Posted on 10/09/2017 8:48:39 PM PDT by Drew68
Stephen Paddock wanted to win and, like any savvy video poker player, knew which machine to lock down at Mandalay Bay.
There was only one in the casino — a Jacks-or-better 9-6 machine, meaning it paid 9-to-1 credits on the full house and 6-1 on the flush and offered the casino only a slim advantage. Mandalay Bay was having a contest for a $100,000 drawing and players, based on the amount of their play the next day, would get tickets to enter.
He got ready to work.
David Walton, a video poker playing pro, headed down to the casino floor early to nab the good machine.
There sat Paddock. Not playing it. Just sitting there. Waiting.
Walton settled into the machine next to him — not one with as generous a payout schedule — and waited for midnight. When it struck, Paddock hit the machine lightning quick, going at a rate of $120,000 per hour. He barely spoke.
Walton said Paddock played 24 hours straight that day in 2007. Before the drawing, Walton wandered over to look at the 4-foot-by-4-foot drum holding all the tickets to the drawing to size up his chances at the $100,000.
Those hopes were diminishing quickly.
“Every ticket on there I saw through the mesh said ‘Stephen Paddock. Stephen Paddock. Stephen Paddock,’” Walton said.
“He won.”
A decade later, Paddock, 64, would ride the elevator up to the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay, smash out two windows in his suite with a hammer, and aim a 10-minute, rapid-fire volley of gunfire at the 22,000 people gathered below for a country music festival. He hit hundreds, and killed 58.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Very interesting indeed.
Assumes facts not in evidence, your honor.
A little puffed up consideration of Video poker being the crack of gambling. It’s not. I’ll reserve that for craps.
Used to be a great website, all text up until a year or so ago that gave you the correct strategy for every type of video poker. Now it seems to be all graphical with adverts and pop-ups and hosted on a really slow server.
wizardofodds.com (slow loading, may have to go to cached page) Not all machines are beatable, The only ones I find beatable are deuces wild with parimutuel jackpots with the jackpot being over $1500 for a quarter player like me. As you go higher in denominations the payouts scale better and you might find some of the 5 card draw 8/6’s that I think have a small 1% profit if played perfectly.
Not worth grinding $120k per hour because you can take some really big swings. It’s nice to put in a few bucks though knowing that you’re playing +EV, but not enough to try and make a living out of it (some do).
Check out http://www.vpfree2.com/video-poker/search.
Just like Trayvon, the msm is intent on shoving years old photos in our faces. To what purpose?
Ok, so either he's a heavy drinker or he barely touches the stuff. Either he's a laid back goofball or he's an old grumpus. Either he's a big tipper or he's not. Can't have it all these different ways. The feds and the msm need to pick a story they can all agree upon and feed it to the restless sheeple.
Spends $120,000 an HOUR to win $100,000 for the whole day.
Yeah.... that’s how he got rich.
Odd. Steve Wynn said none of his employees ever saw Paddock or his woman drink alcohol.
Three authors and not one spotted that?
I don't think he spent $120,000/hour. I think he gambled $120,000/hour on a machine with good, published odds.
Example: If the machine gave a 3% advantage to the house, he might expect -- on average -- to keep 97% of the input and lose 3% of the input.
3% of $120,000 is $3600.
So he would probably spend about $3600 to earn $100,000.
And since his odds were very close to 50/50 he probably didn't lose all that much, and may have even won some money over that time period.
Let me get this straight: An ugly mofo that has no problem getting laid. Blue pills and money will set you up. Why couldn’t he just continue what he was doing? Stay out of the casinos. Buy a Hooters instead. I’m sure you know WHAT I would be doing with all those women. There’s even a Hooters hotel/casino there. Wouldn’t even have to leave the building!
If the house had only a 2% advantage, then he would spend about $57,600 to earn the $100,000.
Also, my math could be completely wrong.
Well, suppose he started losing ... seems possible.
Also, my math could be completely wrong.
Your math looks good, but he didn't spend about $86,400 to earn $100,000. He "spent" $86,400 for a chance at $100,000.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/09/us/las-vegas-stephen-paddock-deposition/index.html
Some of the testimony centered on his gambling.
He described himself as being, at one point, the “biggest video poker player in the world.”
“How do I know that?” Paddock asked rhetorically. “Because I know some of the video poker players that play big. Nobody played as much and as long as I did.”
At the height of his play in 2006, he testified, “I averaged 14 hours a day, 365 days a year.”
“I’ll gamble all night,” he said. “I sleep during the day.”
Sure you can. It always depends on whom you ask - they will see different facets of him. Hitler was a pitiless mass murderer. But he doted on his mother and Eva Braun.
Odd. Steve Wynn said none of his employees ever saw Paddock or his woman drink alcohol.
A decade later, Paddock, 64, would ride the elevator up to the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay, smash out two windows in his suite with a hammer, and aim a 10-minute, rapid-fire volley of gunfire at the 22,000 people gathered below for a country music festival. He hit hundreds, and killed 58.It sounds like the tech changed a circuit board in Paddock's favorite machine when he wasn't looking.
Pro poker players (machine or not) are some of the sleaziest chiselers in the casino.
I was skeptical that Paddock could make millions from video poker. Casinos don’t let you win in the long run. But what if Paddock had discovered a glitch in the software for a particular machine that allowed him to win consistently. Suppose this glitch made Paddock and his family millionaires, but then — unknown to Paddock — the game supplier fixed the glitch and Paddock started losing consistently, causing him to get mad at the casino.
I’m still skeptical.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.