I have
money invested in the stock market.
There have been good years and
bad, but historically the stock market
has been a good place for your
money if you kept it there for a lengthy
period of time. I can’t tell you
if the market will be higher in 2006
than in 2005, but I’m betting a
large amount of money that it’s higher
in 2015 than it is in 2005. I’m
still young enough (I’m 59 currently)
that my investment horizon is
considerably longer than 10 years.
I also
“invest” in playing video poker. I
look at every dollar I bet as one
dollar working for me. My “investment
strategy” is to choose games
that return over 100% when you include
the slot club benefits, learn to
play them computer-perfectly, and then
to play when the casinos give me
most to do so. This is a strategy that
has worked well for me —
although my daily scores go up and down.
In fact, a plotting of my daily
video poker scores would look very
similar to a plotting of the Dow
Jones Industrial Average.
I
believe that investing in the
intelligent playing of video poker
is a far safer and less risky course
than investing in the stock
market. At least for me.
This is
opposite to common sense. Certainly if
you were told that the manager of
your pension fund went to Vegas
regularly to “invest” this
money by playing video poker, you would
be mortified. This sounds like the
opposite of responsible financial
investing. And for most people it
is.
Except,
note the way I’m suggesting to play.
Only play when you have the
advantage (few people religiously limit
themselves to this). Learn to play
very close to perfectly (even fewer).
Know the slot clubs inside out and
do most of your playing during
promotions of one kind or another.
Investing
the way I suggest in the previous
paragraph is an intelligent,
conservative approach. Follow those
rules and you WILL succeed. You
can even predict how much you will make
in a year with a reasonable degree
of accuracy.
This is
a labor-intensive way to invest. In many
ways it is like a job. Investing
in video poker requires many hours of
time — both in study and other
preparation and the actual time in the
casino. Intelligent investing in
the stock market involves considerable
effort selecting which stocks or mutual
funds to buy and when, but once
you have done it, you can spend your
time doing other things while the
market works for you.
Also,
intelligent investing in video poker is
only possible for relatively small
stakes. If you have $10 million to
invest, there are no profitable
opportunities as a player to invest that
much that I have ever heard about.
Perhaps there are some, but I would be
surprised. Frequently players who take
several hundred thousand dollars
or more out of a given casino will find
themselves unwelcome. With the
interlocking-ownership among casinos
these days, becoming unwelcome at
one casino can translate into becoming
unwelcome at several.
For a
quarter million dollars or less,
however, video poker opportunities
abound. There are at least a few dozen
players with this size bankroll
who are clearing $50,000 or more year
after year — sometimes more. If
you look at $50,000 as a return on
$250,000, it equates to 20% and
sounds pretty good. If you look at
$50,000 as a year’s earning,
then it is an okay job. Not
exceptionally high, by any means,
but better than many people can earn
working in more conventional jobs.
If you believe, as I do, that part of
the $50,000 represents a return on
investment and part of it represents
“wages,” then earning $50,000
is a rather small total return. But it
comes with some fringe benefits
that some of us appreciate, such as we
get to be our own bosses and never
having to stand in line at
restaurants. Plus, for many of us,
winning in a casino gives us
psychological benefits as well. Money
won is much sweeter than money
earned via a regular job.
Most
people, of course, do not have $250,000
to “invest” in video poker or
the stock market. That’s
understandable. The same principles
work if you have $1,000. Learn how to
play the loosest games well and
limit yourself to them. Learn about
casino promotions and carefully
choose where and when you play. If the
combination of (game plus slot
club plus promotions) isn’t good
enough to offer you the advantage,
everything considered, refuse to play.
Follow this procedure, and you
will succeed.
- Bob
Dancer is America’s best-known
video poker writer and teacher.
He has a variety of “how to play
better video poker” products,
including Winner’s Guides,
strategy cards, videos, and the
award- winning computer software,
Bob Dancer Presents WinPoker, his
autobiography Million Dollar Video
Poker, and his recent novel, Sex,
Lies, and Video Poker. Dancer’s
products may be ordered at www.bobdancer.com.
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