Last week’s article (found here) discussed the process of getting ready to play for extended hours at “unusual” times. While writing it, I needed to decide whether getting ready for drawings was going to be part of that same article or a later one. It now should be obvious what my decision was.
Drawings are an important part of my success at video poker. Although there are differences between 1099s and W2Gs, it basically doesn’t matter to me if I can find games with an extra $30,000 a year in EV in a universe with no drawings or play in my current universe and receive an extra $30,000 in EV from drawings.
There have been years when the drawings I entered had a much higher EV. That varies from year to year depending on how much casinos are giving away and to whom they are giving it — and whether I’m welcome to play. A few years ago, the Palms would give away $20,000 a week in drawings; they kept drawing until all prizes were given away; and they had relatively high denomination machines where I could earn lots of drawing entries. So, I won my share there. The last two years, they reduced the prizes to $10,000 a week, made it “must claim by midnight” so there was a LOT of “breakage,” (meaning the money wasn’t given away because it wasn’t claimed), and, among other things, the machines I played were declared ineligible for promotions. Plus, they gave away 20 free drawing entries a day Monday thru Friday to anyone who swiped. My drawings EV at the Palms became close enough to $0 that I quit showing up for them. (The Palms changed ownership effective October 1 of this year. I have no idea what their drawings will be like in the future. I have been severely restricted at Station Casinos for several years, as have many hundreds of other players, and so those of us who played at the Palms under the old ownership will need to find another place to play.)
The first rule for drawings is: “Read the rules.” Completely and carefully. Every time. Pay attention to such things as:
- How are tickets earned? Only during certain hours? Are certain machines excluded? Do some machines (especially slots) earn more tickets?
- Is there a limit on tickets? If it’s a low limit, I might not be interested, but you may be. I do not wish to compete with “everybody.” I want to compete where my willingness to play more and bigger gives me an advantage.
- Are the tickets virtual or do you have to fill them out? I generally prefer virtual tickets as it is no fun at all to fill out 2,000 tickets. If you enter a large number of tickets into the drum, people who don’t have that many aren’t happy about it. And that can create problems.
- Does anybody get tickets for free? For me, this is often a showstopper, but it doesn’t have to be. At the Silverton senior drawings on Monday, every senior who swipes gets one ticket, while players who play can earn several hundred. Yes, someone who has only one ticket wins some of the time, but overall, you can play enough to still have good chances.
- Do I have to activate my entries? If so, when? How? There are two main reasons for this. First, if a casino is going to keep drawing tickets until they have the advertised number of winners, they want people called to be there. Otherwise it can take all night for the drawing to take place. Second, if a casino can get you there two hours before the drawing, often that creates extra play — which is why the casinos hold drawings in the first place.
- Do I have to be there to win? If not, how long do I have to claim any prize won? This can affect what else I can do that evening. If three casinos have drawings at 7 p.m. but they are all “must claim before midnight,” I can participate in all three.
- Can I win more than one prize? Usually the answer to this is “No,” but it doesn’t have to be. One player winning six times in a 10-winner drawing causes both management and other players to get upset. So even if it’s allowed, it’s often a good idea not to play for it more than once.
- Are there periods of time where I can win multiple entries — perhaps 2x, 5x, 10x? This is a way to give players additional value without costing the casino anything! Once the casino has promised to give away the money, it doesn’t much care who wins. But if they can offer a ticket multiplier on, say, Tuesday, which is otherwise their slowest day of the week, players will come in and hammer the machines on that day.
It’s not part of the rules, but I also want to know what other promotions the casino is running during the same period of time I’m earning tickets. If I can “double dip” and earn drawing entries at the same time I’m getting triple points, or possibly earn tickets for both a senior drawing and a regular drawing, so much the better. If my play moves me to a higher tier level, and I believe the extra tier benefits have real value to me, that’s a bonus.
Another important aspect, although not part of the rules, is knowing what machines are available in this casino. If the machines + normal slot club + promotions + drawing + mailer isn’t more than 100%, I’m not playing. To be sure, some of these things need to be estimated.
You want to know whether the casino will enforce the rules. There have been times where casinos say you must have your tickets in the drum by 8 p.m. but they still accept tickets until 8:10 — or maybe cut it off by 7:50. Or maybe have a rule against folding tickets and yet draw a winning ticket that looks like an accordion. It takes time to learn these things.
You might have noticed that everything is figured in terms of EV — Expected Value. Although this is difficult (if not impossible) to figure exactly, it is still very important. Whether you are actually called at a particular drawing or not is relatively unimportant. How often you get called over the course of a year or three is much more important. I’ll address this aspect more in a subsequent column.
Where I play, the management has recently switched from printing tickets at a kiosk to virtual entries. When drawings used tickets, I felt like I had a better chance of winning. This is because I was guaranteed to have entries when I participated, but players who were too lazy or too ignorant to care would not print their tickets and walk the few hundred steps to deposit them in the drum. Now that they can activate their entries with the click of a button on the kiosk, entering a drawing has become a much more passive endeavor. Many are entering who do not know what it is they are entering for.
Also, if you do encounter a drawing that is conducted with tickets and a drum, it is good policy to figure out if management will disqualify tickets that have been folded in half or something similar…or if they will let those tickets be drawn.
Do you think the Palms good schedules will or are changed?
Funny. I’ve always thought that folding one’s tickets in half before depositing them in the drum was cheating–giving my ticket(s) a better chance to win than others’. But then, I have regular ol’ ethics, not AP ethics.
Similarly, blasting a couple of billion coin-in through a machine to make oneself a mathematical favorite to win a drawing certainly violates the spirit of that drawing. I wonder how many people, like myself, have stayed away from drawing promos because they figure why bother, some guy who plays the $100 machines is going to win anyway. That impression can only be reinforced by the multiple instances of casinos rigging the drawing to ensure that precise result.
I know this isn’t significant to most players but another aspect to consider is how likely you are to win every single week or almost every week, and how tolerant you believe the casino will be to that. If there are dozens of winners this will usually not be an issue, but if you win a winner-take-all type drawing every week, the losing players will complain. At that point the casino will either ban you or take measures to make the drawing no longer worth your while.
Typically the sort of drawing where one would want to play as much as possible to try and lock up a top prize is unusually lucrative, so one must balance this against their desire to play future drawings at the same casino. The way VP is these days, the correct answer is usually to hammer them because other high stakes VP grinders will come in and play big as soon as they find out, and nothing lasts more than a couple months anymore. But there is always the option of playing in a manner that you believe you will have say a 1 in 4, or 1 in 3 chance of winning something. For most drawing structures this is closer to optimal in maximizing your percentage return from the drawing anyway.
Don’t know. Don’t care. Possibly I’ll join somebody there for a meal some day, but other than that I can see no reason for me to enter the place.
The new owners have a history of restricting players far more than other casinos do. There are some advantage plays at Station Casinos where you can keep your welcome, but very few.
Sometimes you have to put your toe in the water to see what the REAL entry rules are. I’ve obtained many, many entries playing VP where fine print excluded VP.