Bob Dancer's new progressive games at the M

A "high probability", is variable, and for/to me depends on the math advantage, quantity of decisions, and the speed at which those decisions are made.

At most gambling games, a 1% advantage is something I consider as "likely" to produce a winning session, if my session is long enough.

But I do believe in long term, and advantage play.

Very nice, road trip. Now, let's get back to the question at hand. If you have two coin flips of tails are you likely to see a heads on the next flip? If you have two roulette spins of black are you likely to see red on the next spin? if you have gone through 48,000 hands of VP without a royal are you likely to see a royal on the next play?

Here's another question: If MoneyLA weren't saying these things would you still challenge them?

No, no, no, no.

If you spin the roulette wheel twice are you likely to see at least one black?
If you play 48,000 hands of VP are you likely to see a royal during that time?

I believe these new progressives have many similarities to bad beat jackpots offered in live poker rooms.

1. The cardroom collects a rake off of every hand / pot played. $1 to $3.

2. An additional $0.50 to $1 is also taken from every pot to feed the bad beat jackpot.

3. A cardroom likes to advertise a very high bad beat jackpot because that means more players and more rake collected.

4. The bad beat jackpot consists entirely of contributions from the players.

Bob Dancer states that 4% of the players' action will feed 8 machines, and therefore $1000 in action will add $5 to each of the 8 progressives. He doesn't state that on these 96.5% VP machines, that the casino is giving up their 3.5% advantage and kicking in an extra 0.5% to put these machines into postive EV territory.

What's happening is this. Of that $1000 of coin in, the casino holds $35 (on average) and $40 is spread out among the 8 different progressives. That means if you never hit the royal flush, you are essentially playing a less than 92.5% average payback machine.

Would the M casino give up their built in 3.5% edge, give players comps, bonus points days and cashback with only the hope that there will be enough mistakes made on the part of the players for them to be profitable? There has to be a built in edge and there is at 3.5% which they will always take first (just like the rake in a live poker game).

Once the progressives are huge, they can advertise and get even more players in to continually feed the progressives through the VP machines with the poorest pay tables. All in all, there are going to be a lot of losers with busted bankrolls and just a few big winners.

snidely... it is POSSIBLE but it is not LIKELY.

The only problem with that concept is that the paytables are a known commodity. The only way they could take the jackpot contribution before the hand and pay on the shorted bet is to not pay according to the published paytables, but start making fractional payments based on 96% of your bet...which they couldn't really do. So it's not like a bad beat contribution, it's more like pulling the jackpot money from the rake.

Be careful with those bad beat jackpots in poker rooms. Some poker rooms will take some of the jackpot pool as an "administrative fee." In the LA area, the "fee" is as much as 50% at some casinos. This is not advetised to the players. But you can find this out by asking for the bad beat rules -- and the contributions are explained along with the administrative fees. This is why you can ask to play at a "non jackpot" table at certain casinos where no bad beat contribution is taken.

"likely"

If people are going to discuss mathematical concepts then they should stick with mathematical definitions. Using terms such as "likely" does not have a mathematical definition. If one wants to use this term they need to define it precisely. For example, if you define likely as >80% then you now have something mathematical to talk about. Without that definition any attempt at a mathematical statement is useless.

"What's happening is this. Of that $1000 of coin in, the casino holds $35 (on average) and $40 is spread out among the 8 different progressives. That means if you never hit the royal flush, you are essentially playing a less than 92.5% average payback machine."

No, without a RF the return is 94.5%. A progressive does not change the base ER (ER of non-RF hands) of any game other than small amounts due to strategy changes.

I don't see why they couldn't do exactly that. The theoretical payback % supposedly occurs over "the long term". They do not have to adjust the paytable to give you 5.5 coins etc. on any 1 hand of VP. Let's say you do not hit a royal flush after putting $1000 through the machine. In theory, I say the casino makes $35 or so, the 8 progressives each grow by $5 and you have approximately $925 left in your bankroll. All the conditions have been satisfied.

arcimedes,

I don't know the exact % a RF contributes to any specific VP machine, but aren't you forgetting the additional 4% being taken out for the progressive? In theory, yes all of that additional 4% is paid back to the players, but if you do not hit the progressive, that money is gone. It's high risk high reward for sure.

Here's an example. Let's say someone devised a lottery that paid $1 billion dollars if you hit it. Tickets are only $1 each. The odds of you hitting it are only 500 million to 1. This has positive EV, but the chances of you ever hitting it are miniscule, and you are more likely to go broke than to win the $1 billion. That's what I think these machines are. Dancer stated himself, if you don't hit the royal, you'll lose a lot of money trying.