Let’s say you’re visiting a particular casino for the first time. Your game of choice is single line $1 9/6 Jacks or Better, and fortunately, you find it in two different machines. As near as you can tell, it takes $1 to earn a slot club point on each machine and neither machine has a sticker on it indicating that it is restricted in any manner.
The first place you see your game is on a stand-alone machine. You can play it on this machine for 25¢, 50¢ or $1, but 9/6 Jacks or Better is the only game available.
Your second choice is on a Game King machine. You have the same three denominations on this machine, but you can also choose from Bonus Poker, Deuces Wild, Joker Wild, Double Double Bonus, Keno, and Black Rhino slots.
My question to you is: Does it matter on which machine you choose to play your game?
The answer is: It matters at some casinos. Whether or not it matters at this particular casino isn’t always easy to discern. Therefore you should ASSUME it matters. It you’re right, you are ahead of the game. If you’re wrong, nothing has been lost.
In those cases where it does matter, playing on the Game King is the better choice. It doesn’t affect how you play the hands, what the return on the game is, or how soon you’re going to hit a royal flush. It doesn’t affect whether or not you’re going to win or lose today. So what could possibly be different?
The difference, where it exists, is in ‘theoretical.’
Theoretical is the amount a casino expects you to lose per dollar bet. If everyone played perfectly, the casino would set the theoretical on 9/6 Jacks or Better at 0.46%. The way they come up with this number is 100% minus 99.54%, which is what perfect play on the game returns.
Even though this is one of the easiest games to play perfectly, many players make mistakes, often because they aren’t certain of the correct plays. (For example, are you really sure whether to hold three cards or four on A♥ K♥ Q♣ J♣ 8♣? Same question on A♥ K♣ Q♦ T♦ 8♦? Same question on A♠ K♠ T♦ T♠ 3♠? The answers are three cards, three cards, and four cards, in that order, and almost certainly fewer than half of my readers would get all three correct in a casino. Did you know the answers?) (It’s a separate issue, but it’s easier to get the hands correct when you are reading this column because you know it’s a “test” and so you’ll concentrate on answering correctly. When you’re playing in a casino, these are just additional hands and many players don’t slow down and concentrate on them.)
Sometimes players make mistakes because they are playing too fast or are not at their best–perhaps not thinking clearly because of alcohol or medication, perhaps distracted by the girls walking by, perhaps preoccupied with trying to decide if a futures bet on the Lakers is a good idea. There are innumerable reasons why players are not always at the top of their game.
So a “fair” theoretical on 9/6 Jacks or Better might be 1%. The best players do better than that. The worst players do worse. And on average the casino might make 1%.
On the Game King machine, exactly what theoretical is appropriate depends on the mix of games. Each of the video poker games (other than 9/6 Jacks or Better) could be in a range of 96%-99.2% (depending on which specific version of the games are on the machine), and Keno and Black Rhino return less than that. In addition, players who are attracted to the Game King machines tend to be less proficient players than those who play the single-game machine. If you see the ability to change games without moving as a “plus,” you’re probably not a very good player.
On this machine, a “fair” theoretical might well be 4% if the theoretical is done as a machine-average. If the player tracking system assigns the same theoretical to every game on that machine, then the slot department needs to pick that number. If they pick the number appropriate for 9/6 Jacks or Better, then the players of the lesser games are being short-changed. If they pick the number based on a machine average, then the players who play the loosest game on the box receive a dividend.
If the player tracking system can assign each game a different theoretical, then it shouldn’t matter which machine you play. But even if it’s possible to do so, assigning every game at every denomination a separate theoretical is a tedious job. Often the slot department chooses to take a machine-average shortcut.
So why does theoretical matter? Many “behind-the-scenes benefits” you receive are based on theoretical. In general, casinos are willing to return 10%-20% of the theoretical to the players. If you’ve played $20,000 coin-in over your trip, a 1% theoretical is $200 and 20% of that is $40. With a 4% theoretical, your share increases to $160.
Sometimes you get that back in hard-to-monetize ways (i.e. a free room upgrade) and sometimes it comes back to you as real cash money (i.e. whether you get $25 or $100 in free play on your next visit). If you played for higher denominations than dollars or for more hours, then the difference between these two figures grows.
At another time, I’ll discuss how to find out what the theoretical is at the various casinos where you play.