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The $1199 payoff is amusing, just under the $1200 limit for which the casino would be obligated to report the win to the IRS. Winpoker 6 software allows for analysis of custom designed games. In this case, the return is 100.0079%.

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There is a strict regulation in Nevada that each card must have the same probability of being dealt. Most other legitimate jurisdictions also follow this rule. However, not every jurisdiction is entirely legitimate. Casinos can legally change the odds by changing the pay table.

Assuming you played conventional 8/5 strategy the return in your example would be 99.68%. However, if you played optimal strategy for this jackpot the return would be 100.08%. So, Wong was not wrong.

I doubt that Casino Niagara would have the 'full pay' pay table that my Java game is based on. With little competition they can be stingy and people will still play. I'm afraid I don't have any strategies available for other pay tables. I suspect Casino Niagara offers 8/5 jacks or better, which pays 8 for a full house and 5 for a flush. Assuming perfect strategy, this has a return of 97.30%. Using perfect strategy for full pay video poker, as found on my site, on this game the return would be 97.29%. The two strategies are almost the same and you are only giving up 0.01% by using my strategy on an 8/5 machine. Also, I assume maximum coins bet because that is what the player should do. If you play less than maximum coins you will only get 250 per coin on a royal flush, causing a reduction in the rate of return of 1.36%.

I am very confident that any respectable maker of video poker machines makes them fair and accurate. Is it possible there are dishonest machines or chips out there? Sure. I would be interested to read the article you refer to.

Thanks for the kind words. Yes, the probability of a three of a kind depends on the pay table, which affects player strategy. My video poker program always makes the optimal play for every hand by looping through all the possible cards on the draw. However, creating a strategy in writing is very time consuming.

I assume by '10/7' you mean double bonus. As my video poker cheat sheet shows, the return for that game, with five coins bet, is 100.17%. However, if $5 is too rich for your blood, then you can use my video poker analyzer to get the return for a one-coin bet. Just put in 250 per coin bet for a royal flush. The calculator defaults to 4,000, so change it to 1,250. Press 'analyze' and you'll see the return is 99.11%.
So, you're much better off playing five quarters in 9-6 Jacks or Better.

Jacks or better
Royal 500
St8 flush 50
4 of kind 25
Full Hse 10
Flush 6
Straight 4
Thee Kind 3
two pair 2
Jacks + 1

Aces and Eights
Royal Fl 500
Str Flus 50
4 Ace/8s 80
4 7s 50
Four knd 25
Full Hse 8
Flush 5
Straight 4
3 Kind 3
Two Pair 2
Jacks+ 1

Deuces Wild Poker
Royal Flush 500
4 Deuces 200
Wild Royal 25
5 of Kind 16
St8 Flush 10
Four Kind 4
Full House 4
Flush 3
Straight 2
Three Kind 1

Joker Poker (1 Joker)
Royal Flush 500
Wild Royal 100
5 of a Kind 50
Straight Fl 25
Four Kind 8
Full Hse 5
Flush 4
Straight 3
Three Kind 2
Two Pair 1

Tens or better Poker
Royal Flush 500
Straight Fl 50
4 of a Kind 25
Full House 10
Flush 6
Straight 4
3 of a Kind 3
Two Pair 2
Tens+ 1

Again all of these have no bonuses for max coins in Royal Flush. Is that enough to hurt these pay tables, or are they playable? (they seem decent at least) Thank you in advance Micheal.

Here are the returns based on optimal strategy:

Jacks or Better: 100.03%
Aces and Eights: 99.07%
Deuces Wild: 99.05%
Joker Poker: 70.23%
Tens or Better: 104.13%!

I would verify that Tens or Better pay table and if you wrote it down correctly then play it hard.

There is a simple formula for this answer. It the initial investment divided by the house edge. In this case the answer is $100/0.02 = $5000. However due to the volatility of video poker, most of the time the $100 won’t last this long.

Generally speaking 50 and 100 play machines have lousy pay tables and thus should be avoided. However assuming you did find a decent pay table ask yourself what you would play on single play and then divide that by 50 or 100. For example if you play the $1 single line machines then you should play 2 cent 50 line or 1 cent 100 line games.

That is what happens in an environment with almost no competition. Asking the casino for better machines won’t help. If players will play games with lousy pay tables why should they change anything? Your only hope is to write to the lawmakers in Connecticut and ask them to end the two-casino monopoly on gaming in that state and allow others to compete.

Any legitimate game maker has the double up feature as a truly fair bet with a 100% return. So you have a 50/50 chance of winning any given bet (not counting ties) regardless of the amount bet or the results of past bets.

Each denomination can be set to its own payback percentage. On many IGT machines you can tell if they change the return percentage by whether or not the symbols on the screen change when you change the denomination.

Often with progressives part of each dollar bet goes to seeding the next meter. This way when somebody pops the jackpot the next meter does not start at a small amount but the secondary meter has already grown to a respectable amount. The percentage devoted to the second meter is not necessarily constant but sometimes increases as the primary meter grows. Not that you asked, but in some games like those at Be the Dealer there is a different jackpot for each coinage, and each jackpot is proportional to the coinage. The way I think they do that is what I call a 'super meter' that all coinages contribute to. Then each specific coinage gets a share of the super meter in proportion to that coinage divided by the sum of all coinages. For example if they had a progressive video poker game in coinages of 5 cents, 25 cents, $1, and $5 and the super meter had $100,000 then the $1 game meter would have (1/6.75)*100,000 = $14,814.81.

Most machines I’ve seen that tell you what to hold do use the proper strategy, but the better the paytable, the less likely the machine will be to offer advice in the first place. And I’ve never seen a machine with a positive expectation that told you what cards to hold.

As for the accuracy of the advice -- Microgaming Internet casinos do follow optimal video poker strategy. However I’ve played some machines at a racetrack in Delaware that advised the player on which cards to hold, and the advice was clearly incorrect.

You make a good point. Tipping definitely does add to house advantage in table games. If one were to tip one bet until every 100 hands that would add 1% to the house edge. Slot and video poker players also get comped and in general treated much better. These are things to consider when deciding which game to devote your time to.

[Bluejay adds: When you consider tips, video poker can lose less per hour than table games but only slightly, while slot machines remain a money-sucker. Consider 99%-return $0.25 video poker at 500 hands an hour, which is $6.25/hr. in expected losses. This compares favorably to blackjack with an hourly loss is 0.5% edge x 100 hands x $5 = $2.50, + $5/hr. tips = $7.50/hr. A typical quarter slot machine loses more than twice that per hour.]

Yes, I take notes in the casino all the time. The only time I have had trouble was when the Suncoast prohibited me from playing slots and writing at the same time when I was taking notes for my Las Vegas slot machine survey. Camera usage seems to be much more tolerated lately, so lately I have been taking pictures of rule screens and pay tables when I have my camera available. I also usually have cheat sheets in my possession when playing video poker, in case I run across a hand I don't know how to play, which is rare. I keep the cheat sheets hidden but have never had a problem whipping them out in a pinch. The reason you don't see other players with cheat sheets is about 99.54% of video poker players don't know what they are doing and the rest have the strategy memorized.

The same can be said about standard video poker, once a card is discarded it can not come back on the draw. Thus the expected return in Spin Poker is the same as conventional video poker with the same pay table.

Assuming no strategy changes for every extra 100 coins in the jackpot the return goes up by 0.044%. So the return with a 4400 coin jackpot would be 100.762% + 4*0.044% = 100.939%.

No. Neither the amount you put in nor the denomination affects the odds. The same is true of slots.

Royal Flush Slot Machine B5133ciw

In games like Bonus Poker and Double Bonus I assume they pay more for certain four of a kinds to give the player a better chance at a big win, at the cost of smaller small wins of course. It makes sense to have four aces as the premium four of a kind, because aces are the highest card in regular poker. The reason I think that four twos pays more than four kings is because players don’t hold low cards as often, and thus four twos comes up less often than four kings. So although the probability of each card is the same, player behavior causes less of the low four of a kinds, thus it makes it easier for the game maker to pay more for the low four of a kinds.

If a royal flush paid the same as a straight flush then 9/6 Jacks or Better would have a return of 98.03%.

Good question. In 9/6 jacks or better the probability of a royal flush is 22.65% of that of a straight flush, but a royal pays 16 times more. Overall the straight flush only contributes 0.55% to the return of the game. The straight flush is the Rodney Dangerfield of most forms of video poker, it gets no respect. I can only speculate that game makers wanted a big top prize. Nobody likes to come in second, so perhaps that is why the original game makers didn’t pay the straight flush much by comparison.

If you want to be a perfectionist, yes. Let’s look at full pay deuces wild, for example. Normally the return is 1.00762 and a royal hits once every 45282 hands. That makes the expected profit 45282 × (1.00762 - 1) = 345.05 bet units. For a greater overall expected profit, I recommend using a less aggressive royal strategy to increase the total hands played.
In this case, the profit is maximized by following a strategy based on a royal win of 450. That will lower the actual return to 1.007534 and decrease the royal probability to 1 in 46415, resulting in an expected profit of 46415 ×(1.007534-1) = 349.68. The extra 4.6 bet units may not be worth the bother of learning a different strategy.
To find the optimal target royal value, you can use my video poker calculator, and keep lowering the pay for a royal until the overall return gets as close to 1 as possible. At that point, it is like playing for free until you hit the royal, at which point you get a bonus for the royal. In the full pay deuces wild example, the bonus is 800-450=350.
The situation is not entirely hypothetical. Slot managers have been known to prohibit advantage players from playing video poker, and usually such players get the tap on the shoulder shortly after hitting a royal.

Royal Flush Slot Machine

• 6-5 Bonus Poker progressive.
• 2% meter rise on royal flush.
• 5-coin game.

Now assume the following about me.

• Minimum return to play of 100.5%.
• I’m capable of playing a progressive until it hits.
• I know perfect 6-5 Bonus Poker strategy for a 4000-coin royal.

What is the least the jackpot should be for me to play?

7,281.8 coins. It is interesting to note that if you played only once at exactly that meter then the return would be 98.5% only. The reason you should play at that point is because of the assumption you are capable of playing until you pop the jackpot. That is like having a 2% cash back slot club. 98.5% + 2% = 100.5%.

I might add that if you start playing 4000-coin jackpot strategy at exactly a 7,281.8 jackpot, you can expect to profit 201.18 bets. However, if you took the time to learn the strategy changes for a 7,281.8 coin jackpot, then your expected profit would be 234.31 coins.

On a related note, I just finished reading The Secret World of Video Poker Progressives by Frank Kneeland. This book has lots of formulas for much more complicated progressive situations, as well as practical advice and stories based on his years running a team of progressive hunters. I recommend it for advantage progressive video poker players.

How the game evolved into a mainstay of modern casinos

By Jerry “Stickman” Stich

Today’s casinos have a plethora of video poker machines. They come in denominations ranging from a penny to $100, and beyond. There are scores of variations ranging from the basic Jacks or Better, through bonus games and wild card games such as Deuces Wild and Joker’s Wild. There are multiple action games where the initially dealt and saved cards of a hand are played three, five, 10, 50 and even 100 times. There are video poker “action” games such as spin poker (a combination of video poker and slot machine), and multi-strike poker where a winning hand leads to up to three additional hands that each double the payback of a winning hand from the previous winning hand. If that isn’t enough variety to set your head spinning, there’s even a multi-play version of multi-strike poker.

How did things get to this point? Well, when you trace the history of video poker, you’ll find that its evolution has been closely related to that of slot machines. To properly understand the development of video poker, we must start with some forerunners of the game.

In 1891, the Sittman and Pitt Company of Brooklyn, New York invented an early poker machine. It contained five drums, each having 10 different playing cards. Once a coin was inserted and the handle pulled, the drums would spin. Each drum would eventually stop on a card, making up the final poker hand.

In 1898, Charles Fey, commonly known as the father of the slot machine, created the Card Bell. This poker machine could automatically pay cash prizes to the winner, the largest of which was 20 coins for a royal flush.

In 1901, Fey created a poker machine called the Skill Draw which had a “Hold” feature. After the initial spin created a poker hand, the player could hold some of the cards and re-spin the un-held cards in an effort to improve the hand. This was the first 5-Card Draw Poker machine.

During the early 1900’s, Sittman and Pitt also began manufacturing machines with the draw feature. They became so popular that they couldn’t be manufactured fast enough. These machines were available in almost every liquor store and smoke shop throughout the United States.

Poker was already the card game of the people; the introduction of the draw feature provided a reason for poker payers to start playing the machine versions. It was no longer simply blind luck, but a contest that involved a certain amount of skill. (But since gambling was not legal in most of the country at that time, winning hands were usually paid off in prizes such as drinks or cigarettes.)

The player was under the impression that the machine used a full deck of 52 cards. However, these machines held only 50 cards. In most cases, the 10 of spades and jack of hearts were eliminated. Although the players didn’t realize it, this cut the possibility of a royal flush in half, since a royal was not possible in spades or hearts. Nonetheless, these machines were very popular, and they led to modern video poker as we know it today. (Some of the original machines are still on display at the Liberty Belle Saloon and Restaurant in Reno, Nevada.)

It wasn’t until 1970 that Dale Electronics introduced the first video poker machine. It was dubbed Poker-Matic, and it was installed in virtually every casino in Las Vegas at the time. It was not, however, a big hit with players.

In the mid 1970’s, a distributor for Bally Gaming named Si Redd pitched an idea to the company’s executives in Chicago: a game called Video Poker. The executives rejected the idea since they didn’t want to branch out from slot machines and take a chance on a new, untested style of game. In what was probably one of the biggest mistakes made by Bally, they agreed to let Si take the patent. Within months, he made a deal with Fortune Coin Company in Reno to form Si Redd’s Coin Machines (or SIRCOMA, for short) to mass produce his patented video poker machines. While interest in the games grew slowly, by 1981 this new game was the most popular addition to casinos.

The earliest version of Draw Poker required at least two pairs for a winning hand. By changing the lowest winning hand to a pair of jacks or better the game’s popularity dramatically increased. These original machines were quite primitive by today’s standards, with screens very similar to televisions at the time.

Soon after, Si took the company public and changed the name to International Gaming Technology (IGT), which is now the world’s largest gaming machine manufacturer.

Throughout the 1980s, the popularity of video poker grew. People who felt intimidated by casino table games gravitated towards the ma- chines. The invention of video poker actually improved the popularity of video slot machines. Early video slot machines didn’t catch on with players because they were used to seeing the reels spin, but with the acceptance of video poker, spinning reels were no longer as important to people.

Today, there are hundreds of different video poker variations, and thousands of different pay tables. New and exciting versions continue to be released. And it all stemmed from a mechanical poker machine introduced in 1891, which then evolved over the decades to capitalize on new technology. The biggest factor in video poker’s success, however, has always been the ingenuity of the humans who made it all possible.