The high art of losing slowly: Station Casinos says it shouldn’t suck to be a sucker

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August 25, 2007

LVRJ:

Station Casinos starts a marketing campaign this weekend for a new video-poker format that industry executives say will change the way video poker play is bought.

Marketed as “Guaranteed Play,” the format allows players a certain number of hands no matter how badly play goes.

A player buys 75 hands for $20 or 200 hands for $40, but it still pays out on the same 25 cent, maximum bet, pay table.

The format is also available in the $1 denomination.

“People who gamble want to be entertained,” said Jay Fennel, Station Casinos’ corporate director of slot operations. “When video-poker players play, they are going after that royal flush, the big payout. It’s getting guaranteed play time to try to get that big hit.”

Research shows that most video-poker players play on a certain budget no matter how long that budget lasts, Fennel said.

Instead of paying for hands transaction by transaction, where a maximum-play hand costs $1.25 on a quarter machine or $5 on dollar machine, the player is guaranteed a certain number of hands at a set price.

Playing by traditional video poker, $20 gets the player 16 maximum-bet hands. To play longer depends on three variables; play of the player, how the game is playing and what game is being played.

David G. Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said the format could move video poker away from coin-operated amusement to more of a form of entertainment.

“If it is done with discipline, it is another way for customers to limit losses,” Schwartz said. “Often the goal of the customer is time playing and limit losses.”

Not often. Always. Sophistication in a gambler begins with the idea that the objective is not to win but to lose slowly.

Luck is short-term, but the long-term is governed by the rock-solid certainty of math. Video poker is the sucker bet of choice for Las Vegas locals, the pay-back plan for those juicy union contracts.

Even this “Guaranteed Play” idea is just more sucker-bait: Station Casinos is admitting that you can’t win even as it gives you that precious incentive to lose slowly on a schedule. As Penn Gillette says, “Bad math is a renewable resource.”

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