Slots Mickey's Roadplayer Blog

Thanks for sharing this, Mickey. This is absolutely fascinating stuff. I love the day-in-the-life writing.

 

Great stuff as always. Appreciate you sharing your knowledge as always. Keep it up.

 

Thanks, guys. It was a rough day on the road today. I blitzed through a lot of casinos. A lot of pulling over and not finding anything. I burned up so much highway that there is really only one day left on this road trip, except....I'll be taking a side trip tomorrow to visit a friend.

My stats were not impressive today. I put in a total of only 18 sessions today. That's how hard it was to find plays. I booked 8 winning sessions and 10 losing sessions. But the winning sessions out ran the losing sessions. The winning sessions came to $466 and the losing sessions came to $144. So a net earn of $322. Not to impressive.

I took a few pictures today that I'll try to hang up here.

 

Hey Mickey just curious - you said you have to let the machines stew- so it seems like you can only do a run at max once every two months- I'm assuming a good run is 10k. Seems like a ton of work for 60k a year - do you do other things to supplement ? Or is the cost of living just so much cheaper then Philly and new york

 

I've always been curious about the life of an AP. Thank you so much for sharing this with us.

 

Six trips a year was about 100 days of work. But it looks like those 10K road trips are over for now. I've only got one more leg left on this trip and its just one day's work. So, for the lack of plays, I've will be blowing through the route in just nine days. It used to take 17 or 18 days to play everything off. And I think I will be lucky to crack $4500 on this trip.

I have casinos when I'm home to. But since I'm home so much I might go out for 4 or five hours a few days a week. I have a video poker play at home that I've had on the back burner for awhile. And I have a few meter glitch plays around that I can play straight through.

As far as the cost of living my rent, cable and electricity runs $650 a month. I'm sure thats a lot cheaper than the big city. If I wanted to live in one of the smaller Montana towns with depressed economies I could get it for $350 a month.

Anyways, I'm not going anywhere just because I'm taking a cut in pay for the time being.

 

Here's a picture of the Bitterroot River:



This is a picrure of Flathead Lake at Polson, Montana. The southern end of the lake:



Another view of Flathead Lake:



The little town of Dayton on Flathead Lake where Doyle Brunson has a home:

 

My bet is Mick is living life Exactly the way he wants. Anyone lucky enough to be able to do that is winning.

 

He has no complaints, and that's all that matters.

Great stuff, keep it coming.

I love these slot tales.

 

Wow - I need to move 650- a month all in? I'm jealous - now I see how it's worth it. That would cover rent in New York city for 3 days

 

Early on in this thread I wrote about a video line game that has a free game meter on it. I don't want to divulge the real name of the game so I'll just call it the Free Game Play. This game demonstrates how I get big edges. I know that for some it is a fantastical claim that a machine pro can literally win everyday. I think that is a mindset derived from one's own experiences in gambling. In most machine games the player is giving up a small percentage to the house. It is a real struggle to have a winning session in these type games. And even on plays where the player has a 1% or 2% edge it is still a struggle to have a winning session-I call these kind of plays "the thin edge." The player doesn't get a real payday until he hits the top line jackpot like a royal flush.

With progressive royal flushes, if one is playing correct numbers and strategy then the odds (frequency) on the royal are in the 33,000's. My plays today have frequencies way, way, way lower than that. On these short term advantages I play off, the longest frequency I'm dealing with is 1551. And on turbo speed, whipping out 40 games per minute, the average seat time on that play is about 40 minutes. Compare that to the progressive royal player who, if he is fast, 1000 HPH, he will average achieving his objective an average of about every 33 hours. That is pure monotony to me.

Anyways, this Free Game Play has been out about 4 years now. When it came out it was my job to dissect the game. At the start all I knew was it banked free games. So if the ploppies banked up a bunch of free games then ran out of credits and took a walk there could be some opportunity there for me.

There are 8 bet levels in the game from 25 cents to $2. The rules screen stated that the average free game is worth 7 bets. And the rules screen also showed that once you get into the bonus round there are 69 stops on the wheel you spin-with 25 of those stops awarding the free games. I needed to know some things about the game and the only way I was going to get that information was by collecting empirical stats.

1. I needed to know how often one got into the bonus round.

2. I needed to know how often one banked a free game.

3. I needed to know the average cost of getting into the bonus round.

So I started out spinning off plays where I found 15 free games or more already banked, not knowing whether it was a winning play or not. But I'm willing lose a little money to get the information I need to determine if it is a viable play. I collected stats off of every play and recorded them in my pocket notebook. The first order of business was to count every spin I made. It's hard to track every stat at the same time so I usually do it in segments.

How often does a free game get banked? There is a symbol on the 5th reel that when it lands in the screen a free game gets banked. Through 10,000 spins the average was every 143 games. Since the rules screen stated that a free game was worth 7 bets, then dividing 7 by 143 means the free games meter is equivalent to a 4.9% progressive meter. That strong a meter is the reason why the game will go into a short term positive mode.

How often do I get into the bonus round? There are 3 scatter symbols on the first three reels. When they all appear in the screen you go into the bonus round. I counted the number of times the symbol on each reel landed in the screen. It didn't take that many spins to get this information because the frequencies were so low. The frequency of the first reel was 4, 2nd reel was 5, third reel was 6. So 4X5X6 = 120.

I also tracked the drop on every play. How much it was costing me to get into each bonus round. The drop worked out to 20%. So now I have all the information I need.

1. With 69 stops on the bonus wheel and 25 of them awarding the free games, thats a 36.2% chance, or 1 in 2.76 bonus rounds.

2. Its an average of 120 games to get to the bonus round. So 120 X 2.76 means its an average of 331 spins to get the free games.

3. And 331 spins times 25 cents times 20% means a cost of $16.55 to get the free games.

So if I found the game with 15 free games already banked and the average value of a free game is 7 bets, $1.75, and the expectation is I would bank an average of 2.3 free games (331/143) on my way to getting into the bonus round, then the expectation would be to win $30 in the bonus round.

That would be a profit of $13.72 on $82.75 in action (331 X .25).
13.72/82.75 would put the game at 116.6%. That a pretty big edge.

But here is what I noticed right off the bat. I was averaging way more than $1.75 per free game when I played off the free games. What was going on? It's what game designers call a "static bonus."

1. If a player is betting 25 cents when he banks a free game then that game is worth $1.75.

2.. If a player is betting 50 cents when he banks a free game then that game is worth $3.50

3. If a player is betting $1 when he banks a free game then that game is worth $7.

4. If a player is betting $2 when he banks in a free game then that game is worth $14.

Let's say a ploppy sits down when the game is at reset, just two free games banked that have a value of $1.75 each. This player bets $1 per spin, banks an extra 8 games, runs out of credits and takes a walk.

1. Two of the games have a value of $1.75.

2. Eight of the games have a value of $7.

The Free games are worth $59.75.

Now I come along, grab a seat and just bet 25 cents per spin. I'm expected to bank in 2.3 free games on my way to collecting the free spins. So the expectation is the free games are worth $63.78.

My cost to spin the play off is $16.55

63.78 minus 16.55 means I have $47.23 in positive expectation sitting there.

47.23 divided by the average wager, $82.75 (331 X 25 cents), means I'm at 157% on the play. And the great thing is on turbo speed this game cranks out 40 spins per minute. It's less than ten minutes average seat time. My time in spots like this is worth almost $300 per hour. Of course, that is mitigated by the time I spend hunting down these plays.

When you work these kind of short term advantages all day it is literally impossible to have a losing day.

 

Its ten minutes past 7 AM. The casinos will start opening at 8 AM. My first stop will be a restaurant/bar/casino. The restaurant opens at 6 AM. The casino opens at 8 AM. I'll be there about 7:30 AM for breakfast then hit the casino when it opens. This is the last leg on the road trip. I could knock the whole thing out today and be home tonight. But I'm going to slow it down and visit a friend along the way. We'll see what happens.

My updated stats:

So far a casino win through 8 days of $3731. That sucks.

Hotel....$462
Gas........$64
Meals...$223

Total....$749

So a net earn of $2982. That sucks too. LOL!

Time to start loading the car. Take care.

 

It was ambitious of me, the day before yesterday, to think I could knock the last leg out in just one day. And I was going to miss Monday Night Football if I kept driving. I had a big reason not to miss that game which I will explain later.

So I ran 16 sessions the day before yesterday. The 12 winning sessions were for $624. The 4 losing sessions were for $96. So I had a $528 day. Yesterday, on the drive home, I put down 11 sessions. I started the morning out getting my ass kicked. The first 5 plays were on the non-discussion game and I got beat for $230 on my first 5 plays. I only got 6 more plays and made up $125 but I was still a minus $105 for the day. I got home at 3 PM yesterday.

the 11th to the 20th is technically nine days. This is what my final stats look like.

Total earn......$4154....a daily average of $462

Hotel......$558
Gas..........$78
Meals......$258

Total.......$894

So a net earn of $3260

I'm re-evaluating the situation. The next road trip I'm going to cut out the out of the way small town places. I'm going to pull a video poker play off the back burner. It's worth about $80 an hour. The reason I haven't been playing it is to avoid the variance. But from the way things look now I'm going to have to go back to the high variance stuff.

 

A daily average of $462 tax free is pretty good going, I wouldn't break / tamper with what you have.

 

Now, the reason I didn't want to miss Monday Night Football. I wanted to see how Carson Wentz did as quarterback for Philadelphia. I know all about him . I was born in the Bakken Oil Field of North Dakota. But my parents were from Mississippi. Consequently, I consider myself to be from Mississippi. My father was working seismograph when I was born. I'm a big fan of two college football teams, the [removed, pay to advertise] Miss Rebels, not doing to good this year, and the Montana Grizzzlies.

The Griz play small school football but we take the shit serious. If you want to see some rabid fans then take a look at Griz fans. We're nuts! The Griz are the only celebrities we have in Montana. They play in and pretty much always win the Big Sky Conference. They always make the Football Championship Series. It's the playoffs for small school national championship.

North Dakota State has been the juggernaut of the FCS. They've won the national title five years running. And they beat the Iowa Hawkeyes, a big school, four days ago. So it looks like they are still tough without Carson Wentz. But that Wentz could throw the ball like 80 yards downfield when he was a junior. We beat NDS in the first game last year. But they kicked our ass in the playoffs. Anyways, I think Philadelphia has it's quarterback problem solved. I think Wentz, the second pick in the draft, will do well there.

 

Yes, that is one of the perks. State law in Montana is a max jackpot of $800. So no W2-G's.

 

Oh wow- I'm shocked at the max jackpot - I'm assuming the lower end of the paytable for video poker has increased payout and this less variance

 

No. It's actually funny how they handle it. They rip off the ignorant. 8/5 Jacks is a common game here. At quarter denom the royal pays 800 for 1 as long as you are betting $1 or less. So if you are betting $1 the royal pays $800. If you bet $1.25, $1.50, $1.75 or $2 the royal still just pays $800. So someone betting $1 is at 97.3% but a $2 bettor is only at 96.4%. LOL!

I'm gonna go across the street to the casino and take some pictures I want you to see.

 

Yes, I think you are right. If I want to make more money then I think I just need to work more when I'm at home. There are 60 little casinos in this town to pick on. I just need to work them more than I have been.

 

I just got home from the bar. I'm full of booze. I don't like you rejects. You are all assholes. You little foreign bastards are stuck in a spot. Don't fuck around you Islamic piece of shit, I''ll blow your whole country up, bitch. Fuck with me, asshole motherfucker Islamic piece of shit. I'll make your country a parking lot.