The Vegas Stats & Information Network radio studio is located in the middle of the South Point casino floor, and periodically I’ve been a guest of the early morning show hosted by Paul “Paulie” Howard and Mitch Moss. Paulie mentioned that he found the DDB progressives interesting and wanted me to talk on the show about when you should get on the machine.
Such numbers do not make for good radio, especially since some of the listeners are probably driving to work and can’t take the time to write down anything. When I was last on the program on June 29, I gave some numbers and said that I’d be going into greater detail in my July 17 blog. And here we go!
If you’re serious about progressives, you should get Frank Kneeland’s “The Secret Guide to Video Poker Progressives.” That has by far more useful information on progressives than you’ll find anywhere else.
For today, I’ll assume you’re just going to be playing the game occasionally — and basically want to know how to figure the return on the game.
The game in question at the South Point contains a number of progressives, but does NOT have a progressive on the straight flush. Today I’m going to assign a number to the straight flush progressive because this same progressive is found in numerous casinos — sometimes with a progressive and sometimes without.
In addition to telling you how to evaluate the game, I also want to explain how I came up with the numbers. That way readers who are interested can apply the same technique to other progressives.
You’re going to need computer software to analyze progressives. I’m going to use Video Poker for Winners and WinPoker as those are the ones I use regularly and know well. If you have Wolf Video Poker, that can work as well. While it’s not quite as user-friendly, the wizardofodds.com has a free calculator you can use online. For many, it’s hard to beat free.
To start with, we need the base return of this dollar game, which is 97.87%. We’re going to be coming back to this base game over and over again.
To see how the progressive on the royal increases the return, I’ll set the royal on the game to 8000 coins. When I do this, I see the return is close to 100.13%. Assuming the return increases linearly (not completely accurate, but close enough for the analysis we’re going to be doing today), this means that when the royal increases $4,000, the value of the game increases 2.26%. Dividing by 4, when the royal increases by $1,000, the return on the game increases 0.56%. Once we have this multiplier, we can figure it out for any royal. Say the royal is at $7,356. That is 3.35 “$1,000 increments” more than the base game, and 3.35 * 0.55% adds 1.84% to the game.
Those who have actually followed along with the math will have noticed that I have rounded downward. The reason for this is that there are strategic changes to be made as each of the progressives change in value and it’s virtually impossible to get them all correct. By lowering the estimates of what the return will be, we somewhat take this into account.
Now we look at aces with a kicker. This jackpot starts at $2,000. So, we return to the base game and enter $3,000 for aces with a kicker. This gives up a return of 99.23%, which is an increase of 1.36% over 10 $100 increments, or 0.13% for every $100 (again rounding downward)
For aces without a kicker, this starts out at $800. Increasing that to $1,800 from the base game gives us 101.37% — an increase of 3.50% over ten $100 increments. So, whenever this progressive increases by $100, I add 0.35%.
For four 2s, 3s, and 4s with a kicker, this starts out at $800. Increasing that to $1,800 gives us 101.11% — an increase of 3.24% over ten $100 increments. So, whenever this progressive increases by $100, I add 0.32%.
I’m looking now at the straight flush, even though it does not have a progressive on the South Point machines. Sometimes, it does elsewhere. I’ll set the straight flush to $1,250 to get a return of 100.61% — an increase of 2.74% over ten $100 increments. So, whenever this progressive increase by $100, I add 0.27%.
The other two progressives, 2s-4s without a kicker along with 5s-Ks with or without a kicker, turn over fairly rapidly. These add some value, as you might collect $403 or $256 instead of $400 or $250 respectively, but these never get high enough to make that much of a “sit down and play or not” decision.
I assign 0.13% as the sum of these no matter how high they are. Why? Because that makes the base game an even 98% instead of 97.87%. This is a much easier number to work with, especially if I’m doing this in my head rather than with a calculator or some other means.
The final question you need to address is, “How high does it need to be before it’s worth playing?”
This depends on you. Since they have a number of 9/6 DDB games in the casino, which return 99.0%, the minimum sum of the progressives that you need is this figure. For players who wish to play a winning game, however, this isn’t nearly high enough.
You need 99.7% to make it an even game with the 0.3% slot club. Actually, that makes it slightly positive because you will also receive mailers and be able to participate in promotions while playing this game.
I can tell you I’ve seen it above the 99.7% level frequently. This is a decent game for dollar players to add to their repertoire at a casino with a number of good choices.
This may be advanced but you should also add the meter rates, but discounted to the amount that you play, for example if you play a cycle, the chances of hitting are about 2/3rd’s so you should add 2/3rd’s of the meter rate since you get the meter rate 2/3rd’s of the time. It doesn’t matter whether other people are playing or not, if other people are playing you get your share of their meter inputs as well. For example if two people are playing, the meter is moving twice as fast but you only get it half the time, meaning you still get your share of the meter as if you were the only one playing. If you can figure out the amount that the royal should be to make it a break even play, you can also find the strategy that minimizes the cost of hitting a royal, by using that amount in your strategy calculator. This strategy never changes with the actual royal value, but it does change with cash back and other promotions. Don’t forget to calculate the variance, it’s probably substantially higher than you’re used to, and this will impact bankroll and Nzero numbers. In the old days people ran teams on progressives, video poker as well as the “dummy slots”, but the current tax situation is not at all favorable to this approach. Harrah’s actually ran a full page newspaper ad, something like “slots are not a team sport”, when they decided to attack progressive players and ruin their own money maker. Casinos have to look at their net since the last progressive hit and let it go that someone wins when they hit the progressive, much like someone wins when they hit the lottery. This is difficult for casinos to do in practice.
Liz, do you do the same thing when you play a non progressive? If you play 40,000 hands of 9/6 JOB, do you count the value of the royal as 2/3rds of its value?
2/3rd’s of the meter rate. So, if a 1% meter rate, count +2/3rd’s%, not the full +1%. On a non progressive the meter rate is zero. Also, on a non progressive you never have to worry about someone else snapping off your input to the meter, since there is no progression. On a progressive, you do. If you are really interested in these types of topics check out Frank Kneeland’s book “Secret World of Video Poker Progressives”. It’s more complicated than it looks at first glance.
Another way to look at it: progressives are a type of “banking slot”. Say your starting point on a 1% meter is 8000 coins, but you get on a “runner”, it happens, and even after 100,000 coins run through you still haven’t hit it, but you’re exhausted and out of money, so you leave the jackpot, now at 9000 coins (1% of 100,000), and most likely somebody else (the “snapper”) is going to “snap off” the 1000 coins of your money you put into that machine. That’s the “snap off” problem. Now, other than never leaving the machine until it hits, there is another workaround, if you set your new starting level to 9000 instead of 8000, you can recover the 1000 coins you left behind before. Of course, it may take awhile before the machine is that high again. Banking slots are very different from the dummy slots where the starting state of the machine (short of gaming the PRNG) makes no difference.
Oh, yeah, this is definitely not Drive Time radio material. Even in a blog, it is challenging to communicate.
Even in AC, I’ve seen progressive teams hit a bank of machines. There is a regular group that focuses on Joker’s Wild progressives (where the top jackpot is paid with 5 of a kind) that appear to jump in when the progressive hits a certain level and disappear as soon as it hits.
This type of information is germane to the EV player, rather than the casual player — right? If someone plays casually and doesn’t know expert play, the level of the progressive only creates more excitement, just like when the PowerBall jackpot goes about $250 million. The odds of winning are the same.
I had an American Casino Guide coupon last month for 5x points at Main Street Station and/or Fremont and/or California. The progressive VP machines were excluded from the point multiplier coupon offer
How did you find out? Stickers on the machines? Or did they tell you at the Slot Club?