I’ve had a relationship with Anthony Curtis for more than 25 years. Mostly it’s a business relationship, but over the years we’ve also become friends of sorts. Not best friends, but friends nonetheless.
I received a telephone call from him at about eight o’clock one Saturday evening recently. I took the call, of course, but this was a surprise. I would definitely not be his first choice on a call like, “Hey, I’ve got an extra ticket to the Raiders game tomorrow. You interested?”
This was about a video poker game that sounded like it might be too good to be true. One of the LVA subscribers had seen a Dream Card game at Resorts World before leaving town, and checked the pay schedule after getting home. It was more than 110% and was available in any denomination between 10¢ and $5.
The pay schedule was like regular Bonus Poker, except it paid 45 for the full house, 35 for the flush, 25 for the straight, and 20 for 3-of-a-kind instead of the normal 40, 25, 20, and 15 for these same hands. Anthony told me he had a picture of the screen, and this was real.
Anthony was too busy getting LVA ready to try it himself, so he offered it to me. Anthony proposed some sort of money split on the profits. We didn’t get too far into this particular negotiation because I turned the deal down quickly. Presumably the guy who told Anthony about the game would get a piece of it, as would Anthony himself, and I’d keep the lion’s share.
If I were really planning on doing this, I would probably have rejected Anthony’s first offer and gone for a bigger share for myself and a smaller share for the other two. Or had a discussion of how potential losses would be shared. Whatever. In a negotiation, everything is on the table and it’s rarely a good idea to accept the first offer.
I rejected the offer because Bonnie and I had the next day fully planned and the chance to earn a few extra bucks would not be a good enough reason to cancel our plans. Earlier in my career when I was struggling financially, a good play would have trumped whatever social activity I had planned. But fortunately, we not struggling financially anymore.
Plus, I was very suspicious. I’d been to Resorts World. While they do have 8/5 Bonus (99.17%) in the High Limit Room, the games on the main floor where you can play 10¢ to $5 have an average return of about 96% to 98%. I strongly doubted that any 110% game was actually there.
So, I passed, and assured Anthony I wouldn’t go and play the game on my own now that I knew about it. This would have been a way for me to benefit from the game without giving Anthony and the subscriber their shares, but that’s not who I am. I appreciated getting the call, and potentially I’ll accept the next offer that comes along, but this was not the one. I didn’t want to burn any bridges.
My refusal wasn’t distressing to Anthony. He had other people on his list. I was the first because the subscriber had mentioned my name. For which I’m grateful.
But I still thought about the game. It turns out there are two separate games with “Dream Card” in the name. One, the newer one, is just called Dream Card, while the older one is called Draw Poker with Dream Card.
The games play the same, but they’re different. They are both 10-coin games. In the older game, the Dream Card feature always adds a bit (0.1% or so) to the return on the game. In the newer game, this might not be true. In the newer game, you get far fewer Dream Cards, but the ones that you do get are more valuable.
The way this works, I think, is that when the system is triggered to give you a Dream Card, the machine actually deals three hands in the background and deals you the one that returns the most.
As it happened, Anthony and I spoke the next day. Not on purpose, but accidentally. I unknowingly “butt dialed” him when my cell phone was in my pocket, and he returned the call.
I told him that I wasn’t at all certain the game was anywhere near positive.
“What do you mean‽” Anthony exclaimed. “I ran it on software and it’s more than 110%. How can that not be positive‽”
I told him it’s a 10-coin game and the software assumed it’s a five-coin game. If there were no Dream Cards, a 10-coin game that seems to be 110% is actually worth only 55% when translated to five coins. With the Dream Cards added, the game is worth quite a bit more than that, but it’s hard to say how much more.
The game was designed by videopoker.com and manufactured by IGT. Both companies employ pretty impressive mathematicians. It’s doubtful that they would have released a game with such a big mistake on it. It’s possible, of course, and I’m always on the lookout for mistakes, but if I had to guess, I would predict the game is worth 97.5%.
Anthony thanked me and stopped considering the game as a godsend.
Turns out I wasn’t spot on in my prediction. The game actually is worth 98.5968% according to the Wizard of Odds website. This may well be the highest-returning video poker game at Resorts World outside of the High Limit Room.
If you decide you wish to play it, please note that the higher returns for various pay schedule categories (the flush and the straight especially), will change your strategy considerably compared to regular Bonus Poker. You’ll need to work out your own strategy using whatever computer tools you have because the correct plays haven’t been published anywhere insofar as I know.
For me, though, even though the game turned out to be more than 1% looser than my prediction, 98.6% isn’t nearly high enough to be interesting to me.
Never miss another post
“Turns out I wasn’t spot on in my prediction.” – BD
Many of your long time readers are not surprised.
Interesting situation. First off, if it were really a 110% $5 play, that would be a pretty hard opportunity to pass up. New play strategy so lets say you only play it at 108%. And since it is a new game, you play more slowly, 800 hand per hour. $20,000 coin in at 8% is $1600/hour. That would be very hard to pass up.
Deciding the split would be the more difficult part. But if the EV was really that high, giving up 3% of the EV would still leave you with a $1000/hour play.
This just goes to show that the adage is almost always right: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t true. So often, things aren’t what they seem, because some detail got left out, or something was reported incorrectly, or there’s a condition that must be in effect for something to be the case.
I remember, many years ago at the Golden Gate, back when it was a quaint little casino that had nooks and crannies in the casino-floor layout, and the cute little Cable Car Burger Bar, there was a machine that I had never seen before, or since. It involved a glass/plastic enclosed 3-D space where some action occurred, a little bit like those machines that push coins across a flat and down to you. (Sorry I don’t remember the name of the machine or exactly what the physical setup and activity were.) I watched it operate for a long time and did the math in my head, and the game had a positive EV. I didn’t actually play the game right then, but I wrote to an e-friend about it, and to my surprise, he said that he knew about the game and that it had been figured out to have an EV that was below 100%. So in the “demo” mode the machine operated differently than it did in “actual-play” mode. I know this isn’t an exact parallel to the article’s situation; it’s just an example of how something can initially be observed to be a certain way but in practice it turns out to be some other way.
Online casinos generally give more blackjacks and more Royal Flushes in play-for-free demo mode vs. live-money real mode, right?
The “trick” that Station Casinos, along with other local casino operators, did when they started the players club system, they used to offer points based on play on all machines equally, that is slots and videopoker, video-keno, vintage machines, new machines, all of them were rated equally. 1 dollar coin-in = 1 point, any game, any machine. Videopoker players very soon began to realize the true value of playing high percentage machines and taking advantage of the 3x /5x/ 10x points days, whatsoever. Boyd had similar systems, so did most other casinos. It turned out that after a few years these casinos started pulling the screws in a way that they first started to eliminate the super high return machines from promotions, or, as some casinos do, they required more and more play on those machines to grant points to the players. By reducing the point value you are forcing the players to play more in order to get the same amount of comps and cash back that you used to get. It absolutely hurt me when Boyd changed their 3-tier system into a 5 (or 6?) tier system. Emerald status used to be a great way to get some goodies for heavy play and get a few free nights every time during my stay in Las Vegas, but now this has all become worthless. In my opinion, videopoker players at Boyd/Station, and the Strip properties, stand no chance to earn decent amount of points to make it worthwhile playing there, which is sad. It’s sad because even with the points that the players used to earn it was good for the house because a lot of people came to play and I believe that play volume after those changes has gone down. Especially locals casinos that absolutely depend on loyal customers (mostly locals), they should take that into consideration when making such decisions. The casinos can only make up for that by having more and new players come to the casino until they find out that it’s not actually worth playing there.
The next step was to cut the number of high percentage games or take them entirely of the floor. So, what used to be a great place to play becomes more and more “just another place to play”, the good places are rare and hard to find. However, some good machines and casinos with good conditions can still be found. At least you get more play for your money than you’d get if you’d play at other casinos. It’s sad how things have turned out to be. 20 years back, it was so different and really fun playing in most Vegas’ casinos. Those days are long gone, less good games, resort fees, paid parking, etc. In the 90s, when the Mirage was the Ultimate Center of Poker Action, they even had good slots and videopoker games, I remember that. Today, it’s all gone. And the poker room has become microscopic.
From Switzerland
Boris
I would assume that a worker at Resorts World who set a video poker machine to give a 110% game would be immediately fired from their job, especially one at small denominations… Until the market forces the casinos to offer better games and smaller minimums, we will have to continue in this era where they have zero incentive to change things. Your feet are the only leverage you have at a casino, if you refuse to use your feet to go elsewhere, the casino will use their feet to trample you. Personally, I will never forget that in tough times the casinos tried and succeeded at jacking up minimums and putting pressure on the very players it needs to survive. Here I was rooting hard for them when they had to close down, and they rewarded my advocacy by trying to turn me upside down… Hopefully revenge will be sweet…
Face reality – casinos have become very savvy about any and all table games and machines they offer for gambling – they have bastions of “bean counters” whose real function is to make sure that there are no gaming offerings that are positive expectations for the suckers/gamblers to take advantage of for possible profit. If a very rare exception should occur, the casinos rapidly adjust the rules or software to correct any and all “mistakes”. Don’t think for a second that these “bean counters”and casino management don’t read such information sources, such as the Advisor, and act swiftly on any reported positive expectation games that are posted. If, per chance a positive expectation glitch should be found by any gambler, keep it to yourself and do not tell anyone.
I always did wonder about that – do slot techs have free rein to set pay tables at whatever they want? or are there preset pay tables that they can select from?
Rules to live by:
1. Never rat on your friends.
2. Always keep your mouth shut.
3. “Never tell anyone outside the family what you are thinking.” (Vito Corleone)
“Online casinos generally give more blackjacks and more Royal Flushes in play-for-free demo mode vs. live-money real mode, right?”
James, I suspect this is true for the vast majority of unregulated online casinos available in the US. But we cannot be certain because the inner workings of their RNGs are a complete mystery.
Would a regulated online casino in—say— New Jersey do this? I’m not certain. If so, it would not matter to APs who examine the payback on real-money games and bonuses before deciding to play. On the other hand, a generous play-for-free mode may entice casual players.
I’m sure I’m naive on this point, but is it not OK to just let someone whom you know go check out an interesting (and potentially profitable) new game you heard about without having to negotiate revenue spilts down the line? You know, I mean, just out of the “goodness of your heart” and all that jazz? I feel it’s a little like, “Here’s a 20% Off Bed, Bath and Beyond coupon. Just make sure you kick me back half of what you saved.” Yikes.
I visited a new (to me) casino when it first reopened from Civic because there were machines in high limit that were reported in VPFree2 to have several playable games.
But all the VP machines were shut down so I asked an attendant if one or more could be turned on. I told her I had come to the casino from another state specifically to play high limit vp. After a long conversation including a supervisor, they had a tech come over who just turned on one machine.
When I sat down and looked at the pay tables, however, what should have been 9/5 or 8/6 were all 6/5. So there are obviously a variety of pay tables they can set the machine to and the default was something approximating cruise ship tables.
When I got up and started to walk away, the supervisor asked why I was leaving. I told him I wasn’t going to play at those odds which were much worse than pre-pandemic.
Bob before you ran the numbers you did the right thing by turning down Anthony’s offer. First off if you already had plans set with the wife that would’ve been the primary reason to turn down the offer. Next, doing a three-way split doesn’t sound enticing enough to get off the couch as I would want it all for myself, or a split between one other person. Last of all if you don’t need the cash and are financially set I wouldn’t be in any hurry to go to any casino no matter what the game is or the edge. The games are going nowhere.
GURUPERF,
VPFree2 seems to have a lot of incorrect information. On more than one occasion, it has listed full-pay 9/6 JoB at a local casino. But each time I have gone to look there were not any better than 8/6 or 9/5. I guess we shouldn’t expect too much; it is free, after all.
I thought I discovered a gold mine when I first learned VP. I found a game on an Indian reservation that had pay tables that computed to 103-104%. I started playing, and noticed after a little while that I had never been dealt a pair which seemed strange. It turns out the game had a bingo game running in the background that predetermined what you would win or lose on the hand — your discards did not matter, the final hand was determined by the bingo game. I didn’t play long enough to lose much, and don’t remember whether I won or lost, but I did learn something.
Quite true with VPFree – a lot of that info is out of date and many machines aren’t on there. I remember there was a machine at Main Street Station that returned over 100% when their scratch cards were included, but it wasn’t on the database. I’ve even had the monitors shuffle off some of my emails to their SPAM folder.