• SZENSEI'S SUBMISSIONS: This page shows a list of stories and/or poems, that this author has published on Literotica.
• Learn the low-roller secrets for: Staying free at hotel-casinos Beating casino promotions Eating and drinking on the house Playing video poker for profit Getting bumped from airplanes and flying free Though Jean Scott was well-known to a select few Las Vegas aficionados throughout the ’90s, it wasn’t until the publication of The Frugal Gambler in 1998 that she became a household.

Jean Scott has achieved a modest amount of fame as “The Frugal Gambler”. That’s the title of her best-known book about gambling. Her approach focuses mostly on getting the most out of the casinos’ comps programs and video poker games with a low house edge.

One of the refreshing aspects of Jean Scott’s writing about gambling is that it’s aimed mostly at low rollers. Many of the books about poker or blackjack on the market assume you have a large bankroll. By focusing on video poker, Jean Scott empowers gamblers on a budget to get the most for their money.

That’s the definition of frugal.

Change Your Attitude

Most people who gamble at a casino are satisfied with their tiny chance of getting lucky. They don’t think much about the games they play or what they offer. One video poker machine looks about the same as any other video poker game to them.

Video poker for profit, flying free by getting bumped. With the release of the first edition of THE FRUGAL GAMBLER in 1998 Jean Scott became a household name to casino players across the country. Her frequent national publicity, her long-term success in casinos around the world,.

These are the players the casinos love the most. They lose the most money, and they lose it faster than anyone else.

Jean Scott encourages players to think about the games and the math behind them so that they can get the maximum amount of fun from the games in exchange for their money. Dedicated gamblers with the right attitude can combine their knowledge of video poker strategy and pay tables with slots club rebates to get an edge over the casino.

But the Frugal Gambler’s focus isn’t on learning how to make a living as a gambler. Her focus is on getting free stuff while enjoying vacations that cost pennies on the dollar.

If your goal is to become a professional gambler, Jean Scott probably isn’t the gambling expert for you.

If your goal is to get the most for your money at the casino, Jean Scott has a lot to offer.

The first step to playing video poker like Jean Scott is to change your attitude. Don’t be lazy and play any game that catches your eye. Educate yourself about how the math behind the games works and which games offer better odds than others.

You should understand terms like “house edge” and “payback percentage”. You should also understand what those terms imply.

In brief, the house edge is the percentage of each bet that the casino expects to win over the long-term. It’s a mathematical prediction based on probability. In the short run, it’s almost impossible for your results to mirror the mathematical prediction. In the long run, it’s almost impossible for your results NOT to mirror the mathematical prediction.

Here’s an example:

You’re playing a game with a 1% house edge, and you’re betting $125 on each hand. Mathematically, the casino expects to win $1.25 every time you place a bet. In reality, the casino will win $125 or you’ll win some multiple of $125.

Only after you average the net loss over the number of bets you’ve made do you start to see an average.

And only after thousands of bets do the long-term results start to mirror the expected results.

The payback percentage is the amount of each bet that the casino expects to pay you. It’s the opposite of the house edge. If a game has a house edge of 1%, the payback percentage is 99%.

When you add the house edge of a game to its payback percentage, the result is always 100%.

Casinos and gamblers usually use “house edge” when discussing table games, and they use “payback percentage” when discussing gambling machines.

Since Jean Scott focuses more on gambling machines—specifically, video poker—she’s usually looking at games’ payback percentages.

Recognize the Difference Between Slots and Video Poker

Many unsophisticated gamblers don’t realize the major difference between slot machines and video poker machines. After all, the two games are almost identical.

The superficial difference is that a slot machine has spinning reels (or at least the animation of spinning reels), while video poker has cards that are dealt.

In both games, you’re looking at symbols on a payline. And in both games, combinations of those symbols result in payouts based on the probability of getting that combination.

Both games have pay tables. These are a list of the possible combinations that result in prizes for the players along with the size of those prizes.

But the slot machines are missing a crucial piece of information—the probability of getting an individual symbol.

The odds of getting a cherry on a specific stop might be 1/5, 1/10, 1/20, or 1/40—or any other number, really.

This is true of all the symbols on the game. Different symbols often have different probabilities, too.

Video poker, on the other hand, uses playing card symbols. Their combinations are based on poker hands, like a pair of jacks, or a straight or a flush.

The random number generator—the computer that generates the results on the screen in front of you—is programmed to duplicate the probabilities of a normal deck of cards.

This provides you with the information you need about how probable or improbable it is to get a specific hand. Each specific card has a 1/52 chance of showing up. A card of a specific rank has a 1/13 chance of showing up. A card of a specific suit has a ¼ chance of showing up.

Since the probability of getting certain combinations can be calculated, mathematicians and computer programs can compare the payoffs with the probability to get the overall payback percentage for the machine.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather play a game where I can calculate the odds than a game where I can’t.

There’s one other major difference between video poker and slots:

Skill level.

Slot machines require no skill to play. Depending on your attitude, this is either a benefit or a drawback.

If you don’t want to think about what you’re doing when you’re gambling, and you don’t want to make any decisions, you might prefer a slot machine game.

On the other hand, video poker offers you the chance to make decisions which affect the outcome. Make the right decisions in video poker, and the payback percentage improves.

You see, video poker is based on 5-card draw. You get 5 cards, then you get to decide which cards to keep and discard. Make the right decisions during the drawing phase, and the machine pays out the maximum. Make the wrong decisions, and the casino profits even more.

This is not to say that you can get an edge at every video poker game if you play smart. The pay tables determine the potential payback percentage. Rare games offer you a chance to get a tiny edge against the casino.

But overwhelmingly, most video poker games have odds that favor the house regardless of how well you play.

Even so, the worst video poker games usually offer a better payback percentage than the best slot machines. Many video poker games, when played with the right strategy, offer payback percentages in the 98% – 99% range. Most slot machine games offer a payback percentage of 96% or less.

What this does to your bankroll is important.

Over time, the house edge determines how fast you lose your money at the casino.

Assume you’re playing an average slot machine on the Las Vegas Strip for $5 per spin. The house edge is probably about 7%, although you have no way of knowing what that number really is.

An average slots player makes 600 spins per hour. That’s $3000 in action per hour.

7% of $3000 is $210. That’s a lot of money to lose on an hourly basis, even if it is only an expected average over time.

On the other hand, you might find a Jacks or Better video poker game with a 99.54% payback percentage. The house edge is only 0.46% on this game.

Video poker plays just as fast as slots, so you’re still looking at $3000 per hour in action.

But now your expected loss per hour is $13.80.

Even if you’re not able to play with anything close to perfect strategy, you’re still probably going to lose less than $100 per hour on that Jacks or Better game.

The frugal choice is clear.

Learn How to Read Pay Tables

The determining factor in being a frugal gambler in the vein of Jean Scott is finding the right video poker games with the right pay tables.

Here’s an example of a 9/6 Jacks or Better video poker pay table:

In the column on the far left is the list of possible combinations (hands). Then you see the payouts for 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 coins.

One important thing to notice is that the royal flush pays off much better if you make the 5 coin bet. This is true regardless of which video poker game you play. It’s an 800 for 1 payoff instead of a 250 for 1 payoff.

That’s another difference between table games and machine games, by the way. When you’re playing blackjack, you make a wager, and if you win, you get your original wager back plus your winnings. Those payoffs are considered 3 to 2 in the case a natural, for example, or 1.5 to 1.

But on gambling machines, include video poker and slot machines, the original bet is gone regardless of the winning.

In other words, you lose the original bet as soon as you hit the “deal” button. The winnings come back, but not the original bet. The prizes are therefore considered 2 for 1 or 3 for 1, etc.

Finally, with a Jacks or Better game, the key hands are the full house and the flush. The payoffs for those 2 hands are 9 for 1 and 6 for 1, respectively. A game that pays off those amounts has a payback percentage of 99.54% when played with perfect strategy.

Almost all Jacks or Better games have the same payoffs for all the other hands, but usually the casino and the designer will modify the payoffs on those 2 hands to get a higher edge for the casino.

The other most common pay table for Jacks or Better is the 8/5 game. The payback percentage for a game that pays 8 for 1 for a full house and 5 for 1 for a flush is 97.3%.

That doesn’t sound like such a great difference, does it?

But that’s the difference between a house edge of 0.46% and 2.7%.

I already established that your expected losses per hour on 9/6 Jacks or Better are $13.80/hour.

Change pay tables and the expected hourly loss jumps to $81/hour.

Jean Scott would tell you that being able to distinguish between the better pay tables and the worse pay tables is the first skill you should learn if you want to get the most for your money in the casino.

Of course, video poker comes in multiple variations. Some of the more popular variations include:

• Bonus Poker
• Deuces Wild
• Joker Poker

The pay tables for these come in multiple variations. The easiest way to distinguish between the pay tables is to invest in a product like Jean’s own Frugal Video Poker. She has branded cards and software that can analyze pay tables to give you a predicted return.

You should stick with video poker games with a minimum payback percentage of 99%. If you play a game with a lower payback percentage than that, you’re not treating yourself or your money with the respect it deserves.

And you sure can’t call yourself a “frugal” gambler like Jean Scott.

Learn How to Play with Optimal Strategy

Being able to recognize the right pay tables is only half the battle, though. If you’re not playing the hands correctly, the payback percentage for the game goes down, and the house edge goes up.

If you’re playing video poker for $5 per hand, every 1% you give up to the casino equates to $30/hour.

It’s crucial to learn the correct strategies for these games.

I suggest starting with Jacks or Better. It’s the basis for all other video poker games, so it’s a naturally good place to begin. When you’ve mastered finding 9/6 Jacks or Better games and playing them with close to perfect strategy, you’ll be ready to start planning for getting at least a slight edge over the casino—or maybe just breaking even, depending on your goals.

Here’s how these video poker strategy charts work:

You’ll be presented with a list of possible hands. You’ll go down that list until you find a hand that matches the hand you’ve been dealt.

Those are the cards you hold. The other cards, you discard.

A lot of pat hands—combinations which pay off without improving—will be hands you’ll keep. One of the truisms of video poker strategy is that most of the time, you’re going to hope for the casino to deal you a winning hand.

But sometimes the correct play is to discard a winning hand to try to improve to a better hand.

Here’s an example:

You might have a hand with a pair of jacks or better, which pays off at even money. But that hand also consists of 4 cards to a royal flush, which pays off at 800 for 1.

It’s correct in that situation to break the pair so you can draw to the royal flush. Your odds of hitting that flush are only 1/47, which is slightly better than 2%.

But you’ll win so much on that one hand out of 50 that it will make up for not keeping the pair.

Don’t forget, too, that even if you miss your royal flush, you have draws to high pairs, a flush, and a straight, all of which also pay off.

You can find branded strategy charts that are specific to individual games all over the Web, but I’m a fan of the products available at Jean Scott’s website.

And you can bet Jean Scott knows how to play every hand correctly.

Learn How to Compare Slots Clubs

The slots clubs are the secret ingredients to Jean Scott’s approach to video poker.

Here’s how a slots club work:

It’s basically a loyalty program to encourage gamblers to return to a specific casino. The incentives offered include free travel, meals, room and board, and cash.

Frugal Video Poker Software

The casinos decide how much to give you in rewards based on how much money you put into action. They usually calculate this as a percentage of the action that you bring.

I should point out that playing with your slots club card inserted into the machine does nothing to interfere with your chances of winning. It just tracks how much money you’re running through the machine.

In fact, the slots club card doesn’t look at how much you’re winning or losing, either. The casino management is counting on the house edge and the long run to take care of that.

The card just tracks the amount of money you’ve wagered during a period.

Take the example player we’ve been talking about. She puts $3000 into action per hour, and she plays for 6 hours on her most recent trip to the casino. She’s running hot, too. She’s put $18,000 through the machine, but she’s up by $500.

The casino calculates her rewards level as a percentage of her total action. Let’s say this example casino rebates 0.2% of her total action in the form of comps. She’s earned back $36 of her losses in comps.

Different casinos, though, offer different comp point awards. Some might only rebate 0.2%, but others might offer 0.3% rebates. That’s the difference between getting $36 in comps on your trip and getting $54 in comps on your trip.

Some casinos offer periods where you can get double and/or triple rebates. Now you’re looking at the potential of getting back 0.4% or 0.6%.

If you’ve perceptive, you might notice that if you’re getting 0.6% in rebates on your action, you’re showing a profit. The game’s edge is only 0.46%, so you’re 0.14% ahead of the casino.

Even if you make an occasional mistake, you’re at least playing a close to break-even game with the casino.

Frugal Video Poker

You won’t make enough money with this strategy to ever make a living, but that’s not what learning how to play video poker like Jean Scott is all about.

Her goal is to enjoy free vacations and get perks based on playing games she enjoys.

Those are worthwhile goals for most gamblers, I think.

Conclusion

Not everyone has the temperament to learn how to play video poker like Jean Scott.

But if you do, you can enjoy lots of vacations and meals practically for free just by learning some simple truths about video poker games.

Frugal Gambler Video Poker

It starts with being able to recognize the best pay tables. You must then learn to play well enough to minimize the house edge. Being able to maximize the benefits you get from the slots club is the final piece of the puzzle.

Master those 3 things, and you can say that you, too, can play video poker like Jean Scott.

By Jean Scott

(Editor’s Note – Jean Scott is the author of several gambling books and also writes a gambling blog about Las Vegas. This story was originally written by her in 2002 and it chronicles the results of video poker play for her and her husband, Brad for one three-month period.)
Most people are surprised when they find out that it is possible to make money gambling in a casino. “How do you do it?”
I reply that it isn’t easy – that it takes continual study, strong motivation, and organized effort. It is hard work – but ‘work” that is fun for us! Because many still don’tunderstand and they want more details, I am submitting to you a piece of our gambling log, the figures for one fairly typical 3-month period. Every quarter is different, with the numbersvarying considerably, but this one should shed a little light on the various elements that help make a successful gambler. (Minus figures are in parentheses)
1. Brad's VP hours 240
2. Jean's VP hours 77
3. Video poker results ($7,992)
4. Royals 11
5. Video poker tips ($285)
6. Slot club cashback $6,590
7. Bounce-back cash $4,153
8. Sports betting ($300)
9. Cruise gambling $259
10. Couponing $564
11. Slots $20
12. Drawing $2000
13. Net Profit $5,009
Here's the story behind the figures.
1. +2. VIDEO POKER HOURS. We were out of town for 9 days during this period, vacationing in Florida and hosting the Frugal Gambler cruise. Of the 81 days we were home in Las Vegas, Brad playedvideo poker on 66 of them, an average of 3.6 hours a day, although he had many much longer and shorter sessions. I didn't play nearly as much as I usually do, because I was working long hoursto finish up Frugal the Second; however, because of ongoing writing projects, I regularly play only about half the hours Brad does. This hour figure is a best estimate and refers to timeactually playing video poker -- the clock isn't running when we stop playing to talk with friends (for me that's often a large chunk of time) or are eating orseeing shows or going to a movie in the casino. Most people are surprised that we play so little even though we live in Las Vegas now. We blame it on a busy schedule and old age!
3. VIDEO POKER RESULTS. This quarter's minus figure reflects the fact that we're often playing video poker that's below 100%, i.e. Jacks or Better at 99.5% or Not-So-Ugly-Deuces at 99.7%,depending on promotions and slot club cash benefits to make it a positive play. However, even if we always played 100%+ VP (like we did most of the time when we were only quarter players andchose full-pay Deuces Wild at a high 100.7%), because of the volatility of video poker, the actual return in any three-month period can be negative. It takes MUCH longer than that for us to geteven close to our expected positive theoretical return, although we are quite close to it when we look at our last five years, during which we have been playing primarily at dollar and abovedenominations.
4. ROYALS. Even throwing out one royal because Brad got two in one play on a multi-line game, 10 royals is higher than one would expect in this amount of play. The long-term average is roughlyone per 80 hours and we got one for about every 32 hours played. So why didn't we win, with all those extra royals? I'll tell you why -- Murphy's Law! We play a variety of denominations and wegot those royals more often on the quarter and dollar multi-line machines, while we only snagged one for $8,000 on the $2 single-line game that we play most often. It will all balance out inthe dim future, but in the meantime, it makes our line graphs look like a heart-stopping roller coaster.
5. VIDEO POKER TIPS. This is an expense that most regular players consider a necessary evil. We work so hard to pull out a gambling win that we wish the casinos paid their employees well enoughso that tipping wasn't expected. Are those employees ready to chip in some cash for us when we're in those inevitable losing streaks? But like it or not, we always tip -- usually $10 for a$1,000 royal and $30-$50 if it's for $8,000. This figure doesn't include tips for non-video poker service, such as drinks at the machines and meals.
6. SLOT CLUB CASHBACK. This is good old Mr. Dependable. Win or lose, this figure is always positive -- and slowly but surely it mounts up to unbelievably large amounts, especially since we'refervent fans of bonus-point promotions. Double points make us very happy; triple points or higher gets us giddy with ecstasy.
7. BOUNCE-BACK CASH. These benefits, which come in the mail, are becoming as important to us as regular slot club cashback, as you can see by the similar figures. This money may come inaddition to cashback from some casinos, or instead of cashback in others. But the large amount we reaped shows that the sometimes-extreme efforts to learn the system and work to qualify areworth the time we spend.
8. SPORTS BETTING. Thank goodness football season is over. Brad loves to relax and watch a game he has some money on, and even I, the non-sporty gal, get excited toward the end of a close game.But this is definitely an entertainment expense for us, not a positive-expectation gambling endeavor on our part.
9. CRUISE GAMBLING. Playing in a cruise ship casino, where we rarely find positive-expectation games of any kind, is usually pure entertainment for us. However, we enjoy playing some low-level$5-$10 blackjack (when I'm not seasick). We set a modest loss-limit and often are surprised when we can pull out a win like we did in February.
10. COUPONING. We don't coupon as much as we used to, but even the occasional pursuit of $25 matchplays produces a nice boost to our gambling bankroll.
11. SLOTS. Once in awhile we forget about all the math considerations of negative and positive expectation that occupy our brains most of the time - and play nickel video slots when we'just want to have fun.' And surprising ourselves, we sometimes do win.
12. DRAWINGS. We enter as many as are convenient and we have time for. And once in awhile we hit paydirt!
13. NET PROFIT. It's the bottom line that's most important to us. We don't have a plus bottom line every week or every month or even every quarter. Gambling is not a smooth road on a flatplain; it's a bumpy road that travels through endless valleys, slowly climbs to the top of high mountains, then drops back down suddenly on the other side.
Although that's the end of the story the dollar figures tell, it's not the end of our whole gambling tale. Comps, for example, are not included in the above list – we consider them “gravy.” Weget so many that they're almost impossible to keep track of, and we end up able to use only a part of them, giving many of them away or letting them expire when we run out of time. Furthermore, some have definite tangible value, but that would have to be estimated. Others are valuable to us, but have only an intangible worth.
The fact is, we'd never have to spend a penny on food in Las Vegas if we chose to eat every bite in a casino. However, that's too much bother, so we have a small grocery bill each week forcereal, Atkins milkshakes, and snacks. We usually have our main meal of the day in a casino, whether we crave a big fat cheeseburger in a deli, the wide choice of a buffet, or a fancymulti-course gourmet-room blowout. We can treat friends and family to a meal anytime we want -- and get them a free room too.
We could go to a dozen or more shows a month, but we give most of those free tickets away. The casinos give us so many gifts our garage barely has a path through it, much less a vehiclein it. And just when we think we'll have to spend some of our pensions on clothes, or gas and a oil change, or cosmetics and toiletries, or household supplies and repairs, some casino offers usthe opportunity to earn gift cards or certificates to Home Depot, Walmart, Macy's, Walgreens, or a local service station.
The real bottom line is that we're living our dream for next to nothing.

Frugal Gambler Jean Scott

Jean Scott is one of the country’s most renowned and successful gamblers and has appeared on many TV shows, including 48 Hours, where Dan Rather gave her the nickname of Queen of Comps. Herfirst book, The Frugal Gambler, has been a best-seller for nine years. She also wrote a sequel, More Frugal Gambling, and a tax guide for gamblers. She provides a complete resource package forvideo poker players, from beginners to the experienced: the Frugal VP software program which goes with her book, Frugal Video Poker, and the must-have Frugal Video Poker Scouting Guide.Her Web site iswww.queenofcomps.com