I've been playing 25-cent All American Video Poker at my local, friendly casinos on a fairly consistent basis all year and this is the actual record of how I'm doing. In the last installment, I was up $1705 from play alone and had $1014 in slot club cash-back and other bonuses. Well, the bonus $$$ keep going up, but I hit the skids on the playing profit for a while, though I had a nice rebound recently. To date, I've played for 377 hours so, at a rate of 700 hands per hour, that translates into 263,900 hands and total bets of $329,875, since I always play with five coins in.

All American has a return of 100.72% for perfect play, so my expectation is to be ahead by $2309 but reality doesn't always meet expectation. As you'll see below, I'm down by $830 from play alone. As I mentioned, the bonus $$$ keep climbing, though I haven't been able to take much advantage of them lately. My total cash back and bonuses total $1465 so I'm still above water to the tune of $635 or about $1.68 an hour.

Is something wrong? Has the game changed? Not at all. This is just a normal "swing" in the ol' bankroll which is why I set aside $4000 for this endeavor. Naturally, I'm not thrilled to be up by only $635 but it sure beats being down by $635. Think about it: I have spent 377 hours (about nine full weeks of work!) in casinos and I show a profit. How many others can say that? Now understand that I'm not tooting my own horn here because anyone can do what I do, yet 95% of the gamblers out there don't. All I'm doing is playing a game where I have an edge and I try to add to my edge whenever possible by taking advantage of the slot club cash and other bonuses that the casinos offer.

I think it's safe to say that nobody likes to lose, but losing is a lot less painful if you're prepared for it. When I began this adventure, I got on the profit side of the ledger fairly quickly, but as I mentioned in Part 1, I knew it wouldn't necessarily last at that rate. So, when I started dumping $$$, I didn't panic and I'm still not worried in the least about how this will all end. Whether I make a profit this year or not, I intend to keep playing because this is an investment for me, not a gamble and the $$$ will come in time.

Take a minute to look at the chart and I'll meet you below for some statistical analysis:

My high point came back in March after session # 27 when I was up by $2085. The low point after that was session # 88 when I was down by $1210. That's a $3295 swing and I gotta tell you, it was no fun. But, that's the nature of this game and a Royal in session # 89 made things easier to bear.

Of course, Royals are the key element to this game and if they show up on a regular basis, the downswings aren't too bad. In the All American game, a Royal Flush will show up, on average, once every 43,450 hands. In my play, I've hit five, so I'm getting one every 52,780 hands. Basically, I'm one Royal "short", but that doesn't mean I'm 'due' for one. All I can say for certain is that one will show up sometime in the future, so long as I keep playing the game. Until then, I'm keeping my day job.

See you then.