A glimpse into the mind of the world’s best video poker player.
It’s hard to say these days who is truly the best at one casino game or another. History and literary works define the best blackjack, craps and roulette players of old. But today, so many games are either played in private lounges or over the internet. If wins aren’t recorded, documented and/or published, there’s no proof they ever occurred, or who is responsible for them.
For this reason, it’s incredibly difficult to say with indisputable accuracy who the world’s best video poker pro is. Tournaments and even championship events happen all the time, but the prizes are rarely beyond 4-figures. A genuine casino pro is one that pulls in 5, 6, even 7 figures – enough to make a career out of it.
So, in order delve into the mind of the world’s top video poker player, we must step back in time to documented history. This, my friends, shines the steadfast light upon Bob Dancer, a prolific mastermind of the video poker machine who amassed one million in winnings over just 14 months.
Bob Dancer: The World’s Best Video Poker Player
If you’ve studied the game of video poker, you know that most variants cannot offer a positive expectation, no matter how perfect your strategy is. But there are a few rare machines that, when played just right, can proffer a return to player (RTP) of about 100%. At that rate, the machine would have a probability of breaking even (i.e. paying as much back as it takes in).
The machines Bob Dancer was playing had an RTP of 99.5439%. We know this because he snapped a photo of his largest video poker payout ever – the coveted $400,000 jackpot prize for achieving a Royal Flush – and slapped it on the cover of his famous video poker strategy guide, Million Dollar Video Poker. And, also because he notes the exact RTP in the book, along with other favorable video poker games in his repertoire. Another favorite of his, Deuces Wild VP, pays 16 for 5 of a kind and 10 for straight flush yields an even prettier 99.73%.
Is Bob Really the Best Video Poker Pro?
Based on his claim to fame, some might say that Mr. Dancer isn’t such a great player, but rather an extremely lucky one. He did win the Royal Flush jackpot, after all. The odds of doing so are about 0.000025% (1 in 40,390.55). But that wouldn’t explain how he won an additional $600k grinding out traditional (non-jackpot) payouts.
According to his book, the video poker expert and his then-wife, Shirley, spent 14 months, from September of 2000 to October 2001, turning a bankroll of $6,000 into a cool $1,000,000, playing nothing but the best video poker games they could find. That is, the ones with the best pay tables and highest RTPs.
Thankfully, Dancer doesn’t mince words, nor does he make the experience sound like a bed of roses. His book details the ups and the downs, including many volatile swings the couple endured along the way. He doesn’t consider himself the top video poker player in the world, either, but he also doesn’t cut himself short. He compares his abilities to that of a major league baseball player.
“...I would be a typical major league player—only occasionally making the all-star team.
But even getting to the major leagues is more difficult than most people could manage.”
Biggest Takeaways from Million Dollar Video Poker
If you have any hopes of becoming a video poker pro, or simply love the game, I highly recommend this book, as have many other professional gamblers. John Robison calls it “surprisingly candid”; Jean Scott says it’s a “fascinating” book “even a low roller can use”; the inimitable Stanford Wong calls it multifariously “exciting to read”.
Bob doesn’t claim that he, or his readers, will beat the game every time. He’s a realist, and an entertaining author, at that. He takes you through a real-life journey of ups and downs, teaching players the truth about the life of a professional gambler – a truth that, for me, Bob Dancer managed to sum up in three simple sentences.
“Everyone wins some of the time. Everyone loses some of the time. You have
to learn to deal with winning and you have to learn to deal with losing.”
