The American Casino Guide is a handy reference book for gamblers. It includes articles, maps of casinos in every state, and lots of coupons. Over the years, some of my articles have been included. On-line, there are also podcast interviews of various gambling experts — again including me as well as many others. The reference material contained in the book changes little from year to year, but the coupons expire annually. If you actually use the coupons, purchasing the book every year is a smart buy and an excellent value. If you don’t use the coupons but you travel to a lot of casinos around the country, buying the book every five years or so makes sense.
I recently heard one of the American Casino Guide podcast interviews featuring Linda Boyd called “10 Reasons Why Jacks or Better is the Best Video Poker Game to Play.” This podcast featured a mix of correct and incorrect information. To someone who doesn’t know much about video poker, it was probably persuasive. And that’s too bad because much of the information was debatable at best and at worst, just plain wrong.
Boyd’s main point — which is expressed in about half of her 10 reasons — is that Jacks or Better has a lower variance than Double Double Bonus and good things will happen to you when you play games with a lower variance. There is no argument with which game has the lower variance – Jacks or Better. But she logically jumped from “lower variance” to a whole host of conclusions with varying degrees of merit.
Whether or not a game with a lower variance is a better choice or not depends on your preferences. It’s a chocolate versus vanilla decision. Different people have different preferences and neither is objectively right or wrong.
While she mentions 9/6 as the pay schedule she prefers, it gets lost in the shuffle. Some of the videos in the background show 9/6 and some show 8/5 Bonus Poker. (She doesn’t mention Bonus Poker in the video, even though it’s displayed in the background. While it may or may not be a better choice than Jacks or Better, depending on which pay schedules are available in a particular casino and denomination, Bonus Poker pays the same 2-for-1 for Two Pair as does Jacks or Better and most of her arguments concerning Jacks or Better apply equally to Bonus Poker as well.) One can easily conclude from her video that playing 8/5 Jacks or Better is a better choice than 9/6 Double Double Bonus — even though the latter returns 1.7% more. She may well personally prefer the 8/5 Jacks or Better choice, but she presents it as a fact rather than her opinion. And it’s an opinion with which I strongly disagree.
She tells you that Jacks or Better is a core game found on Three Play (sic), Five Play, Quick Quads, and Multi Strike. Not really. On most Triple Play games, you will NOT find a game listed on the main menu screen as ‘Jacks or Better.’ You’ll find a game called ‘Triple Play,’ which is the same as Jacks or Better, but you usually won’t find a game listed as ‘Jacks or Better.’ And while you may find Jacks or Better on Quick Quads or Multi Strike machines, she neglects to mention that the strategies for these games are very different from regular Jacks or Better.
She says you get more comps, slot club points, and mailers when you play Jacks or Better than Double Double Bonus. Her argument is that the variance is lower on Jacks or Better so you get to play longer. It’s just not that simple and it varies from place to place. Harrah’s casinos, for example, assign a MUCH lower theoretical return if you play 9/6 Jacks or Better than if you play any Double Double Bonus game. For the same amount of coin-in, you’ll actually receive FEWER comps, slot club points, and mailers if you play the game she recommends.
There might be some casinos where, say, 9/5 Jacks or Better offers the best combination of return, mailers, comps, etc., but this is a game she ignores. And the casino can change the theoretical returns on the game at any time so this game may not be the best game at that casino next time.
If you want to learn the game, she recommends her book, “The Video Poker Edge.” While all authors, including me, recommend their own books, her book arguably has worse strategies than any other author. Her best 9/6 Jacks strategy returns about 99.45% — compared to 99.544% for perfect play— and her strategy has a significant learning curve because it’s so different from all the others. (My opinion is based upon reading the first edition of her book. She now apparently now has a second edition out. I have no idea what has changed between the two editions. I did publicly point out several of her strategy errors in the first edition. If she, correctly, assumed that my criticism was well-intentioned, she may have used that to improve her product. If she concluded that I was just a mean guy who was picking on her for some unfathomable reason, she may have left the strategies the way they were.) She claims her husband finds her strategy easier to use. What she doesn’t talk about is how much private instruction he received. Even simplified Jacks or Better strategies return 99.52% — and authors, such as Paymar, Scott, Wizard of Odds, and others, all include at least one version that returns at least 99.540%.
So do I, therefore, conclude that Jacks or Better ISN’T the best video poker game? Sort of… but not exactly. That game is in the mix to be sure, but there is no “one-game-fits-all-players-casinos-and-stakes” answer. I do play a couple of different versions of Jacks or Better, but I also play Double Double Bonus Quick Quads, Double Double Bonus Ultimate X, Bonus Poker, Double Bonus Deuces Wild, NSU Deuces Wild, and a few other games as well. My list today is not identical to my list from a year ago. If I were a quarter player, my game choices would be quite different and, in Las Vegas anyway, likely wouldn’t include ANY version of Jacks or Better.
Are the nuances I describe too complicated for some players? Perhaps. But if you can’t understand those differences, you’re never going to be a winning player. Successful gambling is all about understanding the details and differences among games, strategies, promotions, and slot clubs.