Sometimes, Is Less More?

            This week, I received an e-mail from a reader who was interested in a game called Triple Bonus Poker.   He enjoyed playing the one and only machine he could find of it in Las Vegas, but was unsure of the payback and strategy.  Not familiar with the game off the top of my head, I went to check my copy of Winning Strategies for Video Poker and found the game the reader was talking about.  He had actually found a Full-Pay version of the game and its payback was a very respectable 99.6%.

            What also quickly struck my eye was that the strategy table was much shorter than most others.  Then I noticed the top of the page which said "KINGS or BETTER".   Triple Bonus Poker doesn't pay on Jacks or Better, it only pays on Kings or Better.  Yes, the payback is still 99.6%.  It does this by paying well for Quads (240,125,75 - no kickers required) and VERY well for Full Houses and Flushes - 11 and 7 respectively.   It should be noted that it only pays 1 for a Two Pair, so this game is going to be VERY streaky.

            So, why play this wild game?  Well, that very short and easy to learn strategy table is what intrigues me.  I've often wondered what the error rate is for many Players given the intricacies of the standard jacks or better strategy table.  Keeping track of those High Cards makes for a long strategy table with subtle differences between 4-Card Straights and 3-Card Straight Flushes.   Looking at the strategy table for Triple Bonus and most of it is fairly intuitive.  Yes, it helps to know for sure that you throw a Full House if you have Three Aces and you dump Two Pair if you have a Pair of Aces, but these are easy things to remember. 

            The strange part is that despite having a respectable payback and a relatively easy strategy table, my source for games in Las Vegas tells me that NONE of these games exist.  As this source is user maintained, it is on occasion incorrect as it is in this guess.  There appears to be at least ONE table in Las Vegas.   Easier to find is a game called Triple Bonus Plus or Triple Play Plus. 

            One has to be very careful to not confuse these two games as their names have more in common than the actual games themselves do.   First of all, the latter game is a Jacks or Better game.  This means a full-length strategy table.  The Straight Flush is upped to 100 from 50, but the Quads pay of 75 is lowered to 50.  Most noticeable is that the payouts for Full House and Flush are the more pedestrian 9 and 5, respectively.   The end result is a payback of 99.8%.

            A game that pays 99.8% can actually be profitable for a Player when you include cashback and comps.  Or, at the very least, it can be a neutral game which you can play for very long periods of time with a relatively small bankroll.  I'm not one to dismiss this idea.  Also, while 99.8% and 99.6% might seem very similar, I am frequently the one to point out that you should at this from the other side.  One has a 0.2% house advantage and the other a 0.4%.  In other words, Triple Bonus Poker has TWICE the house advantage of Triple Bonus Plus.

            That all said, Triple Bonus Poker offers the Player a relatively easy game to learn without all of those pesky High Cards.  I have little doubt that for the average Player, the error rate will go down and the gap between the two games will be reduce to below the 0.2%.  If you are truly an expert Player, this will matter less to you.

            Of course, it would seem that the casinos have taken the choice away from the Players anyhow.  While there is perhaps a single machine of Triple Bonus Poker in all of Las Vegas, my source states that Triple Bonus Plus can be found in moderate abundance - at least in some casinos that target locals.  This part isn't a surprise because the best paying machines are generally found in the locals casinos.  What we don't know is whether the casinos removed the Triple Bonus games because Players didn't like the very streaky (and lower hit frequency) Triple Bonus or because the real paybacks were higher due to a lower error rate.  If this is what happened, it may have been a case where less was more for most Players.

Beating the Casino

            

            A couple of weeks ago, I discussed how a blogger lamented how the last good table game invented was blackjack because none of the games invented since gave the Player a chance to beat it.  I would argue that blackjack is hardly 'beatable'.  It requires an incredible amount of discipline and knowledge of card-counting schemes in order to eke out even the slightest edge.  With the continuous shufflers and regrettably 6 to 5 payouts on blackjack, even with the most sophisticated counting scheme, beating the game is almost impossible.

            There is only one game on the casino floor (barring the occasional game that accidentally makes it to the floor) that is readily beatable.  That is video poker.  There are games all are over Las Vegas with paybacks of over 100%.  If you learn the proper strategy you can earn these paybacks.  I will not, however, promise that you will become filthy rich off them.  Unlike card-counting schemes which would allow you to bet $5 when the count is against you and perhaps $5000 or more when it is in your favor, video poker machines essentially have a constant wager and there are no known counts for you to track.  Each hand is completely random and no matter how many hands you have won or lost in a row, the next hand is still random.

            Over the years the casinos have caught on to this idea and this is why many are still willing to put machines on their floor with paybacks over 100%.  They simply don't put them on the floor with high denominations.   If you are willing to play video poker 40 hours per week (like a job), are able to play 700 hands per hour, you would play 1,456,000 hands per year (approximately).  If you played a quarter machine, you would wager the staggering sum of $1.82 Million per year.  If you can play the entire time on a full-pay Deuces Wild machine paying 100.76%, you'll earn about $13,800 per year.  This doesn't account for any taxes and doesn't account for any cash back and/or comps.  

            Of course, some of you will just suggest playing a higher denomination.  Even playing dollars, the annual 'salary' will get to only $55,000 or so.  This is certainly not a bad income.  Of course, this most certainly doesn't mean you can count on any sort of regular 'paycheck'.  There are going to be weeks you lose and there are going to be weeks you win far more than average.  And, as I said earlier - the casinos have caught on to this.  According to my research, there are no $1 machines playing full-pay Deuces Wild in the Las Vegas area.  So, the casinos are willing to let the resourceful Player make some money, but not enough to really entice large numbers of Players to do them harm. 

            This is also further proof that video poker machines are not slot machines.  Casinos would NEVER allow banks of 100+% slot machines to exist.  Slot machines require no strategy.  Thus, as long as the slot machine were to be played for 40 hours per week the casino would be paying out the $13,800.  To the casino it doesn't matter if this is one person, 10 people, 100 people or 1000 people who wind up winning this money.

            Video poker requires that the Player learn the proper strategy to earn this money.  So, if 52 people took turns playing for 1 week and played using Expert Strategy, then the casino would still be paying out the $13,800.  But the casinos know this is highly unlikely.  Despite strategies for virtually every imaginable game being available for 10-20 years, the overwhelming percent of Players simply choose to ignore the proper strategy.  The reality is that 50% of the Players probably know of no real strategy and just muddle along - playing a Deuces Wild game at no better than a 95% payback.  Perhaps another 25% play using some rudimentary strategy that they learned somewhere and play at 97%.  Another 15-20% have made real attempts to learn strategy but haven't really mastered it and can play at 99%.  The final 5-10% have learned the proper strategy and make a significant attempt to play properly.  Perhaps half of this group truly attains a payback of 100.5% or better.

            The result for the casino is that their machine probably pays out at no more than 96.5% in total.  A number that they can definitely live with.  However, just as the casino doesn't care if it is 1 or 1000 Players that win the $13,800, you do not have to be concerned with how any other Players do.  The casino is very happy with that machine that pays back 96.5% and will net them more than $65000 per year - EVEN if it means one of the Players made a few hundred or thousand over the course of the year.

            But, if you want to be this Player, you have to learn how to play video poker using the proper strategy.  To help you along the way, we're offering up our two full-length books for just $5 each (which includes postage and handling).  Winning Strategies for Video Poker includes strategy tables for 61 of the most common games found anywhere.  America's National Game of Chance: Video Poker is 200 pages of Lenny Frome's best articles, stories and quizzes and is an excellent way to learn how to play video poker in an easy to understand way.

            Send a check or money order to Gambatria, P.O. Box 36474, Las Vegas, NV 89133 and you'll be on your way to becoming an Expert Video Poker Player.