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Reason I like Bodog #5:
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Intelligent
Bonuses
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Many online casinos give you a big matching
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but there's a
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and play on the most popular games doesn't
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baccarat, roulette, and Jacks or Better to be
excluded. Sometimes it's everything but slots.
And sometimes you can't even find the fine
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screaming letters but make you hunt all over the
site to find the rules.
That's why Bodog is a welcome relief.
They allow play on just about every game to count
towards the wagering requirement (everything except Pontoon and Caribbean 21). It's that simple.
Just no opposite betting, like both red & black
on roulette at the same time. All casinos ought to
be as easy as Bodog about this.
Bodog's signup bonus is a modest 10%, but it's simple. The wagering requirement in order to cash out the bonus is 15x the deposit plus the bonus, and play on just about every game satisfies the requirement.
Finally, at some other casinos if they think
you're abusing their bonus offers, they'll actually
seize your winnings. Frankly, that's
criminal. But if Bodog suspects you of bonus abuse
they'll still pay you, they just might not offer
you any future bonuses.
Play for free, no B.S.
One click and you're in.
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Flip
It
by Michael Bluejay, Feb. 2002
Introduction
- You've probably seen Flip-It: You insert quarters or
dollar tokens into the machine, mechanical spinners flip
the coin up onto a shelf, and mechanical pusher arms push
the stack of coins towards the edge. You win coins that
spill over the edge.
-
- Often in Flip-It the coins don't flip, but instead
fall through the spinners and straight into the payout
tray. I see people playing the game for the first time
who are confused and think they're doing something wrong,
especially when the coins fall through repeatedly. If
your coin doesn't flip, just keep trying.
-
When I first wrote this article in February 2002 you
could find Flip-It in Vegas at the Four Queens and Golden
Gate (downtown), the Stratosphere (on the Strip), and
Vacation Village (R.I.P.) As I update this article in
Feb. 2005, the only place I've seen it recently is
Terrible's. (Don't sign up for a player's card there
because they spam you like crazy and don't honor
unsubscribe requests.)
-
The Catch
- The casino makes its money on the coins that spill
over on the extreme left or right edges, which get sucked
into the machine instead of being returned to the player.
This fact is not so obvious, because the chutes that take
coins which spill over the edges are hidden behind signs
that say "Spill Pay Area". These signs have arrows
pointing to the middle of bottom shelf, indicating that
you receive only coins that spill over the middle, not on
the sides.
-
Basic Strategy
- Your coin goes into one of four slots arranged left
to right on the front of the machine. Typically there's a
left-hand slot, two middle slots, and a right-hand slot.
Coins tend to land in front of the slot they're inserted
into, so you'll want to play the middle slots. This is
Basic Strategy for Flip It. Playing the slots on the
sides will mean that more of your coins will land on the
sides, and you won't get those coins back when they spill
over.
-
Flip-It Myths
- Contrary to popular belief, the coins don't keep
stacking ever higher and higher. Each machine seeks its
own equilibrium for the depth of its stack, and will
always return to that depth over the long run. That might
be 2 coins deep on one machine and 5 coins deep on
another; each machine has its own unique personality,
because, after all, these machines are mechanical, not
electronic.
-
- Also contrary to popular belief, the casino doesn't
come in and scoop out coins once they stack up very high.
That's because the coins don't keep stacking
infinitely, and because the casino makes all the money it
needs to on the coins that spill on the sides which
aren't returned to the player. These facts are obvious
enough with careful observation of a machine, but just to
be certain, I confirmed this with an employee at the Four
Queens casino in downtown Las Vegas.
-
Volatility
- Machines that gravitate towards shallow stacks have
low volatility. You will hit frequently, but get just a
few coins when you do. Machines that stack high will have
greater volatility: You won't get payouts as frequently,
but when you do, they'll be larger. The long run expected
return is the same. The machine with the least volatility
that I found was the dollar machine at Four Queens, which
preferred to be about only two coins deep. The four-deep
dollar machine at Stratosphere was much more
volatile.
-
- Quarter machines have more volatility than dollar
machines because the coins are smaller and tend to stack
up higher. Quarters played in the middle slots also tend
to flip to the sides much more frequently than dollars
do, because they're lighter. Since you ultimately lose
coins on the sides, you'll lose almost as much money
playing quarter machines as you would dollar machines.
The one redeeming value of quarters is that they're more
likely to flip into a basket (discussed below), although
the baskets themselves are nearly worthless.
-
Baskets
- There are small baskets at the very top of the game,
and if your coin flips all the way up there and into a
basket, you win the number of coins listed on the basket
(usually 10, 20, 50, or 100 coins). On some of the dollar
machines, the 50-point baskets move continuously back and
forth, left to right, for added excitement. If you hit
one of these baskets, there's a bonus round where slot
machine reels on the very top of the game spin, and
various combinations pay various numbers of coins, with
the top jackpot being $2500 or $9999. This jackpot is
often listed in an LED marquee to make it look like it's
a progressive jackpot, but it's really just a fixed
jackpot being advertised with a marquee.
-
- The baskets are nearly worthless. In thousands of
Flip-It hands, I hit a basket maybe three times, each
time the lowest-payout basket. As further proof, in the
six weeks I was in Vegas, nobody hit a 50-point basket at
the Four Queens dollar machine to get a reel spin. I know
this because for the entire six weeks, the reels were
stuck on the exact same combination. (And that was a
losing combination to boot, that paid out zero coins for
its bonus round.) The machines entice you to play the
sides by putting the higher-point baskets on the sides.
Don't fall for it. You won't hit the baskets, and your
coins going to the sides of the machine won't get
returned to you when they spill. Note that although I
believe baskets to be nearly worthless, you're more
likely to hit them on quarter machines than on dollar
machines, because the quarters are lighter and flip up
higher.
-
House Edge
- I estimated the house edge on the dollar machine at
the Four Queens to be about 11.1%. This was based on 405
coins in, 360 coins out, taking about an hour of play,
and using Basic Strategy. On any other casino game, 405
rounds would be pitifully small and not at all
statistically significant, but Flip It is different. A
few hundred rounds of Flip It easily cycles most of the
coins in the machine, and it's very clear from playing
even 15 minutes that it's an even-sum game, with your
eventually getting back all the coins you put into it,
except for the ones that spill on the sides.
-
- Because these are mechanical machines, different
machines will have different house edges. Machines that
flip to the middle consistently will have a lower edge,
and machines that send more coins to the sides will have
much higher house edge. Also, different machines will
have different levels of volatility. One machine may tend
to stack four levels deep (high volatility), while
another tends to stack only two levels deep (low
volatility).
-
- I started to do a trial to determine the house edge
on a quarter machine, but I was losing so quickly I got
frustrated and gave up. I found that quarters tended to
flip to the sides more often than dollars because they're
lighter and their trajectory is all over the map. I made
a rough estimate that you could easily lose almost as
much on quarters as on dollars, just because of all the
extra quarters that go to the sides.
-
Coin Counting
- Blackjack players can move beyond their basic
strategy and count cards, giving them an advantage over
the house. Flip It players can likewise move beyond their
basic strategy and count coins, so the odds are in their
favor. The concept is simple: Play only when the machine
is primed, so that coins are more likely to spill than
stack. I tested this theory by playing a trial of 558
coins over several days, playing only when I thought the
machine was primed, and I wound up ahead 9 coins. This is
a 1.6% advantage, which is more than you can get from
counting cards at blackjack. (Blackjack is still more
profitable, obviously, because you can bet more than a
dollar at a time, and because profitable decks occur more
frequently than profitable Flip-It shelves.) At one point
in a separate trial, my advantage was 83% after playing
only 24 coins.
-
- Had I played more conservatively (playing only when
the machine looked extra good), I'm confident that
I could have achieved greater than a 101.6% return. But
the return is not the ultimate indicator of how much
money you make. What you ultimately walk away with is a
function of your advantage multiplied by your action (how
much money you put into the machine). Playing 500 coins
conservatively with a 4% advantage yields the same profit
as playing 1000 coins more aggressively with only a 2%
advantage ($20, either way).
-
- To count a machine accurately, you must first know
how many coins deep that machine gravitates towards,
which I'll refer to as the machine's "level". You could
find this out by playing the machine for 15-30 minutes,
or you could back-count the machine by simply watching
someone else play. Once you know the machine's level, you
can use a simple +/- count. Count only coins in the
middle, not on the sides:
-
|
-1
|
Every space and level where the stack is less
than the level. For example, if this is a 3-deep
machine, and there's a spot that's only 2 levels
deep, there's one coin missing, so that's
&endash;1. If there's a spot that's only one
level deep, then that's &endash;2. Count every
deficient spot this way.
|
|
-1
|
Every half-coin space and level where there's
about a half-coin hole. The coins are not
pressed together snugly, and you can see
straight through to the shelf. When this happens
and gap is about the size of half a coin in
square inches, count &endash;1 for each level.
Let's say you have a 3-level machine with four
half-coin gaps. You have 4 x &endash;3 =
-12.
|
|
+1
|
Every space and level where the stack is
greater than the level. For example, if this is
a three-deep machine, then count every coin on
the 4th level as +1.
|
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+1
|
Every coin that is teetering over the ledge
by at least 1/3 coin.
|
-
- Add these all up and you have a rough idea of your
advantage, or lack thereof. When you have a positive
count, play the machine. If the machine is negative,
don't play. If the machine is positive, and you play, and
you win, count the machine again. If it's still positive,
you can continue playing. Unlike blackjack, the pit
bosses don't care if you back-count and Wong in when the
count gets high, but you can't Wong in whenever you like,
since only one person can play the machine at a time.
You'll just have to hope that the person playing the
machine before you leaves when you want them to.
-
- I had an interesting experience at the Four Queens. I
had been playing the machine for a while, and had
relinquished it to a young woman who was watching me and
was eager to play. I waited her to finish, and then she
turned the machine over to me (in about the same
condition as I'd left it), though she continued to watch
me although she was ostensibly done playing. Soon I had a
major hit for a bunch of coins, which instantly made the
machine seriously negative. But as she jealously watched
me get that big hit, she asked anxiously, "Can I play
now?" I was only too happy to turn the negative machine
back over to her at her request, so she could prime it
for me again.
-
- The summary, though, is that although you can play
Flip-It at an advantage, you can't make a living at it,
unless you can live on a few dollars a day.
-
Casino Player
- In the Dec. 2001 issue of Casino Player, the
executive editor ran an article about how she lost $240
playing quarter Flip-It. It was hard for me to believe
that someone could be so bad at Flip-It as to lose $240
playing for quarters. That's a loss of 960 coins! You'd
have to play at least two hours straight and lose
every coin to lose that much money! Further, I had
always suspected that with proper play, Flip-It could
actually be played at an advantage -- in other words,
profitably. I was further challenged by the editor's
assertion that "You simply can't win on this machine."
That's why I set out to prove that I could win at Flip
It. And I did.
-
Miscellaneous
- Unfortunately, Flip It doesn't accept slot club
cards. It should, considering that the house edge (~10%)
is way higher than the edge on a typical slot
machine.
-
- Most machines have a sticker that says "Game is over
35 seconds after last coin is played. Coins spilled after
this time will not be returned to the player." So if a
batch of coins is teetering on the brink and about to
spill, and you're waiting and watching while it takes a
while for them to actually drop, you might not get them.
But don't worry, 35 seconds is longer than it seems. I
timed it and found that it took 20 strokes of a pusher
arm to equal 35 seconds, so while waiting for coins to
fall, I simply made certain that I didn't go longer than
15 strokes before I played my next coin.
-
- I now know more about Flip-It than any man ever
should. I'm not sure which was the bigger waste of my
limited time on this planet: Trying to beat an
insignificant casino game for an insignificant amount of
money, or writing a lengthy article about it. Either way,
this probably explains why I don't get many dates.
See also how to
play:
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