Meh, the game didn't run when I stopped by. But the game I played in in billings was amazing

the game would be at the silvertip on sunday.

Roundtrip cabfare will probably run you $25/$26 a day from where you said you are staying. But to save a little money you can take the #6 bus (Mountain Line) from downtown for a buck. Unless you are sixty or older, then it's only 50 cents. Last bus probably runs about 6:30 PM from downtown. Silvertip is on Southwest Higgins. The bus drops you off right across the street. Then you'll have to cab back to the hotel late night. But it will save you a little money doing it this way.

The Mountain Line schedule can probably be found online.

I haven't played there in years but I've heard lately that the game can get pretty wild (NL) after hours. The bars close at 2 AM but the poker games keep going if there are players.

The Silver Slipper can be negotiated the same way as the Silvertip. Take the #7 bus to Walmart on the southwest side, then walk across the highway to the Silver Slipper. Then cab back late night.

Last time there they were playing 3/6 dealer's choice (Tahoe Split, Omaha 8, Holdem hi-lo), and 1/2 NLH.

PS: Golden Rose, downtown, no longer has a poker game.

A year or so ago the State of Montana raised the max pot from $300 to $800 so it's rare to see capped pots in the 1/2 NLH anymore.

In the early nineties I was working down in Jackson Hole. When I got time off I would go up to Bozeman and play 1-4-8 holdem at T.J's Cardroom in the Catspaw. T.J. would buy your dinner, if you bought in for $100 he would give you $120, and he would give you a ride home if you got too drunk. But he was a heavy raker. He raked 10%, $5 max. And there was no rake discount when the game got shorthanded. When it got late and the game got short handed with no hope of anyone else sitting down, T.J. would raise the blinds from 1/2 to 2/4 to go ahead and knock the players out so he could go home.

One night late the game broke down. I went to the bar. These two drunk cowboys were arguing about which one was the best poker player. One thing led to another and they went in the poker room told the dealer they were gonna buy in for $1000 each and play 10-20 holdem until one man had all the money.

I watched them for a few minutes than headed back to my hotel room. I got up about six hours later and went back to the Catspaw. The two cowboys were still going at it. I looked at their stacks. One cowboy had about $700 in front of him and the other cowboy had about $350. I asked the dealer if anyone else had sat down in the game. He replied, no. They had raked the two cowboys for about $1000 in six hours.

I laughed my ass off.

^ fun post.


And lol at whole lineup of champion caliber wizards at one of these places in Montana. Get real dude.

i consider guys that can sit and play and be favorites in 25,50 and 50, 100 blind no limit live games at the world tournaments champion class players.

Why are a bunch of winning 50/100 NL players frequenting the Montana games?

Ok Ray out with it. Regale us with some stories 😄

some of those guys are great players and do travel but they live there so play there.
huck and lane both came from there and that game. there are a handful that have won big tournaments and or play in bigger games and win. plus a bunch of loose outright gamblers.

Flack used to deal to me in Deadwood in the early nineties. When he wasn't dealing he was in the games, sucking down beer, total live one. The dude never slept, except when he was in the box. The dude would literally go to sleep while dealing.

i play in montana cause i live there. nowadays i dont care if i play in a medium stakes game or a very large one. its all the same to me. i tend to play where i have the most fun in the game and play less where its too impersonal and business like for the players.

as i got older i found out being where you want to be and having fun is more important than anything else mostly. and you end up being more successful there.

Hi, Ray. I'm stuck on Montana too. I'm like you, I love it here. I had been in Nevada for a lot of years. I was mainly a machine pro. In 2007 I went to Deadwood to survey the town out for opportunities. I didn't find much. On my way back to Nevada I stopped into the Crystal Lounge in Billings. The Crystal was the first place I ever played Texas Holdem back in 1984.

So I jump into a 3/6 game. I look over and see the machines. They were multi-game, video poker and video keno. I tell myself there is no way I'm gonna find an advantage in this jurisdiction. But I did the obligatory and went over and took a look at the games. And what do you know, I found something.

So then I tell myself I'll just hang around Montana for a few weeks and make some money. That was 7 years ago. I still haven't gone back to Nevada.

Jesus. The machines are still beatable?

beatable and worth your time are two different things.

Yes, in some spots. But its a secretive world. Most machine pros aren't going to tell you where the plays are.

Yes, thats true. Even though you have an edge the hourly rate might not be worth it. But I've had some decent plays here. Here's the best play I ever found in Montana. I'm sure you've seen the Summit Gaming machines called Megaplexes, Royal Touches, Legends. There is a game on them called Jackpot Aces. Its a Joker game but based on Aces.

Five Aces pays $600 plus 1% progressive meter that caps at $800.
Four Natural Aces pays $150 plus 1% progressive meter.
Natural Aces Full pays $10 plus 1% progressive meter.

The game can be found on at least a few thousand machines in the state and its just a 50 cent max bet. It comes in about 93% and nothing I'm gonna play. But I found a machine one day where the Natural Aces Full meter started at $100. It appeared to be a slot technicians's error to me. This is a huge mistake. Now the game favors the player by 13.5%.

My crusing speed is 1000 hands per hour. Thats a $500 an hour wager with a 13.5% advantage. A $65 an hour play.

I got the idea that if they made the mistake is this one location they may have made it in others. I cruised the whole state looking for the mistake. I found it in about two dozen locations. I even found it up your way in the Lucky Lils casino in the Town Pump on Hwy 93 in Whitefish. I also found it in the VFW in Kalispell. But I didn't have the heart to beat the vets out of their stew.

Seven years later an I'm down to one location.

This I know. Which is why I didn't ask. ;-)

Holy crap! That play has been available to you for seven years? That's mind blowing.

if your sharp enough to spot it or figure it out sooner or later all the gambling games do something that makes them beatable for a time. this includes sports, horses, poker, blackjack, roulette, craps, slot machines,keno,even the lottery. ive done them all but the lottery and keno.

Yeah, well, I was in the right place at the right time and benefited from a lack of competition by other pros. If a play like this developed in Nevada it would have been torched by pros in short order.

Montana is a unique situation. First, it's off the beaten path, so lack of competition benefits me. Second, what constitutes a casino here? If you have a liquor license you can have up to 20 multi-game machines in your establishment, video poker, video keno, video lines games. So what you have is a bar or bar/restaurant with up to 20 machines in it, and maybe a poker table. There are about 1700 liquor licenses is the state so, technically, Montana has a lot of casinos. But they are super small.

When I found the play the question was torch it or milk it? Torching it wouldn't get me much money. You beat one of these small joints out of a few thousand dollars in a couple of days and they'll have the slot route operator in investigating in short order. So I ran a route on the machines pulling about $600 out of a machine then letting it soak for a month or two. I wrote the meters down so when I got back to the machine I could tell if I had competition from another pro. No competition ever developed.

There were only a few spots where they figured it out and knocked the Aces Full meter down to where its supposed to reset. I lost locations one by one usually when they would put new games in the machine and somehow that corrected their mistake. But this took a long time.

I'm now down to one location with three machines. It's been a fun run though.

Ray, we have a couple of small ball lotteries in Montana that occasionally go positive. One is positive this morning as I write this. You can go online to Montana Lottery, then click on Games & How To Play, then click on EZ PAYS.

The Shake a Day is a progessive that starts at $1000 and has a strong progressive meter. The odds are posted on the site. The average cost to produce the Five of a Kind is $4500. On Labor Day it ran to $9800 before it got hit. And mid November it ran to $7700 before it got hit.

The cost on Three Card Poker is $1460. This morning it is at $2108 and climbing.

might be worth taking them off. my days of doing it are over. im spoiled from the old days of giant jackpots and locking up the whole bank.