Good Times Pay video poker

I need to understand that playing an extra bet does not increase the EV. I know the pay table changes accordingly, but how about the occasional multipliers. Don't they have an effect on the return.  Confused, Denis

Supposedly the extra bets 6th-10th coins essentially "pay" for the multipliers and those multipliers keep the game exactly at same expected overall % back.  But buckle up for volatility with this game.  I call it bad times poker.  :)  

Most multiplier games, the multiplier feature provides a slight increase in EV compared to the base game. It's pretty much impossible for any such game to provide the exact same return as the base game.

That is what it says though on various websites.  I doubt it provides a boost because SP has NSUD on it at 99.73% and that games sits idle most of the time.  I'd think if it provided a boost it would be packed with locals, right?  

I asked Dancer once and he told me the base % was fixed in GTP as well.

No, because on multiplier games, a significant part of the EV is a "unicorn," a colloquial term for a royal with the maximum multiplier.  Non-unicorn play is lower than the EV of the base game.

Not sure of the exact figures, but at a multiplier occuring once every 17 hands, a 10X max multiplier happening 5 percent of those times, and a royal every 40,000 hands, that works out to one unicorn every 14,400,000 hands. Not gonna happen tomorrow 

So since a LOT of the locals' play at SP is to snort up whatever promo is being offered, they're going to go with low volatility rather than absolute maximum EV. It's the same reason why the absolute best game there usually sits idle.

Those GTP NSUD machines at SP have been there for ages.   As Jerry says, they're idle most of the time.  

Sure is fun when you can hit aces though with a good multiplier (7x is highest in GTP) but the odds are so stacked against that happening.  I used to play these games more because I felt I could hit something other than a royal for a big hit.  Yeah, it's possible but not very likely.  

If I'm going to play a multiplier game, I'd rather just go with single STP and pay the 6 coins per line.  But I believe the multiplier on STP shows up once every 14 hands and want to know how many royals with multipliers I've hit in that game in about 500K hands or so?  Yeah, that'd be zero.  But I see people hit them.  I'm just never one of them.  

My friend makes fun of me for playing simple old jacks or better.  Says it is incredibly boring.  But at least I can sit there and play the damn game for periods of time without feeling like I'm getting something shoved right down my throat.  

Hey, Kevin.  Southpoint is doing $300 for any quads in poker room 5/24-7/14.  Hell of a promotion actually as they still have their other promos too.  But have fun trying to stab a pot hitting the turn when nobody bets on the flop because many times the old locals are just quad hunting and sitting on their flopped sets.  I found that out the hard way many times last week.  

The other idiot promo effect happens with high hand, Monte Carlos, and bad beats: people flat calling preflop with KK or AA. I was had several times, before I learned better, that when I have AQ and the flop comes Qxx, I don't necessarily have the best hand--normally, I'd say, well, no one raised preflop, so my TPTK must be good. HONNNNK. WRONG. Old Man Rotting over there has KK and will just call you all the way down.

The any quads promo sounds nice, but I doubt that it adds much to your EV. I've made quads by the river, what--maybe ten times in my life? And of course, if they up the promo drop to pay for this promo, there would be no way it was worth it.

I hate these promos, because it turns the games from "poker" to "let's all sit here and masturbate until somebody catches a high hand." Maybe that's why South Point's so chock full of MAGA blather. The slowly rotting old men get bored waiting for quads, and they have to talk about their orange hero. Not unlike the ladies at the sewing circle sharing banana bread recipes. Of course, a loaf of banana bread never raped anyone, so the analogy isn't perfect.

They didn't up their promo drop so that is kind of nice.  I think it is just competition with WSOP going on.  They have to be taking it in the shorts over these 6 weeks at least.  But I definitely don't like how it dumbs down the game even further either.