Video Poker – The Importance Of Comps
June 17th, 2009 | 
Author: I have thoroughly covered both the psychology of comps and the way casinos figure the value of your play in my book Guerrilla Gambling: How to Beat the Casinos at Their Own Games! I have also discussed how to get more comps than your play actually warrants in that book. Suffice it to say that you should never play just to get comps. However, you should always take whatever comps your play warrants. For many astute gamblers, the combination of comps and play will equal long-term success. Always put your comp card in the machine when you play or give it into the change person to record your buy-in.
To give you some idea of the streaky nature of video poker and also how comps can help offset otherwise losing trips, the following is a day-by-day Las Vegas diary of mine that shows 28 straight days of playing Jacks-or-Better 9/6 video poker with 4,700 coins for the royal flush. Every morning I played the same good video-poker machine for $500 (five quarters per hand = 400 hands per day = 11,200 hands = $14,000 through the machine during the 28 day period ). When I was finished playing on a given day I would ask for a comp for breakfast. The amount of the comp shown on this chart is what I actually spent as opposed to what I theoretically could have spent. Since I don't make a pig of myself, I only ordered what I would have ordered had I paid for the meal myself.
Victory at Video Poker
Day Won Lost Comp Amount Total
1 $34 $14 - $20.00
2 $17.50 $21 + $38.50
3 $27.50 $18 + $45.50
4 $10 $16.82 + $6.82
5 $10 $14.86 + 4.86
6 $26 $8.45 - $17.55
7 $12 $18.45 + $30.45
8 $73 $8.45 - $64.55
9 $72.50 $14.86 - $57.64
10 $84 $14.75 + $98.75
11 $109 $8.45 - $100.55
12 $74.25 $18 - $56.25
13 $33 $8.45 + $41.45
14 $58.50 $21.35 + $79.85
15 $5 $8.45 + $13.45
16 $33 $18.45 + $51.45
17 $91.50 $8.45 - $83.05
18 $200 $18 - $182
19 $20 $18 - $2.00
20 $68 $8.45 - $59.55
21 $20 $21 + $41.00
22 $34 $8.45 - $25.55
23 $134 $14.25 + $148.25
24 $35 $8.45 + $33.45
25 $62 $14.86 + $76.86
26 $34.50 $8.45 - $26.05
27 $17.25 $21 + $38.25
28 $62.50 $8.45 - $54.05
Totals $538.75 $919.25 $390.60 + $10.10
Although I had no truly awesome days during this 28-day playing cycle (I never received a straight flush, for example, and never got close to a royal flush), the combination of comps and play netted me $10.10. Now, at first glance this $10.10 win might seem nothing to gloat about.. .but think again. A win is a win, after all. Had I not played video poker in this particular casino every morning, I would have had to pay $390.60 for my breakfasts over this period of time. Instead, the casino gave me $10.10 to eat for 28 days in their restaurant. Looked at that way—I received some bargain.
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Video Poker And Money Management
In regular poker when you're going head to head with a human opponent, it is not difficult to understand how easy it is for a player to be "psyched out." The other player's supposedly superior skill, his panache, his past playing decisions can all lead an opponent to Ihe edge of the abyss—thus becoming "psyched out." "Psyched out" can be defined by a whole host of phrases and cliches (all of them right on the button). Being "psyched out" is the losing of one's rhythm, confidence, judgment, or optimism in the face of a seemingly superior opponent. It's been alternately called "freezing" in sports contests and "going on tilt" in gambling games. For college students (or any students), being "psyched out" means being "out of it" on a test. ("Damn, Professor, I knew the answers, I just couldn't remember them. I was out of it.") To some degree, all of us have probably experienced the phenomena of being "psyched out" at one time or another in our lives. Some of us have also experienced, and perhaps enjoyed, the phenomenon of psyching someone else out. When-you're psyched out, you are the deer in the headlights of a car—frozen and doomed. When you're doing the psyching, however, you are an eighteen-wheeler barrelling down on Bambi.
Can one be psyched out by a machine? Definitely yes. I'd call this situation self-psyching out, because the player would do it to himself. Since I love inventing psychobabble, let's call this the Self-Psyching-Out Syndrome! (Or SOS—we'll drop the "P.")
How would the SOS manifest itself? I believe that if a player is psyched out it will usually show in how he manages his money and the types of bets he makes. However, a player could play perfectly and still be psyched out. There comes a time in every losing session where you have to say to yourself: "Am I done for the day? Have I lost all I can afford or want to lose for this session?" No matter how often an individual gambles, it feels bad to lose. But a person who is psyched out almost wants to lose—that's the strange thing. It's almost as if at a certain point the object of the player's desire is no longer beating the casino but beating himself. Suddenly the player takes a perverse joy in inflicting more punishment upon himself, like the boxer who punches himself in the face because his opponent just got through his guard and punched him in his face. It's a double dose of indignity.
And video poker can certainly set up the necessary conditions for a player to be psyched out. Most video-poker games have long losing streaks and most sessions will be losers. That fact should not make you believe that you are doomed to lose—that you deserve to lose; that somehow or other you have been a bad little boy or girl and must be punished for it. Yet I've seen people behave this way. Remember that you are playing the best video-poker games because you want to win money. Why else would you have bought this book? The fact that you intellectually know that more often than not you will lose should not predispose you to taking those losses lightly or, conversely, to heart. Never get to the point where you say to yourself: "Screw it! I'll keep playing until I lose all the money I brought." Get into that frame of mind and you could lose your entire stake in one unlucky session. On some nights Lady Luck is no lady but a cheap whore who will give her favors to the house. Walk away from her.
I have mentioned it on numerous occasions in this book but it bears repeating once more: video poker is volatile. You will have explosive winning sessions and many grinding losing sessions. So you must play a contained game and stay on top of yourself. Although your opponent is only a machine, it is a machine that is incapable of psyching itself out or of being psyched out. The dealer-in-the-machine will deal, collect, and deal some more—deal, collect, and deal some more—until the edge of doom. Just don't let that doom be yours.
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