Casino Gambling by Mark Pilarski

Bad paytables are found on bad video poker machines

Dear Mark: My question involves Video Poker. My wife and I for years have enjoyed playing this game in Vegas and Laughlin, several times a year. One disappointing thing we have noticed in the past couple years, has been a nearly non-existence of Royal Flush winners. In the "good old days,” it seemed it wasn't unusual to hear one of your neighboring players scream when they hit the Royal. Now you rarely do.

I do know that the traditional "9-6" machines have pretty much been replaced with "8-5" or even "7-5" payoffs. Could this be the reason? Tom M.

Royal flushes of yesteryear are an easy urge to wax nostalgic for the “good old days.” A lack of them goads this columnist into your question.

Correct your analysis is, Tom, in that replacing the traditional 9/6 machines with tighter paytables will produce fewer royal flushes, but it’s not because the odds of hitting one are in any way altered. On average, once in every 40,000 hands some buckaroo like you is going to scream hallelujah. But when the paytables are tightened, you run out of funds faster, and there is fewer of everything, but what you miss the most is, of course, the Royal Flush.

Paytables, or pay schedules, which are always posted somewhere on the machine, tell you what each winning hand will pay for the number of coins played. Casinos can "loosen" or "tighten" the return of a game by manipulating the number of coins won on certain pay categories. For Jacks-or-better, it’s the full house/flush numbers that are the primary indicator of a machine's payback percentage. That once traditional, now elusive, 9/6 machine you speak of is your return for a full house (9) and a flush (6) with one coin inserted. It’s also associated with a house edge of 0.5%. Compare that to a 6/5 machine (six for a full house, five for a flush) that returns a payback of 95.00%; a 7/5 machine 96.15%; an 8/5, 97.30%; an 8/6, 98.39%; a 9/5, 98.45%.

Now here’s a possible second reason for fewer royals. Payouts on video poker machines are determined not only by the pay schedule, but, also just as importantly, by how you select which cards to discard, since selecting the wrong cards to throw away will reduce the overall payout. Even if you’re playing on a 9/6 machine, the odds won’t swing in your favor unless you learn how to play each and every hand correctly. You might be surrounded lately by shoddy play.

Oh, and one more thing, Tom. For good measure we better talk about your shortened gambling “timeline” -- the time you spend at the machine. It is possibly limited to hundreds of hands of video poker, not millions, so any percentage return (like no bells or whistles going off for a royal) can, and will happen. The Law of Averages (more revealingly also known as the Law of Big Numbers) might not have had much of a workout during your time in the casino, and since the machine will, on average, display a royal flush every 40,000 hands, possibly you and surrounding players are not playing anywhere near that many hands.

Dear Mark: Do you know what is meant by 99% slot machine payback? Does every machine payback 99% of what you put in it? Phil G.

Each machine is distinctly designed and tested to assure the casino a definite payback percentage. The “payback percentage” is the portion of the money put into the slot that is eventually paid out to the player.

In the example you cite, a payback of 99%, the casino will over time keep about 1% of all money put into the slot. You, Phil, should get back 99 cents of every dollar you insert. Of course, don’t expect 99 cents to clang in the tray for every dollar’s worth of handle yanks. The percentage return is a long-term concept. Your gaming timeline (there’s that word again) is possibly limited to 200 pulls of the handle, not millions, so any percentage return (as low as a goose egg to as high as a mega-jackpot), can, and will happen. Now that’s deja vu all over again.

Gambling Wisdom of the Week: "To me, it seems like Hold'em is just a game for bullies with deep pockets." -Kevin Pollak

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pilarski@markpilarski.com
http://markpilarski.com

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