I hit a $2 NSU Deuces Wild royal recently — from left to right Q♣ K♣ A♣ T♣ J♣. It’s not an unusual royal in any respect. It was a one card draw with the queen coming in as desired.
The next day, 22 clock hours later but only four hours of video poker play, I hit a $1 9/6 Jacks or Better royal in the exact same Q♣ K♣ A♣ T♣ J♣ order. This time I needed to draw both the queen and the ace to collect.
So, I asked myself the same question that I’ve received from others so many times: How rare is this? I suggest you come up with a number before we continue.
I’m omitting the fact that the two royals required a different number of cards to be drawn — although, frankly, if they had matched there too, I’d have included that into the mix. The tradition in these exercises is to add in any and everything you can to make your event more unique than a similar situation. If you can make your event be 1-in-2,000,000, that’s twice as good as being only a mere 1-in-1,000,000.
I’m omitting the fact that it was two royals in only four hours of play. Calling it two royals in four hours starts the clock when I hit the first royal. It was also two royals in 76 hours of play. But it was about a tenth of a royal cycle before I hit the second one and you have about a 1-in-11 chance of connecting on something in a tenth of a cycle.
And I’m limiting the discussion to single line games. For all who have been dealt four-to-the-royal on Triple Play through Hundred Play and connected on more than one royal, all those royals on the same deal were alike. It can happen drawing to three-of-fewer-to-the-royal as well, but that’s not so common.
The number I get is that there is a 1-in-480 chance that your next royal be in the same suit-and-rank order as the last one you got. One way to figure this out is you have a 1-in-4 chance to be the same suit. Once the suit is determined, you have a 1-in-5 chance (queen in this case) for the first card to be in the correct position. Then 1-in-4, 1-in-3, and 1-in-2 for the next three cards. Once those have been determined, the last card is predetermined. Multiplying all of those out, you get 1-in-480.
Which isn’t that rare. Even if I multiply it by 11 because the second one happened in one-tenth of a cycle. Frequently in video poker we can come up with shots that are more than 1-in-1,000,000. This doesn’t come close to that.
Over a lifetime, it figures that a lot of us will do this. I don’t know exactly how many single-line royal flushes I’ve had, but it’s probably 400-500 or so (and probably three times that many on multi-line machines) and there are only 480 different ways for a royal to be. It’s very possible I’ve done this previously and not realized it.
I don’t have photographs of most of my royals and even if I remember that I hit two diamond royals four days apart, I wouldn’t be sure of the order of the cards. It’s just not something that makes a big impression on me.
But this time, since I happened to take pictures (Bonnie still gets a kick out of them and asked me why I sent the same picture twice), I saw them side-by-side and noticed they were the same order.
I created this article immediately after I hit the second royal described above. Nine days later I hit another single-line royal, also in clubs, with the cards in the same order — sort of. If you shift all of the cards two positions to the right (or three to the left), using some sort of wrap-around feature, the cards are in the same order.
I’m not going to attempt to figure out how likely this was for a next royal. It’s not an exact match, and there are a variety of different ways that an inexact match could be similar.
Still, I think it’s curious and interesting.
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Bob,
I recall that some joints used to pay a large bonus if you hit a royal in sequence-either way.
Do any places still have that feature?
Do you recall ever hitting one in sequence? I would guess out of your 500 royals you must have had a few in sequence.
Thx
Burt
Hi Burt, how is it going?
Last time I looked at vpfree2.com, Jerry’s Nugget had 25 cent sequential royal machines. I think going one direction the royal paid $12,000, the other direction $17,000. I don’t know if the machines are actually there or not. I think (years ago) they did have them.
Harrah’s Las Vegas had one quarter sequential royal machine.. I don’t recall a difference in the jackpot amount R-L or L-R. But it was a huge amount (for a sequential). Don’t know if it is still there.
I’ve had considerably more than 500 royals, but most of them have been on multi-line games. I remember a few sequential royals, the most notable of which, for a couple of different reasons, was a $20,000 dealt sequential while playing off free play!
Showboat in AC used to have a bank of 4.
I was showing it to my college age daughter who happened to be at House of Blues for a concert and low and behold we were dealt four, though out of sequence. I let her hit the play button and she got the royal for me. It was one of those deals that it was a straight and we simply needed to change the suit of the face. She though she was entitled to the whole thing, but we fix that up pretty quickly!
It looks like you weren’t playing full pay on the last one. Of course 40k is not so bad. 200k would be better!
Not in the same league, but two weeks ago, I was playing deuces wild and got 4 deuces twice in about 10 minutes. I showed my friend the pictures and he noticed that all four deuces were in the exact same position both times!
There are a handful of quarter machines at the downtown Cal that pay a $25K bonus for a sequential RF but only in diamonds (Diamond Head machines). Having been playing VP for maybe 20 years (about 30 days annually) I never had a sequential royal until last fall when I needed the queen of diamonds in the middle and drew it, but of course NOT on one of the Diamond Heads! That was on a single line 9/6 DDB quarter machine. Then two days later while playing a single line 8/5 TBP quarter machine I held JA of spades in the 2-5 positions and drew the rest for another sequential RF! I’ve often thought of writing you (Bob) and asking about the probability of ending a hand with a sequential royal either way. BTW my wife and I and our two adult gambling nieces all have our own copies of your software… and I attended one of your classes back in the day on SDB at El Cortez, very helpful.
I’ve notice that Candy Wright and Bob Munro always post relevant responses that have a lot of data and interesting stuff in them. Keep your advantage player responses coming on this message board! Thanks!
Speaking of club royals, the last 5 royals I’ve hit have all been clubs, and of those 5, 3 of them needed exactly the Jack of clubs. VP does some wacky things.
Craziest event I have a had in a 20 plus year span, had a dealt full house, three hands in a row…if I am doing the math correctly, this has a probability of 334,255,384 to 1……(odds of a dealt full house 694 to 1)
I would guess that the probability of ending a hand with a sequential royal is just the probability of ending the hand with a regular royal multiplied by 1/60.
Interesting scenario of a very rare but very occurance. The first thing I wondered was if this article was newly written or if it was from your archive. I am just curious because from what I know in Las Vegas not so many casinos are offering 2 dollars NSUD any longer. Gold Coast had it as far as I recall, but these good machines are hard to find these days.
The 80,000 Dollar Royal Flush was of course the topping of the pie. Such hits are very sweet. Congratulations 🙂
From Switzerland,
Boris
Speaking of whacky things in VP, my first three one-card royals were all holding the Ace of Spades!
The term “full pay” does not refer to the number of coins you are betting, but rather to the pay schedule. this was a $2 9/6 Jacks machine (definitely considered full pay by most) where all bets between 5 coins and 50 coins would be paid 800-for-1 for the royal. (50 coins would result in a $80K royal, not $200K). in my blog in two weeks, I’ll discuss why I choose to play $50 per hand on these machines.
On these same machines, you can play $5 up to 50 coins. That, indeed, gets you to $200,000. But this particular machine didn’t have 9/6 Jacks at the $5 level. And playing a 97.3% version of Jacks or Better for $250 per hand is definitely NOT better than playing a 99.5% version of the game for $50 at a time.
I used to regularly play $125 a hand there (for a $100K royal) when they had NSU Deuces Wild. those games are long gone.
All three of these were in August 2020. $2 NSU game was played at South Point. Pretty sure Gold Coast no longer has them.
The final royal was only $40,000, not $80,000. I’ll discuss the sizing of this bet in two weeks. Machines at Dotty’s exist so you earn $200,000 royals betting 50 $5 coins at a time, but this particular machine didn’t include that pay schedule at the $5 level (although another machine in the property did).
There are indeed two sequential royals out of 120 possible positions — which does come out to be 1/60. If you’re on a machine that pays a big bonus for sequentials, it makes sense to “go for them.” A simple example, if you’re playing 9/6 Jacks and are dealt ‘KQJ’ K5, the right play is usually KK. But if you’re on a machine where a big bonus exists for a sequential, and KQJ are in correct sequential order, you definitely go for the royal. This will make sequentials on these machines more likely than 1/60 of all royals.
Speaking about adjusting play on a sequential / rerversible progressive machine…. Palace Station has a few machines with this feature, and I found 2 banks at Red Rock plus one bank at Aliante Casino. Palace Station has a few versions for quarter and dollar denom, but the cycle until you finally make your perfect hand may be limitless and you may be through with your life before you finally hit one perfect sequential royal flush.
At red rock, there is abank nearby the restrooms between the poker room and the high limit section. And there is a bank adjacent to the movies entrance. I have regularly played on the Optimum Play machines that are located to the very right of the bank with the progressive for a sequential. Once I saw that the progressive meter was over 68,000 Dollars. So I decided to play 200 dollars on that bank. I was a ware that the game was a miserable 8-5 ddb version so money doesn’t last long unless you hit a four-of-a-kind. I think it’s just like playing the lottery and on a good day you may see the sun and money will come your way. Most of the times you will end up a loser.
From Switzerland / Boris
Hey Gary, Check this out: It occured to me once that I made 4 deuces at red rock on a full-pay version (2-3-5-9…etc), I was very excited about it as I love to play deuces wild. I was fooling around with the neighbor player and also took a picture for nostalgic reasons. I remember that I must have dropped something , a napkin, a bottle of water or so. Anyways, I bent down to pick up that thing and at the same time I pressed the deal button again. when I bent back up again and looked at the screen I saw “my 4 deuces” still on the screen so my first guess was that something was weired. I also noticed that the deuces were in a row but I remember that the deuces had a gap when I took the picture moments before. Just to find out that right after hitting 4 deuces on the redraw I got dealt 4 deuces again on the very next draw. Ok, it was just another 250 dollars, but it’s one of the moments that a tourist like me takes home a souvenir. A night to remember 🙂
Yes, the Southpoint is one last true resort for good videopoer gamble. I completely disregarded this option. Even on a “standard points day”, 0.33 club is a good extra on a 99.73% machine. Since according the software I have in my computer, my play is not 100 per cent perfect, but from a European tourist’s point of view, my play is ok. i focus on promotions play and pick the best possible games, plus I have my cheat-sheets with me. So the results are good. what keeps me from playing the higher denominmation games is the fact that they charge me 30 per cent tax rightaway, ignoring completely the fact that I also lose money until I finally hit something. I think this is unfair and therefore the highest I play is dollar machines, mostly even lower. Just to avoid the big taxes. I paid 3x 600 dollars last time when they paid me 2000 dollars for the royal. It hurts to get only 1400 each time , but it’s the rule that I have to accept. Some casinos are generous and offer me hotel rooms. It’s the casinos that get my action. Southpoint never offered me a hotel room yet, that’s why I prefer Station Casinos or the Goldcoast.
Bob,
Earlier this year, I was playing $.25 DB. About 15 minutes in, I drew the Qc to a royal.
About *five hands* later, I drew – yep – the Qc to another royal!
That was the beginning of an amazing session. I hit two straight flushes. Also hit quad deuces, treys, mines and queens. Smiled all the way home. 😃
Llew