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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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?
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.
>> Is it just me, or are arcade games making a comeback of sorts?
It's you. The heyday for arcades was in the early 1980s. Every corner drug store had a game or two. Every bowling alley had a room full of games. The local ice cream shop had a few table-top games, as did the local movie theater. They were everywhere. Sometimes we'd decide where to go based on which games were where. Going to a big arcade was a thing too, but today they are the only place left that has these tihngs.
BTW, this whole thing reminds me that I won big at Dave & Busters recently and I need to go back and see if that's reproducible. Big ticket prize seemed easy to get once I played with the right goal in mind.
I think a big reason arcades were popular before was because the home gaming experience wasn't the same, since the arcades had big screens and better equipment. I think VR brings us back there -- most people can't yet afford the best VR helmets with motion platforms. So you go to the arcade to get that.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?.
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.
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.
It also doesn't come with pager duty, stack ranking, working weekends, working long hours during the week, meetings, constant rush to meet deadlines, bad managers, bad coworkers.
For people who just want to earn a living and go home it doesn't sound too bad.
There's plenty of other benefits to it. You get to be your own boss, you don't need any qualifications, and being a professional gambler does have a kind of "sex appeal".
It's very pleasant to have 0 dependence on anybody or anything other than these games. You go in whenever you want, do your thing, and at the end of the day you have earned or lost money. It feels something like a microcosm of a purely merit based capitalism.
But the major downside is the lack of creation. I enjoy construction as well as software development for the same reason. At the end of the day (or year perhaps...) you can see something, that did not exist before, that you have created. That just feels really good. In gaming, you can make plenty of money but you aren't really creating anything and so it ends up feeling quite empty - especially when variance is doing its thing.
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.
Been a poker, black Jack, roulette and side game dealer for about five years before working in development.
When there is a +EV game you have to follow an optimal strategy, which really kills the fun and a mistake costing you hours of work will make you miserable.
Gambling should really be for fun. Put some money on the roulette table and if you lose you lost and if you win it's enough to get some drinks or do something with the money. It's far more enjoyable to not be there expecting a positive result to begin with.
Regulars who try to make an income often seen miserable =(
> fascinating to see how playing a +EV game changes my perspective on casino gambling from "This is entertainment" to "This is work".
Exactly. This is why I can't stand blackjack, but love craps. Craps is very little 'work' to have better odds than most other games. Plus it's social, and active (rolling dice, chatting, moving chips).
When I used to play a lot of poker I could usually do okay at a casino, but it was so boring.
The house is not getting wiped out. Their bank is too large to be wiped out by a slot machine. They are only threatened with high rollers playing 10M a hand baccarat. $10 slot variance will never harm a casino.
In any game of chance where the gambler has finite money and the house has infinite money, the gambler always loses if he plays long enough, even if the odds are in his favor.
Yeah I was kind of excited to see a “pro” but literally his strategy and even his exclamations were not at all different from 10 year old me. It felt a bit like I was being pranked
The linked video was horrible, so I searched on YT and found an entire channel of some other guy's AP vids (note, only the ones with "AP" in the titles):
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.
I remember a time when the only thing you could win was the high score. I hate all of the gambling games. The arcades are all dead now. They were mostly killed by nintendos and playstations, but I can't help but feel some of it is due to these gambling games. We have strict regulations about gambling for money, new regulations about 'loot crates', but somehow these trade-tickets-for-prizes games get a pass.
There was a ticket game with a light that would spin around and you won whatever it landed on. One of the lights said 'jackpot' but it was impossible to win - there was a switch inside the machine that enabled the jackpot which was always turned off. A casino would be in big trouble for something like that but arcades get a pass.
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.
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.
I don't view 'never engage in behaviors that might potentially lead to addiction' as teaching good habits.
Modeling, teaching and enforcing responsible engagement in activities that might be dangerous is teaching children good habits. Now there are certain activities that are practically impossible to do responsibly, so it's my job to ban those. I don''t see gambling as one of them. Just like I don't see video games as something to ban.
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.
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.
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"