Video Poker Advantage Players

January 31, 2008

Can You Tell Advantage Players by the Shoes They Wear?

I mentioned in my article about hourly expected losses in video poker that I'd read a thread recently at vpFREE about a player who was betting $1 per hand in order to minimize his hourly losses. I was struck by some comments about what kind of shoes different gamblers wore and what that might indicate about their play and their bankrolls. Hence my somewhat facetious subtitle, "Can You Tell Advantage Players by the Shoes They Wear?"

What's an Advantage Player?

An "advantage player" is a gambler who tries to get an advantage while gambling in order to mathematically guarantee a profit over the long term. (See our article about Jean Scott, the Frugal Gambler) Not all gambling activities can be played with a positive expectation. Slot machines have a negative expectation unless you cheat. (In rare cases, "banking" slot machines might become positive expectations, but how often do you run into a game like that anymore?) Most card games, like baccarat, have negative expectations. A few of the games where an advantage player can gain an advantage include:

• Blackjack
• Video poker
• Poker
• Sports betting

Some people claim that roulette can be beaten, and craps, but I have my doubts. The people who claim that you can beat roulette say that you should be able to make some judgment about where the ball will land by watching when the dealer releases the ball. Another suggested approach is to clock the wheel for deviations from the standard odds. (That assumes an imperfect wheel, and you'd have to clock it for literally days before you could be sure of any bias.)

And some shooters contend that they can influence the dice when playing craps by gripping them in a certain way. I have my doubts about that too, even though sources as credible as Stanford Wong seem to lend some credence to the idea.

Advantage Players' Shoes

Back to the shoes thing. One of the posters at vpFREE asked the original poster ("Grumpy) if he'd noticed whether or not the guy he was talking to was wearing old shoes. Apparently there used to be newspaper articles which always described "degenerate" gamblers as always wearing old shoes.

Another poster pointed out that the condition of the casino where the advantage player usually plays would affect what kind of disrepair his shoes were in. The El Cortez, for example, has a dine and play deal, which might result in food on the floor, and food on shoes. On the other hand, an advantage player who frequents Circus Circus might have bubblegum on his shoes.

Finally one poster pointed out that one should never make assumptions about someone based solely on that person's shoes. Old money in Pennsylvania traditionally wears poorer quality shoes.

My assumption is that a lot of advantage players are intelligent and frugal. (Frugality being a prerequisite for success as an advantage gambler.) And frugal people probably don't wear expensive shoes. The players wearing expensive shoes in a casino are probably the high rollers. And high rollers lose a lot of money; they don't generally win.

Me? I wear tennis shoes when I play, for comfort.

You might also enjoy our new article about the New IGT Video Poker Games, or our observations about video poker tournaments at the Venetian.

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