Is Atlantic City Video Poker No Longer Random Draw?

Yesterday at Harrah’s, a fellow VP player told me that VP in New Jersey is no longer required to be a random draw. Have the VP machines in Atlantic City casinos been re-classified? Do they no longer have the random draw RNG chip? Are they now considered like slots with a % return? If so, when did this change occur?

We asked around among our video poker and advantage play experts and none had heard anything about this. One was emphatic: "I'll put to shame New Jersey, any slot maker, or any casino having any part of this."

He added, "I can say the video poker in Germany is not a random draw, at least cheating games by Novomatic." But other than that, nothing. Zilch. Zippo. Zero.

It sounds like a story started by someone who doesn't understand one VP nuance or another that's been passed around, finally arriving at us.

Have the VP machines in Atlantic City casinos been re-classified? Do they no longer have the random-draw RNG chip?

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Comments

Kevin Lewis Dec-07-2019

What assurance do we have?

I have never, in forty years, seen a surprise inspection of a VP machine or slot--where someone from Gaming would march onto the floor, seize a machine, open it up, and dump its programming. I have also never heard of anyone complaining about a casino, or one or more machines in a casino, and gaming taking the complaint seriously and auditing it/them.

So we have to depend on the tender mercies of gaming regulators and our abiding faith in the scrupulous honesty of the process. Those who make their living selling gambling books and software have a vested interest in fostering that faith. I for one have seen far too many very, very strange things to have such blinkered faith. And yes, yes, I realize that whatever sample size I might derive from my personal experience is much too small to use to derive a definitive conclusion. But i do sniff the air from time to time, and I often catch a whiff of something awfully rank.

Dave in Seattle. Dec-07-2019

Trust.

Always question the legal issues of a "machine".
Is it in compliance? Who oversees the RNG to verify it's randomness?Class 1,2 or 3? Bingo garbage,like native American VP machines are a goofy way to pretend to be a viable alternative to a true RNG chip,so why would you play it?
Why would you play bingo?
Las Vegas VP has a true RNG chip that the game is NOT rigged to a certain percentage.Your game level of skill  determines the casino VIG. 99.45% is OK with me.
Always question the legality of a machine that SUCKS in your cash.
"Machine malfunctions voids any payouts"or some other disclaimer.

jay Dec-07-2019

Fear the unknown

If you have a Bally Game Maker or IGT Game King the machines are pretty standard regardless of where they are located. You can look at the paytable displayed and the expected payout is very obvious. If you walk up to a ronco-poker-matic (a made up name btw) that you have never heard before fear the unknown as it may behave differently. 

A slot and VP both use a RNG it’s just that a poker is pick 1 of 52 and a slot is pick 3 of 16384. The difference really is that you know how many cards are in a deck and with a paytable that is clearly displayed the statistics are predictable. With a slot (especially video slots) you don’t know how many  reel stops there are on each reel nor how many of each symbol are on each reel so that number I quoted of 16384 would vary widely.

Question of the Day - 07 December 2019

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