Bingo Bingo Primer

Can anyone direct me to the equivalent of "Casino Bingo For Dummies?"

Here's the background - I am as deeply mathematical as my girlfriend is not mathematical. I play blackjack and video poker, in the long run I do win at blackjack. My new girlfriend likes to play Bingo; I find it uninteresting but I'm happy to take her. At first I buried my head in the sand, not wanting to burn brain cells on a game of pure luck, but I was at least vaguely aware that there must be ways to optimize your results.

As a consequence of two stackable promotions at the place I play blackjack, I can give my gf $40 a week (on average) to play Bingo, so it seems worthwhile to understand the game and the odds.

My most general question is, how do the odds vary between the exotic promotions and the mainline games? How much of the return comes from the Aceball/Cashball/whatever they call it? In blackjack, the side bets are uniformly terrible, but is this the same in bingo?

Those, and anything else we'd want to know that's non-obvious. Wizardofodds.com has odds but not really a thorough explanation of all the aspects of the game.

 

OK well lots of views so far, no responses, I'm trying to self-educate myself. Here are some further observations:

The big one is that when we get the medium electronic package (5 small rainbows and 2 blues validated) for $38 they were selling $27 worth of side games. Really, my head spins, doing this from semi-memory there are three different types of cards for the double-dab, Four Of A Kind and Bingo Bonus at $5 each but when you buy them both you get an extra small rainbow non-validated, 3 bonus X-strips, some extra progressives on the coveralls, and anytime I take a stab at calculating the odds on any of them, they seem just awful. For the Four Of A Kind I calculated roughly that the break-even was 15.2 players (i.e. you need to have one chance in 15.2 of winning any given game). At this casino, the times I've played and also other sessions I've looked inside and counted, it seems the player count is in the low 30's. I have no idea what the "normal" number of cards people buy is. I know there are some ways to back-engineer the number of players and I might play with those next time we play.

In a way, this is just absolutely the best possible thing for my relationship. At first I thought Bingo was zzzzz but she liked it and I tolerated it now and then. And then I fell into this thing where she can play Bingo for basically nothing, anything she wins is free money, and I now have a mathematical problem like those I used to solve literally when I was about 12 years old. (OMG I'm dating my babysitter!)

The person I consider my total go-to gambling authority, Michael Shackelford, says "avoid side bets at Bingo." He also says "Go when the cashball is low because there will be fewer players, and don't validate, but if you must go when the cashball is high then validate." But the electronic specials are all validated anyway.

To share a related story about side bets, when I was dealing blackjack I had this total blind spot about side-bet players can't be AP's and so I overlooked one guy because he was sometimes playing side bets, and then I realized that he was playing Lucky Ladies, which is countable. Like a kid who has just discovered that you can combine baking soda and vinegar and get a chemical reaction, I told my shift manager that I felt bad that I hadn't flagged him sooner, and that I had calculated that Lucky Ladies went postive EV at TC>4. And he gave me this vacant stare like "have you forgotten that you're just the hired help?" and said that LL was so profitable that it was fine with him if even counters bet it.

(Being in a casino, especially a small one, is a different experience when you know everything that's going on behind the scenes.)

 

Shackleford is possibly the best resource, but some things have evolved, and every situation is different. Generally I think the Vegas bingo rooms have added more bells and whistles than ever.

Side bets are almost always bad, except when they bribe you to buy them. An example is the free rainbow when activating the bonus features. It's probably a good add-on, although not necessarily on a small spend.

Dual daub game cards typically do not include a bribe component, and are only rarely playable. There's a breakeven threshold for the jackpot amount, but the variance on playing for a 5 to 6-figure jackpot is a bit much for me.

The cashball is typically not a big factor in payback. Assuming 11 or 12 eligible games, and 75 balls in the hopper, it's only going to hit once every 6 to 7 sessions. On a $1200 jackpot, that's only $200 of expected payout available in a session. Total payout for all the regular games is roughly around $3000. Cashball therefore is less than 10% of payback unless it's a big jackpot amount. Unfortunately as you note, the discounted packages require validation, and the aforementioned bonus features are only available with validation.

Afaik, Vegas bingo paybacks have really tightened up over the years. For last year 2024, Gaming Control indicates 15% hold at the 5 bingo rooms in the Boulder area, and 29% hold at the 6 bingo rooms in the Balance of Clark County area. With optimal buy-in decisions, you may be able to trim away most of the house edge, although there's also a cost of tipping on your wins.

 

In the 5 weeks since I posted that, I've learned a lot more.

Please assume in all cases that I'm just looking to maximize EV and not worried about variance. And I'm doing a lot of research, like trying to track attendance and such, but it's not like I'm spending my life living in the Bingo room.

So a few questions:
1) The 7PM session is a regular pay game for all sessions but has two $1000 coveralls at the end. It seems like a good strategy for this game would be to load up on Blue cards. If the full session payout is $3000 and $2000 of that is not color-sensitive, seems like a loophole.
2) Right now there is a $95K progressive on hitting the double-daub in 35 numbers. Positive EV right?
3) Do people ever pool up for progressives? I know some people who used to do that on slots and video poker. I'd like partners mainly because I don't want the tax hit if I win. The most you're allowed to buy is 30 cards.
4) If you see the aceball for the 3PM session went up $150 yesterday and the aceball for the 9PM session went up $250, what does that tell you? Is it reasonable to say that attendance at 9PM was 67% greater than 3PM? Assuming validation is $1 per 6 cards, about how many cards would you estimate were in play at each of 3PM and 9PM?
5) The place I play has a $5K aceball at 7PM on Thursdays, but I don't think that really moves the needle. But Aceball is a color-neutral payout, right? So it could be more lucrative for a mass-Blue purchase. The place I play has a buy-two-get-two-free on color packs. I feel like the pricing is pretty much the same everywhere except for one place that is paper-only.

Any guess on what the average number of cards per player is? I'm working on some data for that but I'm going to need WAY more data to make sense of that.

Tipping never really occurred to me. Which might be funny as a former blackjack dealer in a place where tips were about 70% of our compensation.

 

1) Yes, except you have to tangle with the specifics of the price structure. Looking at the Aceball room, their small rainbow special is deeply discounted, whereas your only option for blues is the no-val color pack special.

2) Yes, I believe so. Within 35 #s, it's 79,404 to 1. And you're only paying $1 to win $95k. Not to mention the winnings from hitting the $200 consolation pay.

3) I would not feel confident partnering with a rando. Even if the person is honest, you could run into a simple misunderstanding. Bingo players are not usually high-intellect.

4) I've done some tracking, and the numbers have not always aligned with my own observations. I have some ideas, but I don't know why. One thing to be aware of is they may not apply a consistent rate of increase. A low Aceball may increase at one rate, whereas an Aceball augmented to $5000 may increase at a slower rate. The dual daub may run more slowly above a designated jackpot threshold.

Depending on the room, I would guess around 100 cards as an overall average per player. A typical player buys one electronic special, plus an array of add-ons and extras. South Point seems to run higher.

5) I'm not very current on the offerings around town, but you have to pay careful attention to every detail. For example, I think South Point still has "club card discounts":



With a structure like that, you need to carefully engineer your purchase decision.

Wizard of Odds has a Bingo Card Estimator. You can input the numbers for each game when you play a session, but it's a blunt instrument because of variance.

 

Thanks for the reply; if you ever need blackjack help, I'm your guy.

1. I'm trying to collect data, including using the Bingo Card Estimator. FWIW, my math skills are such that I could do that myself if I had to. (I read a brief bio of Michael Shackelford and it said that he started on his path when he read "Scarne's Complete Guide To Gambling" when he was 11. What a prodigy. I don't think I read it until I was 12!) Yes, the variance means you need a lot of data. This is what actuaries do every day of our professional lives, try to make sense of thin datasets.

2. Agreed also about the structure of the color cards. My spreadsheet includes putative comparisons of the different card combinations available.

3. Would not partner with people I don't know. I've invited about 40 people I know personally, people I know would write me a check and know they'll get back what they're entitled to. I've also been tracking that double progressive jackpot and it doesn't seem to be growing much more rapidly than when it was smaller and even when it was more numbers. The other Arizona Charlie's just hit and reset to 32 numbers and people seem to be still playing it. At least when I play blackjack and the count is adverse, I drop my bet size.

4. I'm focused right now on this location because I have a fair number of points that I can use for half-price Bingo. My best friend loves blackjack and this casino is unusual by (a) having a combined point system for table games and machines and 10x points on weekends. It's one thing to say "If I spend $100 on Bingo, how can I get an EV of $90 rather than $80." It's another to say "How can I turn my free points into $450 rather than $400." But your comment about South Point is well taken. That's actually my favorite casino, although I can't play blackjack there anymore."

5. The $5K Aceball is a promotion for the 7PM session on Thursdays; if not hit, it reverts to the "normal" progression. But given the estimate of 100 cards (not far off from my own estimates) and 120 players at the 7PM session (a much more easily estimable number by just counting the people in the room), and 11 games subject to the aceball, that would make the aceball value per card equal to 11/75 * $5000 / 120000. That's only 61 cents per 100 cards, not enough to move the needle.

The last time I was there, when I bought in I didn't buy any double daub cards (the jackpot was still under the threshold) and the seller looked at me like I had just paid the cover charge at Sapphire in cash and objected when they gave me my change in $1 bills, like "Do you know where you are and what we do here?"

When I have time I'll expand my post with a more detailed calculation.

 

Thanks. It's not my favorite game, but I'll play occasionally if I find a promo, or a machine that awards full points.

Looks like the west side jackpot was hit yesterday. I think many players increase their dual daub allocation when the jackpot is high, so they're not completely insensitive to the odds.

Do I detect an extra zero in the denominator? I think it would be more like $6.10 per 100. Some of the other rooms can really be cashball-heavy. Looking today, South Point has $26k at the 1pm. Santa Fe Station has $33k at the 3pm.

Ha ha yes, they'll get used to you eventually. A decade or so ago when I played there, the dual daub game was positioned last -- after the regular coveralls. So I was able to leave early. But I was basically the only one. Maybe one or two others. Everyone else played the dual daub.

I don't much like the way Vegas bingo has evolved. Statistically they hold more than ever before, and I find there's too much jackpot emphasis now. In most cases, you can still opt out of the jackpots, but it's hard to opt out of validation. Years ago as I recall, you could commonly buy the electronic specials with or without validation. Now it's forced validation in most cases, otherwise you don't get the discount.

 

Thank you, I think you’re right about the arithmetic mistake. This is still a work in progress.

The DD jackpot average increment for the 6 days when it was at 34 numbers (when I started tracking) was 1483 with the pot in the high 50’s through mid-60’s. For the next 10 days it was 1293 (win condition was unchanged but pot increases) and after it went to 35 numbers the next 8 days (until hit) 1693.

I’m building a model something like this: The denominator is the average daily increment in the aceball for each session (adjusted of course when it’s won) as a proxy for attendance, and the numerator is the amount you’d win with a single card of each color if you won every game. This gives me a relative value for each card, and then I can construct alternative buy-ins including their manager’s specials and electronic specials, as well as my own. It needs some work but right now I’m showing that the best option is loading up on blue cards for the session where 2/3 of the total payout is the two color-agnostic coveralls. The best session (needs more checking and | have an 11-hour flight home tomorrow so plenty of time!) and package is all-blue at 7PM with a relativity of 6.96 and the worst is the “large rainbow” special at 3pm of 3.34. But at 7PM, 10 blue packs is a clear winner over 6 red packs 6.96 to 4.62, but at 11 the red strategy wins by 5.80 to 5.59.

Right now I don't include Aceball in my calculations. I have to figure out the right way to do that, given the structure of my model. Conveniently the outlier there is the promotional $5K aceball on Thursdays at 7PM, and I've identified 7PM as the most lucrative session.

|f | could, I'd love to just sit in the room and track attendance and card counts, but with a $4 minimum buy-in just to get into the room, and the fact that the casino is 20 miles from my house, it's really not worth it to me to go there just to track data. The rules say in various places "Minimum $4 buy-in to be seated in the Bingo room" but they seem to feel that "seated" and "stand" mean the same things.

 

My recollection was that at some point (such as either 60k or 70k), they would halve the meter contribution, and you would begin seeing increments more like 800 or 900. It was very noticeable if you were tracking.

I once tracked South Point with the jackpot above $150k, and those increments were exceeding 5000 daily as I recall. I don't know whether they cap the allowed card quantity.

I would have thought the small rainbow special might be competitive with either of those. In the past, they had 3-on bonus coverall strips for $1 each. The strips only played from game 11 forward. You could buy max 30. But now it's a $2 cost, and I'm not even sure it's a strip. It may only be one card.

I wonder how they'd feel about a remote camera. Kidding.

If you really need cheap attendance, the $6 paper rainbow is a much better value than a $4 blue pack. Either way though, the daubing may distract somewhat from data collection.

 

Yes, but TBH I find it hard to manage as many as 12 cards manually, let alone figuring out when I've won.

They're not super-strict, by which I mean I can walk into the room and count the number of tablet checked out. I can count the number of people sitting from outside the doors with glass windows, but what I can't do is know when there's a winner and that I need to record the number of balls called by letter. It's possible that maybe I can get a hint by seeing when a floorperson seems to be walking with intent toward a player (winner?). But it's pretty inexact.

Note that the small rainbow is not that good a deal on electronic - better on paper but of course that's only one pack you can manage. But it depends on the prize structure; the blues are best for the color-agnostic prizes like the two 7PM $1000 coveralls and the aceball.

One quick question. It seems to me that the casino would benefit if they gave an extra 10 or 20 or 50 blue cards with any buy-in, to make more of the wins at the lowest level. Am I missing something? Are all the blue packs they give away free quite the opposite of generosity?

 

Indeed. If you pull up their monthly promo calendars, you'll see both Gold Coast and Sam's Town offer a "Blue Pack Frenzy" at almost all sessions. Buy any electronic special, and receive up to 30 blue packs for only the validation fee.

During hockey season, Charlie's gives free blues (5 packs) for wearing VGK apparel. Minimum spend is only $10 electronic. Again, you have to pay the $1 fee to validate each free pack.

So the operator is generating validation revenue, while steering the game payouts toward the minimum.

 

South Point is having a "$2 million extravaganza?" Can someone explain this to me? I tried to post a link but I think that because it does advertise a product/service it won't get approved, even though it's not "my" product or service.

 

Several of the operators conduct periodic special events. I haven't paid them much attention. From what I've seen, pay structures are usually simplified. Instead of blue/red/green/etc card levels, it's likely that all packs are the same.

Afaik, the huge events (that don't fit in the regular bingo room) are usually paper only. The South Point release mentions a 9-on pack. You would probably have an option to purchase additional 9-on packs, but only a savant can handle 27+ cards.

They usually sprinkle in special games such as dual daubs, available for separate purchase. I suppose you might find an edge there if you detect a lack of general interest in a particular game.

Not sure how common it is, but I've been comped to bingo events based on my casino play. On those occasions, I simply played my free allocation without adding anything on. The special events are much more tedious than a typical one-hour session.

 

I was hoping you might go to the actual link. They had another "event" which if I read it correctly has a $101K prize pool with 640 tickets available for $500 each, you get 250 cards but there are no additional buys, and most games paid $1200ish, some of course more. This one it looked like you paid $495 for a 9-on but then there were very large electronic packs available. I'd never be interested in something like this, but maybe I'll go over and ask them.

 

Here is what it says in part: "Buy-in $495 includes one 9-on pack, food coupons and dauber" and then has

$25 per extra 6-on pack per day, maximum 3 paper packs or
Buy 6 packs get 6 free 72 cards $150 or
Buy 12 packs get 15 free 162 cards $300 or
Buy 18 packs get 24 free 252 cards $450 or

Apart from the "warm-up" session each day contains two sessions with 10 $20K games and then a $50/$25/$10K coverall. So total payout per day is supposed to be $530K. Since it's two 2-day "events" they get a bit over $2 million.

 

My bad. I somehow overlooked it, and only found the press release.

I'm surprised they would have sufficient electronics for 2000+ seats. The electronic capability widens out the strategic potential imo.

For the million dollar events, your options are:

9 cards for $495 (cost $55 per card)
9+72 cards for $495+150 (cost $8 per card)
9+162 cards for $495+300 (cost $5 per card)
9+252 cards for $495+450 (cost $4 per card)

By my reading, it's crucial to add the maximum electronic special. If many players buy small, you have a big relative edge -- although you may still be negative EV depending on the house profit margin.

I don't know if I'm making sense.

 

You are totally making sense. I think that's why our "public engagement" here is going so nicely.

It feels like it's entirely psychological, except in my specific case where I'm trying to monetize an otherwise worthless asset and do so efficiently while my gf is having fun. It feels like a hugely negative EV game, at least in the penny slots range, and no amount of optimization can bring you positive except maybe the stray progressive. So the house's bread is buttered on selling cards with a marginal cost of zero. And the players try to figure out their risk/reward/variance sweet spots and how they buy in. Clearly electronic made it an entirely new game.

So I just get to sit there and wonder what is going on deep inside all these people's heads. What makes them want to play a serious negative EV game with zero skill? At least in roulette you get to pick your own number! Are the people social? Doesn't seem that much like it.

Well I normally wouldn't drive all the way up there from Henderson but I'm just back from vacation and kinda want to get out, so maybe I'll make that a stop on my Thursday tour and get my free 50+ blue pack and soak up the ambience and card counts and maybe even pretend to dab. I feel like I need much more data on card counts to make sense of it; I had one outlier that came back 745,000 cards, I think it was a triple hardway that followed a double hardway, I'm just not sure if I got the right call counts. So much to make sure I have data I feel I can trust.

 

I think almost all popular gambling games are heavier on luck than skill. I don't know why that is.

Bingo is non-social by nature because of the need for quiet. Some rooms have occasional all-electronic sessions, but I'm not aware of any that have eliminated paper. Without paper daubing, I think there'd be much more conversation among players.

For whatever reason, people enjoy the paper daubing. Despite the prevalence of electronics, many players still opt to take one of their packs "outside" the machine.

 

I don't like the dabbing at all, it's extra mental work to see if I have a winning condition, and it seems like the effort isn't really worth it with 10K cards in play. But if I go tonight at 7 I'll "play" the coveralls because that's where the money is.

 

I did go tonight. It was the 7PM session which is the biggest and they have a promotional cashball; the seller wanted to be sure I knew I wouldn't get the $5 grand if I didn't validate (I didn't). My "number of cards" calculations though seem odd, the double hardway and coverall at the end seem to come in consistently higher than other games. Of course there's huge variance and I'm just starting to see some convergence in the 5-10K range (other than DD of course). Man, this be some crazy s**t. Solely an arms race to out-ammo your enemy.

I may do weird test, Thursday is "Free blue pack to all seniors" day, and I wonder if the ratio of tablets checked out to total players will be materially different on Thursdays. I'll need a lot of time to collect these data though.