Bingo Bingo Primer

So here's my latest observations.

I went to the casino the other day to play blackjack and VP, but I did play a session of bingo. I bought a paper small rainbow and I can't come close to keeping up with 12 cards. But I also hate dabbing and also having to look at the card to see if I even see I'm close to winning. So from now on I will only go in two situations, one where I go with my GF and the other on Thursdays when I get a free play (and I'll be starting to play bridge on Thursdays and the bridge club is fairly close to AZ Charlie's).

Is it considered rude to ask people to see what their buy-in was? Would people think I was at best from Mars, at worst from the gaming commission, if I asked them to just record a session and send the recording to me? I just want more card count data.

So at the risk of stating the obvious... is the most important single factor the ratio of the total session payout to the attendance? And within that, you may be able to tweak the buy-in decision?

I found that some of my other calculations were wrong; I thought it was BOGO on color packs and B2G1 on rainbows, but it was the other way around.

I'm also starting to look a bit at South Point. Just as a point of comparison. The bingo room is much much larger, and they don't have a "free blue pack to seniors" promo. I used to like gambling there a lot, but not anymore since I can't play blackjack. And it's not like it's close to me and I have other reasons to go there; at Arizona Charlie's I can at least peek into the room and get a vague idea of attendance when I take a bathroom break from playing blackjack.

Anyway for the foreseeable future I will probably go once a week with my gf and once on Thursdays for my freebie.

 

Game 11 (single hardway) is when the add-on coverall strips come into play.

Not necessarily, but possibly. I've noticed some of the stationary players will position a reserve card or other object covering the bottom of the display where total card count is indicated. I presume they may be intentionally hiding the information.

But if you have good eyesight, you can often catch sight of totals as you walk behind a table. And you can pick up clues such as observing how many dual daubs people play.

Maybe start by asking for a kidney, and then fall back to that.

Big factor yes, but it may be difficult to productively apply. You have to be physically present to assess the attendance. People straggle in after the start, so you may not know the accurate attendance until it's too late. If you really want to fine-tune the attendance assessment, you need to know which specific regulars buy big. They're the ones you don't want to see in the room.

 

Since my last post I've been going to AZCD (Arizona Charlie's Decatur) routinely, went to South Point four times (for curiosity), am coming more and more to understand what data is useful and how to organize and analyze it. I'm started using the geometric mean of card estimates for games 1-5 and 7-13 (excluding DD and including the first coverall).

I never thought of trying to identify the whales. It feels like it would take a LOT of time and effort and even moving my physical location around the room.

It did occur to me that it could be possible to make the play/don't play decision after seeing how many people are in the room, but that requires me to already be there. I'm not driving 20 miles each way to maybe play and maybe not. However, if I'm already at the casino (like if I went to play blackjack) it could be useful.

I don't worry about being "too late" to base a decision on attendance. The first game is letter X and between that and the game-beginning announcements, and the fact that when playing electronically you can "catch up" if you miss the first numbers called, I have a few minutes' leeway.

I've started counting paper and electronic players separately, although obviously it won't matter if the ratio is constant from session to session.

I'm largely using aceball increments (which are easily available online) as a proxy for attendance, supplementing where possible by direct observation. Curiously, there is one casino where the ratios (based on only about a week's data) are:

11AM 1PM 3PM 5PM 7PM 9PM 11PM
42 564 206 741 698 46

(I left 5PM blank bc at this casino that session has different rules)

seems very weird for the ratios to be this lopsided for 11AM and 11PM.

Right now the card count estimates for AZCD (number of observations in parentheses), and a metric representing expected session payout:

3PM (5) 5400 / 1830
5PM (4) 4500 / 1430
7PM (3) 16400 / 2880
9PM (2) 10400 / 3080
11PM (1) 3000 / 1980

11PM seems to be an outlier but that's seeming like a common occurrence - as for the other sessions, no surprise of the correlation between prize pool and card count.

 

The ways in which the interests of players and the casino interact is fascinating.

The casino wants to flood the zone with blue cards so that they never have to pay above Level 1. For players collectively you'd want fewer blue cards, but each player should maximize their own cards.

AZCD has the following offer: B1G1 on small rainbows, minimum purchase 2, add 2 blues. I had been buying 3 and was thinking of going to 4. But it seems that if I buy one buy-2-get-2 and then a second one like that, I get 12 more Blues. I want all the cards I can get.

Could I be the first person ever barred from Bingo as an AP? When you think about it, though, even if I am an AP, I am necessarily a profit center to the casino. So I guess not.