminal activity.

But, often times the online casinos were just as shady. More than once a
fabulous bonus was offered, the casino stayed open for a few weeks, and then
magically while they were "processing withdrawals" they just disappeared off
the face of the earth.

As they said, "A hard way to make an easy living"

~~~
Waterluvian
I can't imagine playing with such a slight advantage that like 20 minute of
bad luck nullifies it. I need my endeavors to pay off consistently, even if
the payoff is practice or learning new things.

~~~
llamataboot
And other times 20 minutes of good luck gives you a windfall far beyond your
advantage. The key is playing often enough and long enough and with a large
enough bankroll that the long run is what makes you, but that's easier said
than done for some people.

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jedberg
> But, in that patch, [ICE] also added an obvious tell that shows when the
> game is ready to pay out, which I consider a blatant nod to the community.”

Arcade games aren't controlled by a gaming commission like slot machines.
There's nothing to stop one of the engineers who works on the machine from
putting in a tell for themself and then exploiting it after work.

~~~
Simple_Guy
The agreement he must have surely signed when he started his employment, that
he would not play the game that's built by the company?

~~~
jedberg
I highly doubt that's the case, and even if it is, how would it be enforced?

~~~
Tyrek
Generally, the Arcade game maker underwrites (or participates somehow) in the
jackpot for their own machines, so they'd be able to track if affiliated
individuals (employees, ex-employees, etc.) were winners. Obviously, it gets
more complex if the offending engineer were to tell someone else the secret,
etc., but that's already getting into organized crime territory.

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AznHisoka
I went to a Dave and Buster's for the first time in many years last week, and
couldn't believe the number of people who were lining up playing games,
especially the VR ones. Is it just me, or are arcade games making a comeback
of sorts?

~~~
extr
I would agree, my city has seen two arcade bars open up in the last year or
two and both are incredibly popular. VR is cool but neither one of them has
one, here the draw is usually some type of craft beer tie-in, one has a serve
yourself bar (with a carefully selected draft list) and distributes electronic
cards to track your tab, and the other one has a micro-brewery in the back.

They're located close to and serve as a really natural extension of a typical
craft brewery scene, where people bring their kids and dogs to the breweries
for the day and eat/drink/hangout for hours. Having games around just gives
you a reason to stay longer, now there's something for kids to do and it's not
purely an alcohol consumption event.

It's not like D&B where you're on the hunt to win tickets and prizes, they're
actually focused on stocking games that are fun. Who wants to hang out and
play legal gambling simulator 2019 when you have all the classics and name-
brand modern stuff to choose from. Playing NFL Blitz 2000 is a shitload of fun
and I'm willing to blow a lot of quarters proving to my mates I'm the
undisputed champ. Same with DDR/Mortal Kombat/Crazy Taxi/Pinball/Skiball and
all the other stuff they stock. Nothing like the games mentioned in this
article.

------
codingdave
This is a story that has repeated over time...

I knew a man who made a living at the slots in Vegas before everything was
computerized, with a small team of guys who watched the machines, and knew
when to play them.

When I was younger, there was one mechanical game you'd find in arcades,
again, before it all was computerized, that I had gotten good at. I'd win the
jackpot every time, within $5.00 of play. I recall finding it in the back
corner of an Arcade, again in Vegas, in the mid-90s. Nobody ever played it,
apparently, because the jackpot was huge. 5 dollars later, and the people who
worked there were handing me rolls of tickets. But that is the last time I
ever saw it.

Now, with everything computerized, it does feel less interesting to me. You
aren't just using skills and competing with physics. You are competing with
software that is affecting the outcome. Even on the games that look
mechanical, their parts can have adjustments made to their speeds and motion
that means you have some loss of control.

At the end of the day, though, these games are supposed to be about
entertainment. You spend some money, you have some fun, get a prize or two,
the business makes some money and everyone gets to keep doing it.

~~~
sneak
Which game was it? Do you remember where it was you played it in Vegas?

~~~
codingdave
I forget the name, but it was a mechanical baseball game, where you would win
the jackpot by rolling quarters into various holes in a wooden floor, and
getting a grand slam. You'd have to hit 3 fairly easy holes, which gave you
three singles, then roll your 4th quarter along the edge of a hole to make it
curve behind everything to the the home run hole at the back of the board...

I think the place in Vegas was the arcade in New York, New York. I don't even
know if that still exists, it has been so long.

------
darkpuma
The linked video to the coin pusher 'pro' was underwhelming to put it lightly;
the dude lost all of his money. The way him and his friend were talking
reminded me of how "slot experts" in Vegas talk. Disconcertingly they seemed
to have an impressionable child with them.

~~~
rjf72
There are lots of +EV (expected value) opportunities in many house favored
games of chance including slots and video poker. It's pretty simple. The house
edge is _x_ per game. Many games have a jackpot that adds a fixed value per
hand. When that added value exceeds _x_ it suddenly becomes profitable to play
the game. That doesn't mean you'll earn money after 100 or even 1000 plays.
But it does mean that as your plays approach infinity, so does your wallet. In
effect the role of the house and the player swaps. Normally the house wins in
the longrun, but can get wiped out in the short run. If you consider the
jackpot the house's money (which it isn't - which is why this does not matter
to them), then suddenly it becomes the case that the house may wipe out
players in the short run, but will lose money in the long run.

In any case the point here is that variance is brutal when you're talking
about edges that come from rare events. But if you enjoy playing the games,
then knowing you're doing so at an edge is even more enjoyable. And it's also
a fun little thing to work out on your own for those that enjoy math.

\---

 _This is all an aside on "slot experts" and other mathematical games of
chance. I've no idea about coin pushing stuff or advantage in those sort of
games._

~~~
mherdeg
As a very infrequent gambler (I love Vegas but make it out there 1x/year or
less) it has been fascinating to see how playing a +EV game changes my
perspective on casino gambling from "This is entertainment" to "This is work".

Three or four times I have spent an hour at a Sam's Town full pay deuces wild
video poker machine, where you wager $0.50 per hand and your expected value is
$100.76 per $100 wagered. This works out to like $5/hr with perfect play at a
moderate pace. This earning rate is one of the least bad outcomes at the
casino -- you'd be spending $10/hr on average at a cheap, slow craps table
playing the pass-line bet.

Now, if you're gambling at the casino and the game is bound to earn you money,
this should be maximum fun, right? Not only do you get the thrill of seeing
whether the random number generator gave you money, but also there's no real
downside because if you play long enough you'll come out ahead?

Strangely that's not how it works out. There's some kind of mindset shift
between negative-EV-play and positive-EV play.

When I'm losing money at craps or blackjack it's like "oh, this is fun, we're
rolling the dice, we're flipping the cards, some of us will probably win a bit
and some of us will lose money but we had fun."

When I'm earning money very slowly at video poker it's like, "uhh, I guess the
math is interesting here but I think I have fully understood the spreadsheet
and, uh, am I seriously being paid $5/hr to perfectly implement a lookup
table? Could I be earning more with Mechanical Turk?".

I somehow managed to hit that rare high-variance event once (a natural royal
flush, expected every 45,000 hands or so?) and have very little interest in
ever playing these slow-burn +EV games again. This in turn kind of makes all
gambling boring -- if the +EV stuff isn't worth it, what is the point of any
of it?.

~~~
taurath
From researching video poker +EV people, their lifestyle and their expected
earnings, it seems a terrible terrible way to make a living - at most you’re
getting like $40k a year, sitting in a casino in front of the same game for
8-10 hours and making no real choices. It’s pretty close to one of the worst
lifestyles I could think of.

~~~
Smithalicious
>at most you’re getting like $40k a year, sitting in a casino in front of the
same game for 8-10 hours and making no real choices.

Replace "casino" with office and "game" with computer and this starts to sound
a lot like a cynical take on many people's jobs.

~~~
ansible
Yes, except the casino doesn't come with health insurance or other benefits.

I think part of it is the allure that the money has been "won" instead of
"earned". You are "beating the system", or "sticking it to the Man"... I can't
think of why else you'd subject yourself to this un-ergonomic work
environment.

~~~
ada1981
Free soda, watered down booze and second hand smoke.

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
My father in law is one of these people.

Second hand smokers need not apply, first hand is what it takes to succeed. He
also gets the ability to walk away whenever he needs a break, for as long as
he wants. He has a captive audience who has to listen to his latest feelings
on Obama or Big Foot. And a surprisingly amount of random encounters that
result in sex.

He used to drive taxi, then Uber for about the same take home. But what really
makes him stay with video poker is the free gifts from the Casio (swag
mostly), and the ~ 100 senior citizen ladies he romantically encounters each
year.

~~~
butisaidsudo
I love this description! Your father in law sounds like a character from a
Steinbeck novel.

------
Nursie
I'm reading this and just thinking "This is why we can't have nice things".

Or at least "this is why arcade prizes are so shitty for kids", because adults
like these are trying to game the system to make a living. They arcades have
to push difficulties and lower the worth of their prizes specifically because
of people like this, and they make it worse for everyone else. It's a real
shame.

~~~
mattmanser
You really shouldn't be encouraging your kid to gamble.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
And it ruins the experience too. I remember when I used to go to arcades, and
there were games that paid out tickets, and games that didn't. Playing games
that didn't pay out felt like a "waste", because I couldn't get tickets.
...Even though they were likely more fun, and the tickets weren't worth all
that much in the real world.

~~~
toast0
I had enough rounds of almost enough tickets, come back next time and the
prize is gone, or has inflated to twice the tickets to know that playing
ticket games was a waste. So I spent my tokens on the fun games. I do like the
free game mechanic in pinball though, you can earn one with skill, and there's
a chance of a free game by luck with match at the end. Although, both of those
are manipulated: modern machines will drop the replay score when it's not hit,
and match is set by the operator to a percentage, that may or may not be the
10% it appears it should be.

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Grue3
Sounds similar to the Japanese subculture of crane machine players. Because
these machines are programmed to always win prizes within a certain number of
games, if you spot a machine that hasn't given a prize for a while, there's a
good chance that you can win a prize within a few games on it.

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sodosopa
I feel for the mom and pop shops getting fished by these dudes. Maybe that’s
Vice in general, I usually feel gross after reading about some of their
profiles.

~~~
vb6lives
Mom and Pop used a rigged machine to cheat customers out of their money.

