The Godfather of Video Poker by Elliot Frome

My mother always used to say that he never liked being called the godfather of video poker, and preferred the term ‘video poker guru.’ In all honesty, I think that was my mom’s opinion more than my dad’s. I’m guessing he liked the idea of being called the godfather. He didn’t invent the game, but he probably had more to do with its success than even the inventor. I’m talking, of course, about Lenny Frome.

The way the story goes, my dad was a bit bored with retirement. He had spent 30+ years as an Electrical Engineer, most of it in the defense industry. He had worked on guidance systems for the unmanned missions to space and on the B-1 bomber. When they retired to Las Vegas, my dad bought one of the ‘new’ color computers and color printers. It was the late 80s and until then, when you picked ‘color’ for your monitor it meant green on black or yellow on black.

Armed with his new computer, my dad figured he would open up a kiosk at the mall and start printing out fancy color calendars and iron-on transfers for customers. He started a company called Compu-Flyers, all ready to take advantage of the high resolution colors and graphics of his new toy. Unfortunately, my dad quickly discovered that he could have a pretty picture on his screen, but the programs needed to print it still left something to be desired.

Undeterred, he set out to determine how the computer stored a picture and how to tell the printer how to print one. With very little computer skills, my father essentially built the first printer driver program for the Atari 520ST. Just one problem remained. It took about 30 hours to print out a single picture. Not very useful for a mall kiosk. He bought a compiler and compiled his program and got it down to about 8 to 10 hours. I visited Las Vegas on one of my breaks from college and took a look at his program. I started to clean it up and at one point deleted a line of code. My father looked at me and asked, “What good will it do to remove one line of code?” I explained that he executed it several billion times in the run of the program. By the time I was done, the compiled version took 12 minutes to print out a picture.

Compu-Flyers was ready for launch. It was about this time that my dad walked into a casino and found this curious new thing called a video poker machine. He took note of the details and that a sign above the machine blared out its supposed payback. A few days later, he went to a different casino found another video poker machine with the same paytable, announcing a different payback. Something didn’t sit right with him. It occurred to my father that there was only one way to play each dealt hand. This wasn’t regular poker where you try and bluff the machine. For each dealt hand, there were 32 ways you could play it. Based on the paytable in use, one of these ways would provide the player with the highest possible return – what he called ‘expected value’ (actually, he originally called it ‘win power’ but changed the term to ‘expected value’ shortly thereafter).

When his work was complete, he had the most accurate payback out there for video poker. In fact, it turned out that the payback for video poker was HIGHER than what the casinos were advertising. As he began analyzing other variations of video poker, he found that many had paybacks near or OVER 100%. The problem was he didn’t necessarily know what to do with the information he had developed. There were some magazines in Las Vegas that wrote about gambling, but they didn’t cover ‘slots.’

He finally convinced one magazine (I don’t recall the name of it) to start publishing articles on video poker. The bad news was that the magazine folded just before the first column went to print. Lenny persevered and found other magazines to print his articles. Of course, most gaming magazines are not flush with cash, so they “pay” by providing free ads for the columnist to sell his books/software/videos. As my Dad was just starting out, all he had was a 4-page double-sided tipsheet called 50+ Tips on Video Poker that he sold for $2.95. He obtained a post office box at Village East Drugs and waited. My mom, ever the naysayer, was not exactly figuring out how to spend the extra money. Many years earlier, my dad had written a tipsheet on how to use stock options to make money in the stock market. I don’t think he sold a single one! But, history was not to repeat itself. In the ensuing weeks, orders started coming in. My parents’ daily routine would never be the same. Each afternoon, they would drive over to the post office box and pick up the orders and deposit the previous day’s checks. After whatever other errands they had to run were done, they would head back to their apartment. My dad would work on his next column(s) and my mom would pack and address the orders.

It was about this time that my Dad wandered into the Gambler’s Book Club in Las Vegas. He noticed that there was not a single book about video poker to be found in the entire store. It was from this visit that the idea of a full booklet on video poker was born. My dad immediately went to work on Expert Video Poker for Las Vegas. It was 50+ pages and walked the player through all the basic concepts of how video poker works, how the game was analyzed and what to expect. It focused on the most popular and highest payback games that could be found in Las Vegas. As this was the late 80s, the few video poker machines that could be found outside of Nevada were barely worth playing, while the games in Las Vegas were some of the highest paying games in the casino. Hence, my father coined Las Vegas – Video Poker Heaven.

Despite the fact that it was printed on a dot-matrix printer and had a comb binding, Expert Video Poker for Las Vegas was a huge success. Copies were made in a local copy store. No publishers were interested in books about video poker, and unsure of how many copies would sell, my father couldn’t very well bring it to a large-scale copy house to make thousands of copies.

Because video poker was so radically different in Las Vegas than elsewhere, a separate version had to be created for Atlantic City as video poker’s popularity spread. In an attempt to differentiate this booklet, my father chose to make it ‘pocket-sized.’ It was very similar to its Las Vegas counterpart, but focused on the games that were being played in Atlantic City, especially the very popular Double Joker Wild – a game that never really caught on anywhere else but remained strong in Atlantic City for many years. While the Atlantic City version never made it as big as the Las Vegas booklet, there was no doubt that it was also a huge success.

At this point, my father had put out a tipsheet, written two booklets and was writing for several magazines about video poker. Video poker was gaining in popularity and there is little doubt that this was in HUGE part due to my father’s writings. Without the strategies that he developed, it is very possible that video poker would’ve died a horrible and relatively quick death. The same ‘play by the seat of your pants’ approach that appears to have been used to develop the original casino-given paybacks would’ve been used by most players and the results would not have been pretty. We don’t really know who first called Lenny Frome the Godfather of Video Poker, but the nickname was growing in popularity.

But, my Dad was just starting to make his mark on both video poker and the casino floor. Before video poker was created, the casino floor consisted of mostly three table games: craps, roulette and blackjack (okay, there was also the ‘Big Wheel,’ but it’s hard to call that a game) and slot machines. Video poker transformed a part of that floor. Next up was the transformation of the table game portion of the floor.

A brand new company called ShuffleMaster had just come into existence. Its founder had created the first commercially viable automatic shuffler for the casino. It shuffled a single deck of cards and could mostly be used for single-deck blackjack. There were a fair number of these in Las Vegas, but most other places used the big shoes. So, they decided to invent their own game which would use a single-deck, thus increasing the demand for their shuffler. I don’t really know if it was the first game idea they conceived of, but somehow, they rather quickly invented the game Let It Ride.

It was almost ready for launch when they decided to have my father take a look. As the story goes, the founder and another executive came to my parent’s apartment in Las Vegas and demonstrated the game. They played a few dozen hands and something just didn’t feel right to my dad. I share this ‘sixth-sense’ with my father. Somehow we can both tell when something isn’t right even without knowing exactly what in the math is wrong. The two executives huddled and then suggested that my father re-analyze the game mathematically just to make sure everything was in order.

As it turns out, my father’s extra sense was on the money. I don’t remember if the game had too much house advantage or a negative house advantage, but the original math on the game was very wrong. Can you imagine what the landscape of the casino would look like today if one of the first new games to hit the floor had died a miserable death because players were getting wiped out or worse, if it turned out that the game had a player advantage? How many casinos would be willing to try again? What might have happened to ShuffleMaster, the eventual creator of most of the proprietary table games on the casino floor?

Instead, the paytables were altered to make the game’s math fall in line. Let It Ride was introduced and quickly became one of the first new successful games. At about the same time, Caribbean Stud Poker was being launched in some casinos as well. As it would turn out, my father did some of the work for that game too.

The casino floor was starting to change rather quickly. In a couple of years, video poker went from a successful game to an all out craze. My father was writing for multiple magazines (including Midwest Gaming & Travel) all over the country. Someone suggested that he write a full-length book on video poker and that became his next major task. It was one thing to write a 50+ page booklet, but now he was considering writing a 150-200 page book. To assist him, he enlisted the help of Maryann Guberman to help edit, organize and illustrate the book. Rather than write a more comprehensive version of his earlier works, my dad decided to base this new book on some of his hundreds of articles. Essentially, he took more than 100 articles, quizzes and stories and thread them together in a way that would teach people how to play video poker the right way.

The next major step in the process was deciding how to get it published. My father quickly learned that he had two choices. One was to sign on with some sort of publishing house – not a major one like Random House, but a more local gaming oriented one. The other choice was to publish it himself. If he chose the former, he would get only about 50 cents per book. If he chose the latter, he would keep all the revenue, but he would have to foot the bill for the book printing itself. They chose the latter. The book was priced at $19.95 and the cost of printing was about $5 per book for the first run of 1000 books.

Many years ago, I met someone in the publishing business. She told me that to sell 5000 copies of a self-published book was considered a tremendous success. By this measure, America’s National Game of Chance: Video Poker would have to be considered to be a whopper of a success story. My parents wound up running many more printings and for far greater than 1000 copies. It was through this book that my father began hawking video poker as America’s National Game of Chance – essentially the penultimate casino game, invented in America and a game that gave the player and the house a fair shake. The cover was done in red, white and blue to help make the case. Video poker’s popularity continued to grow at an extraordinary rate.

By now, my father not only had helped to feed the video poker craze and transform the casino floor with Let It Ride and Caribbean Stud Poker, but he essentially created an industry. Up to this point, there really wasn’t much need for gaming analysts. Some math was involved in slot machines, but that was nothing compared to the math and computer skills needed to analyze new table games and new variations of video poker. As inventors began to realize the amount of money that can be made from new table games and casinos began to realize that they could make more money from these new games even if it meant paying the inventor a royalty, the number of new game ideas began to grow.

Nothing changed the casino floor like the next successful game my father worked on. A British gentleman by the name of Derek Webb contacted my father about a game idea he had. The name of the game was Brag. It was a simple game in which each the Player and the Dealer received three cards. Yes, the game eventually became Three Card Poker, the most successful table game of them all. Derek and his partner, Hannah, became close friends with my parents. They eventually sold the game to ShuffleMaster who expanded the game’s popularity to the tune of about 1500 tables, far and away more than any other proprietary game. With Three Card Poker, the transformation of the casino floor was nearly complete. There were still plenty of Blackjack, Craps and Roulette tables, but the thirst for new table games with multiple-unit betting was about to explode.

Inventors called the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) trying to find out what they needed to do to get a game approved. Amongst the tasks was to obtain a mathematical analysis of the game. Most inventors had no idea who to call. So, the NGCB suggested that they call Lenny Frome. My father ended up analyzing hundreds of games. In preparing for my recent move from New Jersey to Las Vegas, I spent time reviewing these files. Some of these games were just some simple variations of existing games. Others involved using decks with extra suits or special symbols. Only a few dozen ever saw the casino floor and only a handful would be considered a success. So, on one hand, you could argue that my father only had a hand in a ‘few’ successful games. But, what would the casino look like today without Three Card Poker, Let It Ride, Spanish 21, Caribbean Stud Poker and video poker?

While he was working with Derek, my father had one last contribution to make to video poker, but it was to be the biggest contribution of them all. He researched the most common and popular video poker paytables across the country and put the strategy tables for each (61 in total) into a 128-page book entitled Winning Strategies for Video Poker. This was not a book for beginners. It assumed that the player knew the basics of video poker and simply wanted to know the strategy for the most popular games anywhere. The sales of the book were remarkable. My parents printed up the book multiple times in runs of 2000-3000 copies each.

In 1997, my father updated the book to reflect the ongoing changes to the game. Poorer paying paytables were slowly being removed in favor of better-paying games. Bonus Poker games were gaining in popularity. This revised book was tied into software developed in conjunction with Masque Software entitled Video Poker Strategy Pro. This software allowed the player to practice using any of the paytables from the book. It would alert the player when he made a mistake in strategy. The player now had the ability to not only learn the strategy by seeing it in a strategy table, but could then practice, practice, practice at home and only risk real money after mastering the strategy.

We’ll never really know what the sales of the 2nd edition might have been. On Sunday, March 15, 1998, I was out shopping with my then 5-year old son. We were looking for a new swingset for our backyard. As I got close to my house, my beeper went off. I looked at the number and realized it was my brother’s number. I went pale. He was not one to beep me for no reason. I went home quickly and called him. He told me that dad had had a heart attack. I’ll never forget his response to my question, “How’s dad doing?” His response was, “He isn’t.”

My family really didn’t know what to do about Compu-Flyers after my dad’s passing. We all had full-time jobs and a few entities in the industry asked if we would consider selling everything to them, including essentially the rights to my father’s name. My dad had built up his little company, in retirement, while staying completely independent. He self-published all of his books, wrote his own columns, did his own promoting. He had written countless tipsheets, seven booklets, two books and perhaps as many as 1000 articles. He has ‘starred’ in a video that teaches players how to play video poker. He helped with three different pieces of software. We decided as a family that we would do what we could to keep his legacy alive as he would want it and we continued to own the company.

As it turned out, this meant that I would run the company. My mother helped me fulfill the orders that kept coming in. I maintained the Video Poker Heaven website. For the first year, things still kept booming along, but it started to slow down a bit. With no fresh articles and no new books, there weren’t a lot of orders either.

When my father passed away, I changed the front page of his website to contain only the lyrics to the song “Leader of the Band” by Dan Fogelberg. One particular passage of that song, I have found to be so poignant:
The leader of the band is tired
And his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through my instrument
And his song is in my soul
My life has been a poor attempt
To imitate the man
I'm just a living legacy
To the leader of the band

In 2003, I decided that I had enough of corporate life and decided to follow in my dad’s footsteps. He had been gone for five years, so picking up from where he left off wasn’t easy. Even more so as I lived in New Jersey and not in Las Vegas. I contacted numerous gaming magazines to see if they were interested in new gaming articles. Fortunately for me, Gaming Today and Midwest Gaming & Travel both said “yes.” The exposure I got from these articles allowed me to begin consulting as a gaming analyst as well. I have had the pleasure of working on games from some top inventors: Derek Webb’s Prime Table Games, Ya Awada, John Feola’s New Vision Gaming and, of course, ShuffleMaster. I have done my part to continue to transform the casino floor with Ultimate Texas Hold’em, Mississippi Stud Poker, Mini Pai Gow, Imperial Pai Gow and countless others.
I am just a living legacy to my father and as such, all that I have contributed to the gaming world these past eight years and all those that I hope to contribute in the future, I consider to be his accomplishments as well.

- Elliot Frome is a second-generation gaming author and analyst. His focus has been more on table games than on video poker, having contributed to the creation of Ultimate Texas Hold’em, Imperial Pai Gow, Mississippi Stud, Mini Pai Gow and numerous others. You can read more about these games and others at his website: www.gambatria.com. You can also read his columns on his blog at gambatria.blogspot.com.