I recently wrote that I had hit a $120,000 royal flush at Dotty’s in October. I mused that possibly the plug had been pulled on my welcome as I had hit a number of big jackpots there in the past. Several readers responded that surely my time was up there.
In November, I received no mailer at all. I looked at this as a “possible sign” of the end of my welcome, but not definitive. In October, my mailer was for $1 a week for the first three weeks, and a whopping $2 for the fourth week. I left them uncashed, except for cashing one of them on the one day I went in to play.
The usual pattern at Dotty’s is that your mailers reflect the amount of play and your win/loss for the past four months. My previous big hit there (a $40,000 royal) came on June 23, so I figured I could start playing again on October 24 — which I did, with spectacular results.
Usually when you get the $1, $1, $1, $2 mailer from them, it means it’s your last mailer until you play some more. It’s very likely my play in October was after the cutoff for the November mailer. So, the fact that I didn’t receive any mailer at all didn’t necessarily mean I’d been cut off.
On November 28, though, I received a $1, $1, $1, $2 mailer for December, not to mention a coupon for a Dotty’s logo holiday coffee mug!
I’m not planning on collecting any of this mailer, but it was very nice to get. It means I’m not cut off. In March, I’ll begin playing again. I’ll play heavily one day in late March (perhaps $100,000 coin-in or so) and wait to see what happens in May. If I’m getting a mailer (which is roughly 0.4% coin-in, except immediately after a royal flush), it’s a decent place to play. Along with their other promotions, even 9/6 Jacks or Better is a positive game.
I’ll play 9/6 Jacks or Better for $50 per hand. That way, only hitting the royal has the potential of cutting me off. If I’m playing Deuces Bonus for $150 a hand, there are numerous hands which put my welcome in jeopardy. So while the Deuces Bonus is a better game if I could continue to play uninterrupted and still get the mailer, that’s not the way it is at Dotty’s. One jackpot of probably $15,000 or higher brings your mailers down to miniscule amounts for four months. So the 9/6 Jacks or Better game for the smaller amount is actually the better play. I need to play for at least $48 a hand in order to receive W-2Gs for all quads. Cutting back to, say, $5 per hand and not risking ever being cut off would be a losing proposition because a significant amount of the value at Dotty’s comes from the bonuses you get on W-2Gs. I wrote about this more extensively less than a month ago should you be interested.
I’ll skip playing in April (in addition to giving them no action in December, January, and February). When (if) a decent mailer comes in May, I’ll resume my normal amount of play. If such a mailer does not come, I won’t play there anymore. Without a mailer, the house has the advantage in that game and that’s not for me.
Still, the miniscule mailer I received for December was very encouraging. To me it means I’m not cut off. At least not yet. That may well happen in the future, but so far at least, I’m still in their good graces.
I understand that whether or not I am still welcome at Dotty’s is basically of no concern to any of my readers. Still, how I evaluate and interpret information as I receive it is part of the process that I’m attempting to convey.
