Question of the Day - 16 June 2019

[Editor's Note: Jean Scott was the obvious choice to answer this question. She put together The Frugal Video Poker Scouting Guide, a very handy booklet of pay schedules for the most popular VP games that details the return for each game, designed to make finding profitable video poker games in any casino easy for anyone. Take it, Jean.] 

When I was compiling information for The Frugal VP Scouting Guide, one of the biggest challenges I faced was deciding just which paytables to include for each game. You wouldn't believe how many different schedules I found. Even I was amazed.

So after consulting with a lot of video poker players, I picked what seemed to be the most common ones, making sure those included games with the best total expected theoretical value (EV). That's what wise players are looking for. 

However, I also included "bad" games -- that is, low-paying ones -- so players would know to avoid those.  I ended up with almost 200 paytables. Still, I couldn't include them all, so some of the "crazy" schedules out there aren't covered by the Scouting Guide. 

Speaking specifically of Jacks or Better (sometimes called Draw Poker or on multi-line machines it might be labeled simply "Triple Play," "Five Play," etc.), I found many different paytables for that game, but finally chose eight, since that was the most I could squeeze into one chart. These range from a high return of 99.54% to a pocket-emptying 95%. One note here: Each chart also lists the return of each game if played on Multi-Strike or Super Times Pay, both of which boost the EV of the base game. It also gives you breakeven points if you're playing a progressive.

As far as Deuce games go, there seem to be as many as stars in the sky! I had to include seven different charts in the Guide. In addition to those titled simply Deuces Wild, where I included nine different varieties, there are Double Deuces, Triple Pay Deuces, Loose Deuces, Deuces Wild Bonus Poker, Double Bonus Deuces Wild, and Super Bonus Deuces Wilds, all with multiple varieties.

It's a Deuces jungle out there and you definitely need a Scouting Guide to keep you from being eaten alive.