If someone were attempting to describe my “system” of winning at video poker, a reasonable 20-second summary would be:
- Only play when you have the advantage.
- Play within your bankroll.
- If you do the above, over time your bankroll will increase.
Yes, there are some nuances, but basically, that’s it. It’s not that complicated. It’s not something I can proclaim is original with me. It’s simply the way I do it, and it works.
I was playing a $1 9/5 Double Double Bonus progressive, where the royal was above $7,000, the aces with a kicker was at $2,300, 2s, 3s, and 4s with a kicker was at $840, and the aces without a kicker was at $820. Along with the slot club and promotions, in my opinion, it was playable. There were others playing for the progressives as well.
This time, I was the one who hit the royal progressive. (Not the usual result when there are multiple people trying for the same prize, and I’m not as fast as I used to be, but anyone participating and playing appropriately hits some of the time.) While the other knowledgeable players cleared out (because the house has a considerable edge on this game when the royal resets at $4,000), I stuck around and waited to be paid. Of course.
A student from my classes congratulated me and we chatted until I was paid. After they counted out the money, they asked me to play one more hand. Which I did. Then I cashed out.
The student asked some of the usual questions that all jackpot winners get, such as “How much money did you start with today?” I declined to answer specifically, other than to say this isn’t a game where your daily score matters that much. It’s a game where your monthly and yearly score matters much more.
She then asked me if there was a law saying I had to play one more hand after hitting a jackpot. The house did, after all, have an advantage on that hand and my rule is to only play when I have the advantage.
I answered that I could have legally refused to play it off. Sometimes the floor people know the law, and sometimes all they know is that their bosses tell them to get the player to play it off. If somebody refuses to do it, at minimum, that player is “written up” as some sort of a troublemaker and reported to the bosses.
Either way, I would draw unwanted attention to myself. Since I’m welcome to play unrestricted at few enough places, why would I do something that might get me complained about to the slot director?
Depending on the exact slot club and promotion, the casino had an edge of less than 1.5% on that one bet of $5. That’s a 7¢ expected loss. Sometimes it makes sense to not sweat the small stuff.
Another way to look at it is that yes, there was an expected loss of 7¢ by playing the hand. But there was a possibly bigger, although unknown, cost if I had refused. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. Including keeping my welcome, I consider playing one additional hand a positive play, even though it cost me 7¢ in EV.
I could have played one coin only with an expected loss of 5¢, which would have saved me a little, but that would also look strange to the floor person. That being a memorable encounter for the floor person was definitely not what I had in mind.
So, I tip a modest amount, (or I don’t tip at all, depending on factors I’ve discussed in other columns and will undoubtedly discuss again someday), play one hand, and then put my newly gained money away. The reason I do it in this order is that the floor persons generally leave when I play a hand and don’t even know how much I play beyond the one hand.
There are times, of course, when I would continue to play after picking up a W2G. If I hit the aces with a kicker hand when it was at, say, $2,020 because it had been hit by somebody else (or maybe even by me!) recently, the fact that it reset to $2,000 wouldn’t affect the playability of the game.
Or, because I play games with a 4,000-coin royal far more than I play progressives, hitting a jackpot doesn’t affect the playability of the game. The same odds that were in effect before I collected the jackpot remain unchanged on non-progressive games.
I’ve noticed they don’t seem to care about us playing off the winning hand after being paid , e.g. royal, or even a video reel slot win, like they used to. I thought it might be to avoid having someone walk up and claim they hit this jackpot. Of course that would have been futile even in older times. It doesn’t seem to matter to them anymore, at least where I play.
It really irritates me for someone to ask questions like how much did I start with, or comment that I am playing full coin, like that is some sort of insanity (well, maybe for them). I try to avoid telling people at home that I’m going on a casino trip, to avoid the inevitable question “Did you win?” Truthfully, I think they want to hear me say I lost. To that question, or the other one “Did you have a good time?” I put on a really happy face and give an enthusiastic “Yes!” That usually ends the discussion. And is always at least half right. LOL.
9,5 Double Double Bonus is about a 99 percent game. using about $2000 t0 $6000 to get it to 100%
How would you calculate the added value of the additional progressives?
Mathematically there is always some risk of bankroll shrinkage, but it does approach zero with time. At Nzero (variance/edge^2 hands) there is about 16% risk of bankroll shrinkage. At 4 times Nzero, the risk is reduced to about 2%. At 9 times Nzero, the risk is reduced to about 0.14%. This assumes you didn’t bust out (risk of ruin) before hand. And variance and edge have to be your true variance and edge that you can do in the casino, not the computer perfect numbers. And you can’t take money out of your bankroll for non-gambling purposes, unless you include that as a reduction in edge. There’s probably a few other gotchas I can’t think of at the moment.
There are people who fervently believe that playing a machine that just had a big payout is foolish not understanding the odds of a royal are just the same on the hand following the royal as on any other deal. Clearing the machine erases this “knowledge”.
While Bob’s 20-second approach is on the money, here are some suggested edits to the opening (edits in *)
1. Only play when you have *an* advantage.
2. Play within your bankroll.
3. If you do the above, over time your bankroll will *likely* increase.
Yes, there are some nuances, but basically, that’s it. It’s not that complicated. It’s not something I can proclaim is original with me. It’s simply the way I do it, and it works *for me*.
For the first edit … The advantage may not be purely cash money. For example, it may involve playing a negative expectation game to accrue enough Tier Points to get status with a casino. For example, Caesars Seven Stars status benefits are mostly soft — priority lines, lounge & spa access — however the retreat has an explicit value and the the cruise has an implied cost.
For the second edit … Even with adequate bankroll and playing only machines that offer an advantage, and while I infer that Rule #1 implies perfect play to arrive at results per stated EV, there still exists a mathematical possibility of overall loss, even with perfect or near-perfect play.
For the third edit … What works for Bob, may not work for Bill.
Though his edits are valid, with the exceptions of the unnecessary comma between ‘Bob’ and ‘may’ in his last sentence and his capitalizations following inappropriately employed ellipses, Skippy must be asked to avoid beginning consecutive sentences with, “For example, … .”
On one bet, you could not possibly lose 7 cents. You were either going to lose $5, break even, or win multiples of $5. I don’t think you would sweat the loss of $5 after winning $7,000.
By the way, did you win anything on the bet?
advanced three step:
1) the goal is to play with an edge, but realize that sometimes it may be “game theory optimal” to play with a negative edge
2) use the Kelly system so there is no risk of ruin, roughly speaking always bet less than your bankroll times the edge divided by the variance, you can find some exact Kelly numbers on the interwebs
3) make sure you can play enough to get into the “long term”, roughly speaking you want to play multiples of the Nzero (variance/edge^2 hands) to reduce your risk of bankroll shrinkage, but don’t kid yourself, bankroll shrinkage is possible, even with the Kelly system, that’s why they call it gambling (Dunbar has a table of Nzero numbers somewhere on the interwebs)
Ladies and Gentlemen, if the machines are truly random, what happens with your”system” when a machine or two fails to hit the Royal after pumping in 10-20 G’s ? or worse? If the games were truly random, it would mean the Casino owners are also gamblers right? NOT. I know this flys in the face of all you “professionals”, but I have some bad news for you. I owned a bar and I also had poker machines which I owned. I set my machines at a 50% pay back( which was very profitable) . We learned by not paying at least 50% the players got frustrated and dollars in dropped big time.The machines have an internal accounting program. A set of simple dip switches allows the operator to set them for whatever he chooses. You can spend thousands of hours and millions of dollars perfecting your “system”, but when that 100 dollar computer chip says “pay” x amount, you get paid. Sorry for the news.
oh, dear.
We know casinos can adjust the hold on a video poker machine based on the pay table.
Jim’s post has a lot of food for thought, but I kind of tend to disagree with it for the following reasons.
If a casino can adjust the hold on a video poker machine from the manufacturer the same way that they can adjust the hold on a slot machine, then: (1) casinos would have generous slot club benefits for video poker players; (2) casinos would have lucrative contests and promotions for video poker; and (3) casinos would be full of 9/6 jacks or better and 10/7 bonus poker machines.
With all of the above, players would flock to a casino in droves, but it would not hurt the casino’s bottom line.
In Nevada, the minimum slot payout is 75%, and games like video poker, video blackjack, video keno, video roulette, and video craps have to be fair, like the table games they are modelled on. Other states, like Oregon and Washington, allow “bingo style” video poker which is a ripoff and I think most people know this, but they undoubtably fool many tourists. IGT makes these types of machines, so just because a machine is IGT doesn’t mean it’s legit. There was a case of rigged progressive video poker in Nevada, the so-called American Coin Scam. They got caught because the machines could never hit a full coin royal. Can this ever happen in Nevada again?
In the GWAE G2E 2019 blog at the 30:20 mark they discuss the new IGT Class II video poker machines which make it optional whether or not you see the underlying bingo game. Dancer says without that you can’t tell it’s Class II, and slightly earlier they mention that new motherboards can be put in old machines, so that’s another way you can’t tell. There are Indian Casinos in Nevada, do they already use Class II? And how can gaming control possibly keep these Class II machines and motherboards out of the Class III casinos? The casinos of course love these because they fool people into thinking they can tell the return by the paytables when they actually can not. So you could have a 9-6 Jacks machine that returns 97% and it would take years of play to figure that out. Initially the player would just think they were running bad. The hardcore gamblers would just play until their bankrolls ran out.
This notion of Indian Casinos getting away with “not playing with a full deck” does concern me. I live in the Midwest and as such most of my frequent plays are in Indian casinos. I have done reasonably well nonetheless, however, I do have concerns from time to time that certain machines or properties may not be playing fair. I keep pretty good records but only play a few thousand hands in any given week which may not be enough to make a clear determination. So, I am curious to hear of any specific instances of rigged games or other telltale signs that could help me avoid failure. I trust the math to see me through a losing streak but really need to know if there is something that I can not trust.
Search on youtube for “class II video poker”.