This past week, I met someone who was visiting Las Vegas
from California. I told him about my
work with video poker and he asked me what is the best game to play. My natural reaction to that is to just
laugh. How am I supposed to answer
that? Besides the fact that 'best' is a
very subjective term. Admittedly most
people want me to answer which games are the best mathematically. But, as this guy was stating on the strip,
the odds (pardon the pun) that the best game is anywhere near is rather
slim. In fact, I'm a bit scared to tell
him to play a particular type of machine in fear that he'll find it, but not at
anything near full-pay.
As the conversation continued, he told me that he likes
to play Double Double Bonus Poker. I was
certainly not surprised to hear this. It
is a very popular game and he cited the biggest reason that it is - the extra
chance to get a huge jackpot with the Four Aces and a kicker. He also told me about the time that he was
playing a ten-play Double Double Bonus machine and was dealt Four Aces plus the
kicker on the initial deal. Multiply
that by 10 and it is a NICE payday even if you are playing a relatively small
denomination or not max-coin.
When you get dealt a hand like that, you might just be
hooked for life. It reminds me of the
day I was playing golf with a friend.
Neither of us are all that good.
I still had a great time, but he wasn't happy with how poorly he
played. Well, until we got to about the
17th green and he rolled in about 30 foot putt.
Then he wanted to know when we could play next.
I suggested to the man that he try to find some Double
Bonus machines, which at full-pay have a 100.1% payback. Double Double Bonus has a payback of only
98.8%, also at full-pay. I then told him
that the best paying machines were variants of Deuces Wild, but only if he
played proper strategy. I really didn't
know if he had a clue as to proper strategy for even Bonus games, yet alone
Deuces Wild. I figured that he would
still be better off sticking to what he was familiar with than trying to play a
game like Deuces without the benefit having attempted to learn the
strategy. While there are differences
between Double and Double Double, at least he is still in the same general
universe with those two.
Of course, the real problem with answering his question
is that he was going to be playing on the strip, which isn't exactly know
nowadays for having too many full-pay machines. Much to my surprise, I checked my source for
video poker inventory - www.vpfree2.com - and found that the casino he was
staying in (I won't name it), DOES have a some full-pay machines, but all at
denomination of $1 or more. It took me a
second to fully comprehend this. Usually
casinos only put out full-pay machines for low denominations. If you want to play at nickels they'll allow
some winners. Then it hit me, NONE of their full-pay machines were over
100%. If you want to play Double Double
at full-pay, they'll be happy to let you at $5 per hand ($1 max-coin). With a payback of 98.9%, the casino can
expect to clear more than $30 an hour! Of
course, they may have some quarter machines to play, but those will be
short-pay and you may find the same loss rate as a result.
I'm not naive. I
fully realize that most video poker machines have paybacks below 100% and that
means that you will lose over the long run.
I have stated many times that gambling is just a form of entertainment
for almost everyone. But given the
nature of gambling is that the cost is variable and that sometimes you can win
money, your goal should be to minimize the losses and give yourself the best
chance to win.
To do this, you need to find games that have paybacks as
close to 100% (or over) being played at a denomination that you feel
comfortable with. If you are okay with
playing a $1 machine, that's great, but make sure you have enough bankroll for
it. Don't expect to walk over with $100
and play all night. If you start with
$100 don't be surprised if it is gone in a hurry and once your bankroll is
gone, there is no coming back from it.
If you don't feel comfortable playing $1 machines or you
don't have enough bankroll to do it, make sure that when you step down in
denomination that the paytable doesn't take a big step down too. Or, as I told this gentleman, if he really
wants to find good video poker options, he might have to venture to one of the
'locals' casinos where the paytables are known to be a bit more Player
friendly.
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