How do you make 10/7 DB a -EV game?

In Illinois anyway, first you adhere to the regulation that the base value of all video poker games be under 100%. Knock the SF and 5-K 4K pays from 250 to 239 to get the payback to 99.79%. Then reduce cashback to .15%, making the overall expected return 99.94%. (Cashback had recently been .25%. So the change, albeit slight, reduced the game from +EV to -EV.)

The depressing part to me is that a once generous midwest casino is now offering Las Vegas-like cashback on lower paying games. In the early '90s and well into the '00s this same joint, albeit in a different location and under different management, had real fullpay 10/7 DB (100.17%) with 1.00% cashback.

Don't expect to see those days again.

It incentivizes gamblers to go back to vegas. I know that's true for me. I hardly touch the Indiana casino's anymore except to play craps at Hollywood, Lawrenceburg. They've got 10x odds with $5 minimums. But I don't touch any machines in that place or anywhere else in the state now.