Why Are Some Slot “Pros” Still Always Broke?

This is always an interesting one for me.

Sure, plenty of these “slot pros” aren’t exactly Tom Brady-level pros. There’s no test or anything they have to pass to become professionals. But still, you can tell they know how to beat enough machines, and they sure put in the time since many of them essentially live at the casino.

Why aren’t they swimming in doubloons? Well, as I explored in the video, they are gamblers first and foremost. Sure, the money is nice too, but for them it falls behind the thrill of gambling and showing a lot of action to the casino so they continue to get free rooms.

Many of these well-meaning gamblers ask me for money all the time, and I’ll usually oblige if the request isn’t for more than $40 or so. Sometimes I’ll get paid back (even with interest they insist on paying), and sometimes I won’t.

But this isn’t about me. It’s to show that not everyone who knows how to beat slot machines is making money doing this. Plenty of folks can’t help themselves and will play anything “close” to +EV, but close for some of them might be miles away from profitable long term. In other words, don’t take plays early because you see some “pros” doing it!

The way I look at it, though, they can sometimes be beneficial for a true advantage player in two ways.

The first takes a little imagination, but think of it like this: Casinos know about advantage players. They also know about these types of people I’m describing, who rarely leave the casino and play plenty of games in a favorable state. But at the end of most days, they are still broke. In that way, a casino number-cruncher might reason, yes, advantage players exist, but many of them still give it all back, so is it really a problem?

On a less imaginative level, often these folks will sit on machines and look to chop plays or sell plays because they have no money themselves. Sometimes they’ll have sketchy numbers they’re trying to peddle, but sometimes they are sitting on some real home runs. Yes, you need to be very careful with this, as I have heard of people getting thrown out for this kind of transaction, but if you’re not too obvious about it or you’re at a casino you don’t really care about, you can do well just splitting these second-hand finds.

That’s veering off-topic a bit, but it’s sort of an “underground” aspect to slotting. Bottom line: These folks are broke because they take “advantage plays” too early and/or otherwise gamble elsewhere in the casino where they’ll never have an edge. Whatever they make on true advantage slots goes to feed these other vices.