I divide my trips to Las Vegas into two distinct eras. In the first era, I went to Las Vegas to go to the annual Consumer Electronics Show each January and there was very little time for gambling. On my first trip, I was barely old enough to legally play in the casino and my friend was just a few months shy of being legal, so what little gambling we did was in a remote, dark corner of the slot floor in what I think was the Desert Inn.
In the second era, my primary reason for going to Las Vegas was to gamble. I remember my first trip of this era. I hit a hot streak on a rotating carousel of dollar slots in Circus Circus and won enough money to pay for most of the costs of my trip. Easy money, I thought. I can go to Las Vegas as often as I want. This bank of slots would be my bank in Las Vegas and all I had to do was drop by to make a withdrawal to pay for my trip. I had plans to be in Los Angeles in a month, so I booked a side trip back to Las Vegas to fill up my wallet again.
You can probably guess what happened. The session stake amount that I was able to grow into an amount large enough to pay for my first trip was gone before I'd had my first lunch. The tenor of my luck stayed constant and my bankroll was gone before the end of my first day. I still had another day left on my trip and I had to get creative to find ways to spend the time other than sitting in my room watching television.
I took this trip in the mid-1990s, before the many entertainment options now available on the Strip had been completed, not that spending a lot of time outdoors was an option on this trip. You really find out how hot Las Vegas is in August when you're looking for things to do that don't involve a casino.
Fast forward to a year or so ago. I'm now a credit player taking a seat at a blackjack table. I show my card, ask for a marker and get my chips. The table is so cold, by the time the pit boss comes back to have me sign the marker, the money is almost all gone and I have to ask for another marker. We've all had those trips on which it seems like we can't catch a lucky streak anywhere and it seems like we're going to single-handedly pay for the casino's latest expansion plans. We need to have a Worst-Case Scenario Money Management Plan to see us through these trips with as little financial and emotional damage as possible. Here you'll find many of the ideas that other gambling enthusiasts and I have used over the years to deal with these trips from hell.
Before we get into those ideas, I want to define money management. Money management to me is a way to ensure that you don't run out of money before you run out of casino time and to ensure that you don't lose more than you can afford. The goal of money management is to get more fun from casino visits by eliminating much of the stress of dealing with money. When you make a plan beforehand, you don't run the risk of possibly making stupid split-second decisions when you're under the gun.
So, what can you do when things are going poorly for you and it's clear that your bankroll is not going to last for the length of time you want to play? First, you can take a break from playing. Walk around the casino to see if there's anything new that you hadn't seen before. If you don't normally play nickel slots, take a stroll through the nickel area just to see the superb graphics many of these video slot machines have. Walk through the slot floor looking for machines you might want to try sometime. Take a walk through the high-roller area to see how the other half lives. If the weather is nice, go outside. As much as I love air conditioning, every once in a while it's nice to get outside and feel the warm sun, as long as the temperature or humidity aren't too high. If another casino is nearby, take a walk over to it to check out the action there. You can also go on a souvenir run and pick up as many casino freebees as you can.
If you want a more sedentary diversion, grab a meal. Go back to your room and take a nap or watch television or get a head start on packing. It always takes me longer to pack for the return because I have to figure out how to carry home all the tchotchkes (free or otherwise) that I couldn't resist picking up. I think my most creative packing job came when I brought home a mid-weight jacket and a bathrobe in my carry-on luggage. They were free, so I had to take them, right?
Now that many casino hotels have become complete entertainment destinations, you have many fixed cost options to kill time. If there's a theater at the casino, you can catch a movie. You can go see a matinee, usually featuring a comedian or magician. Sometimes you can even get coupons to see the matinee for free. If there's a shopping center attached to or near the casino, you can check out the shops there. Of course, buying things will kick in your every day money management plan.
The idea behind taking a break now is so you'll have money to play again later. And this lets you play a psychological trick on yourself. You'll forget the break you took in the middle of your trip because you were able to play at the beginning and at the end. After a while, it won't seem like you took a break at all. But you'll always remember the break you had to take at the end of your trip because you ran out of money before you ran out of trip.
Finally, the most extreme break you can take is to go home. This is tough to do if you flew into Las Vegas for a three-day vacation, but if you're only an hour's drive away, why not take your lumps and save whatever you have left for another shot on another day? Now, all of the ideas I've listed so far make your bankroll last longer because you're not playing. What if you want to stay in the action?
Here's an idea that sort of keeps you in the action. Casinos sometimes have promotions that you can participate in for free or very little money. For example, many casinos run slot or video poker tournaments that are open to all comers. If there is an entry fee, usually $10 to $25, you frequently get a T-shirt or buffet along with entry into the tournament. You won't get a banquet dinner, though. Those only come with tournaments that have entry fees in the hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars or tournaments that are by invitation only.
Some of these free or nearly free tournaments are one-shot deals in which the winner of each session gets a small prize. In other tournaments, the winners of each session come back at the end of the day to play for a bigger prize. In yet another format, the sessions are irrelevant and the top scorers across all sessions win prizes. Although slot and video poker tournaments are the most common, you can sometimes find blackjack, craps, and roulette tournaments.
Another promotion I've done many times in Las Vegas is a 40-for-20 promotion. You pay $20 to get $40 worth of credits on a special bank of machines. If you line up special symbols on these machines, you win money (usually about $25 to $1,000, depending on the symbol) or prizes. Other winning combinations add extra credits to your credit meter and give you more chances at the decent prizes. If you run out of credits without hitting one of the prizes, which is what happens almost all the time, all is not lost. You then take your receipt to the counter and you pick out some casino kitsch that is supposed to be worth about $20. It's a pretty good deal if you want some casino logo merchandise. I've gotten some nice T-shirts and duffel bags this way.
The last promotion I'm going to mention, the free pull, is one I've done all across the country. Free pull promotions usually require slot club membership and members get one free pull per day on a special slot machine. Along with the usual assortment of logo tchotchkes, some free pull slot machines offer life-changing jackpots. The best prize I've ever won in a free pull promotion is a key chain, which didn't cause a noticeable change in my life.
Unlike the ideas for taking a break, these last few ideas keep you near the action, though not actually in the action. Anyone who has played in a slot tournament or other promotion knows that you don't get the same rush from playing a promotion that you get from actually playing. Winning or losing a bet is always an emotional experience, but winning or losing has a greater emotional effect when there is also a direct effect on your wallet. Playing in a promotion limits your risk because the most you can lose is the amount you paid to participate, so it doesn't give the same experience. Playing in a promotion will kill time, but it may not satisfy your desire to be in the action.
So, what can you do when your luck is rotten, your bankroll is dwindling, and you still want to play? Here are some ideas that will stretch your bankroll while keeping you in the action.
Slow down. When you're playing a slot or video poker machine, the pace is completely up to you. It's difficult to play slowly, but you are in complete control of the pace. If you have a beverage, you can take a sip of it every few spins. If you order another drink, stop playing until the cocktail waitress comes back. (In fact, I encourage video poker players to at least stop playing when they see the waitress back in their area. I've screwed up a few times when the waitress came back in the middle of a hand).
If you're near a bar, especially a sports-themed bar, you may be able to see a television set. You can slow down by alternating between watching a little TV and playing a little. Watching TV is especially easy if you're near a sports book. One thing you have to be particularly careful of is watching TV and playing at the same time. That's worse than just playing at the casino's pace because you're not concentrating fully on what's happening on your machine.
Many video slots have Stop buttons that will short-circuit the usual show of spinning reels and move them immediately to the pre-chosen stopping positions. Don't press the Stop button. Let the machine take as long as it wants to spin the reels. You may hate that Austin Powers theme song by the time you're done, but you will have increased your playing time and decreased the amount of money you've risked.
Another way you can slow down the pace at a machine is to take a mini-break every few minutes. Stand up and do a little stretching to work out the kinks from sitting in one position for so long. Your body will thank you, your wallet will thank you.
At a machine, you control the pace. At a table, the dealer controls the pace. Still, you can take your time making your decisions. In addition, you'll put less money at risk per hour if you play at a crowded table. Card counters may want to go head to head with the dealer so they can play the maximum number of hands possible, but you want to play the minimum number of hands possible. Look for crowded tables with chatty dealers to minimize the number of hands per hour. And remember to take frequent bathroom breaks.
Switch tables or machines. Your luck won't necessarily be any better at a different location. But you'll have nothing at risk while you're switching from one location to another. Take your time scouting out your new location to further delay putting your bankroll at risk again.
Play a slower game. Blackjack and mini-baccarat can be lightning fast. In contrast, roulette has fewer decisions per hour. Pai Gow Poker can also move slowly and it has the added benefit of having many pushes. You can also consider playing craps. If you only have a bet on the pass line, you can go many, many rolls in action before a decision is reached.
If you're playing a video poker machine with a speed control, move it from the turbo setting to the turtle setting. It may be annoying to watch the cards come out slowly, but desperate times require desperate measures.
Drop down in denomination. On the machines, you can drop from dollars to quarters or quarters to nickels or dollars to nickels. But be careful of loading up on nickel machines. Make sure that you're betting less per decision than you were on the higher denomination machine. Another way to effectively drop down in denomination is to bet fewer coins per line on a video slot. If you had been betting max coins per line, drop down to only one coin per line.
At the tables, bet less per hand. It's true that lower-denomination machines and tables frequently have worse rules and higher house edges than
higher-denomination tables and machines, but we're not talking about making a permanent switch. This is just a stop-gap measure to keep you in the game with a smaller bankroll.
Finally, a warning about dropping down in denomination. It's sometimes nearly impossible to break even or come out ahead on a trip once you do it. Dollar video poker machines have nearly bled me dry a few times, so I switched to playing quarter machines for the rest of the trip. It occurred to me that if I could hit a royal on the dollar machine, it would wipe out my losses for a trip in one fell swoop, while a royal on the quarter machine would merely put a dent in my losses.
To recap, you have a number of choices to help make your bankroll last for the length of your casino visit when things aren't going your way. You can take a break from playing, you can stop playing, you can play in fixed cost casino promotions, you can play more slowly, and you can bet less per decision.
I hope your luck will only be good in the future, but if you should ever find Lady Luck frowning at you, you now have some worst-case scenario money management techniques you can use to make your bankroll last as long as your casino visit.
John Robison is an expert video poker player and author of The Slot Experts Guide to Playing Slots, $6.95, by Huntington Press (800) 244-2224. He is the managing editor of the gaming pages at
rgtgaming.com. Email:
slotexpert@comcast.net.
