IS THIS TRUE?

[wildman49]

Why would you play 1 quarter when  5 nickles pays $200 for a royal verses $62.50? Do you hit any royals on that .25 bet?

[FloridaPhil]

A couple of reasons. First, we don't have nickel video poker in Florida.  Second, the only nickel video poker I have played was 6/5 which is a 94.657% game.  8/5 single coin is a better game at 95.554%.  If I could find 8/5 DDB nickels, I would choose that game and play max coins.
 
There are other things to be considered also.  You get more flushes playing single coin because you don't throw away the forth suited card to draw three to a Royal.  Lastly, Royals only come around every 40,000 hands or so.  I'd rather play single coin quarters all day and use any profits to take a max coin pot shot at the end of the day or when the machine is going crazy. I don't make much money playing single coin quarters.  I play that way because I just enjoy playing the game and can do it all day for practically nothing.   When I get ahead substantially or I feel the timing is right, I switch to max coins and go for it. I never play max coins with my own money, it's always the casino's money.  You may be surprised how often this works.  I didn't switch to single coin quarter play for any strategy reason, I just got tired of losing money,  I'm strickly a recreational player, so the most amount of play for the least amount of money is my goal.  If I make some money along the way, that's even better. 

[DaBurglar]

i just returned from AC (earlier than I planned, due in part to MORE ridiculously bad video poker, but more on that later....but the main reason I returned is the tournament I planned on playing was cancelled at the last minute and was not rescheduled until May 10, so I wound up playing a sit n go and two smaller torunaments at Bally's......I finished in 5th place in one event for a 490 dollar payday off a 52 dollar entry, and it took me about 4 hours, so it was just barely worth it....)Anyway, this is the first thread I clicked on when I just returned home, and while I admit I never heard of this guy or his book, and I too have some "questions" concerning his suspect statement about "and other states"......why cannot he simply list them if he knows this to be true?  really damages his credibility when I so very much WANT to believe, and do in fact AGREE with his statement about New Jersey.I have been saying this since a long time back, and I submit that I have pointed out that I have been told essentially this exact thing by other people in AC who are in a position to know.   I have talked with casino management, dealers, slot techs and bartenders (bartenders who have been in the casino business for 25-30 years and who definitely have learned and picked up quite a bit of inside knowledge.)      Video Poker in AC clearly is NOT the same game as in Nevada, even though on the outside it looks the same......inside, the games operate with MAJOR differences.But alas, other than Nevada and New Jersey, I have not played enough video poker in other markets to speak with Authority on the subject....I have played about 25,000 hands in my lifetime in Foxwodds and Mohegan, but thats hardly enough to draw conclusions.I believe this guy, even if he does not express himself any better than the New Jersey gaming regs are written!ANd yes, New Jersey "LUMPS" video Poker results into its  SLOTS totals, it does not report them seperate or make any attempt to distinguish or delineate VP from slots, which only reinforces the conclusion that VP in AC is simply Slot play.   I know this because this past Tuesday (April 15) edition of the PRESS of AC newspaper published the MArch 2014 numbers for all 11 casinos, and in the footnote at the bottom it said the slots figures represent all GAMING Machines (slots, VP, Keno, etc)    Of course, the real true proof for me is my results, which simply do not change EVER......this past time (april 12 thru today) saw even more abysmal video poker results playing 25 cent  8/5 bonus and 9/6 JOB progressives at Resorts, Trump Taj and Caesars.     I sank about  $1200 bucks playing all these over 99% games, and my actual return was something like 63% and my dud rate was 68%......it NEVER changes!    CLEARLY, Vp in AC is slot play, except without the benefit of the comp rate that REAL slots offer!It used to be different......up until the Borgata opened, almost all AC casinos were content to leave their VP machines alone and not take advantage of their state's gaming regs and set the machines and manipulate them down into lower payback % than what the paytables stipulate.   When Borgata opened and immediately kicked everyone else's arse, followed by the competition from Pennsylvania and then  the Great Depressive Recession, the casinos started pulling out all the stops to keep revenue up WITHOUT actually doing anything proactive or constructive.I think I have proven my point enough to myself so that my "car wreck syndrome" of having to see if THIS next trip will be different in terms of VP, is over.   I know now AC video poker machines (most of them) are set to return way below the paytable rates.

[FloridaPhil]

There's actually more detail in this book.  The entire paragraph reads as follows.
 

"Laws in some states including New Jersey, allow video poker programming to be more like that for a slot machine. One way a program could depress payback percentages would be to have a high card or high cards appear less frequently than once every 52 cards. For example, if an Ace of spades is programmed to appear randomly once once in 104 cards, that not only would lead to fewer royal flushes; it would also have a ripple effect on the rest of the pay table. There would be fewer high pairs because one of our high cards doesn't appear as often as it would in a regular deck of cards, and fewer three of a kinds because when we save two other Aces, we have a depressed chance of adding the Ace of spades."
Does this sound familar? (more dud hands...)   It's kind of funny, but I thing DaBurglar may be the Video Poker Galileo.  The world may not be flat after all! 

[olds442jetaway]

   It's kind of funny, but I thing DaBurglar may be the Video Poker Galileo.  The world may not be flat after all!  </SPAN>[/QUOTE]
     I dunno.....Last time I looked down the street, it sure seemed flat to me... If I can't win at vp, at least I can have a little fun on this site with the gang!!

[Minn. Fatz]

There's actually more detail in this book.  The entire paragraph reads as follows.

"Laws in some states including New Jersey, allow video poker programming to be more like that for a slot machine. One way a program could depress payback percentages would be to have a high card or high cards appear less frequently than once every 52 cards. For example, if an Ace of spades is programmed to appear randomly once once in 104 cards, that not only would lead to fewer royal flushes; it would also have a ripple effect on the rest of the pay table. There would be fewer high pairs because one of our high cards doesn't appear as often as it would in a regular deck of cards, and fewer three of a kinds because when we save two other Aces, we have a depressed chance of adding the Ace of spades."

Does this sound familar? (more dud hands...)   It's kind of funny, but I thing DaBurglar may be the Video Poker Galileo.  The world may not be flat after all! 

I'm no lawya but the following would seem to contradict the author's assertion. It looks like a provision common to most gaming laws and regulations I'm familiar with that mean video poker or other mechanical or electronic games depicting, say, a deck of 52 cards must perform as if there were an actual deck of cards being shuffled and dealt randomly:

[quote]5:12-115 Cheating games and devices in a licensed casino; penalty.

115. Cheating Games and Devices in a Licensed Casino; Penalty. a. It shall be unlawful:

...

(2)Knowingly to deal, conduct, carry on, operate or expose for play any game or games played with cards, dice or any mechanical device, or any combination of games or devices, which have in any manner been marked or tampered with, or placed in a condition, or operated in a manner, the result of which tends to deceive the public or tends to alter the normal random selection of characteristics or the normal chance of the game which could determine or alter the result of the game.[/quote]

http://lis.njleg.state.nj.us/cgi-bin/om ... 46&y=8&zz=

This is not to say that there is no VP machine in NJ or anywhere else where the Ace of Spades or any other card regularly appears less than should be expected; just that if that were so it would definitely not be legal.

[olds442jetaway]

I wish Bob Dancer would chime in here on all of this. I would be curious to hear his opinion ( being in the know so to speak) on the existence of altered RNG programs and their use if any in casinos as far as video poker goes. I myself have received answers from slot techs that refer to partial rng programs. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing if they really know anything or are just guessing. The only thing I know for sure per the slot techs is when they asked questions at meetings where there were machine programers present from the various companies, they got either no answers or answers they did not want to hear. That could of course be the result of orders from on high concerned about patents, etc. etc. or it could be something else that most of us are afraid of.

[DaBurglar]

we tend to complicate and overthink this entire issue on just how exactly Video Poker machines work, or even slot machines for that matter.Remember this:  Casinos traditionally are assumed to "always have the advantage" and always make money on the games they offer, otherwise they would not offer them.Gaming agencies and enforcement exist for a wide variety of reasons including but not limited to ensuring casinos adhere to the rules and laws of their state;  agencies are behooved to protect the integrity and reputation of their respective gambling markets by ensuring the casinos are on the up and up and players' faith in the casinos is both justified and never violated.  But like all government bureaucracies, today's gaming agencies in each state are CHALLENGED by circumstances and economic realities, and they also are subject to plain old human error and weakness and laziness and stupidity and malfeasance and on and on and on.....in other words they are neither infallible nor uncorruptible.    And we must never forget that each state's gaming agency/enforcement (including NEVADA's) existence and fiscal health is directly tied to their casino market's health and success, such that as each respective state's casino market grows and succeeds, so does the bureaucracy to police and support it, and vice versa......HOWEVER, other events and circumstances within each state's fiscal situation can and do impact the state's gaming enforcement, such that if a state finds itself deeply in the red and forced to make cuts it can scale back and cut the gaming agencies/enforcement even if the casino market still pulls in enough to support the agency, and one needs look no further than New Jersey:    New Jersey casinos still make money but the state gaming agency has shrunk precipitously since 2005 and has now been consolidate within the state police and other state law enforcement......something to think about and keep in mind.....Casinos are NOT immediately and publicly shut down and license's revoked when viloations occur;  it takes REPEATED and ONGOING deliberate violations of sufficient scale and magnitude before a casino ever reaches that point, and the reason for this is obvious (see above concerning economic health and intertwined fates) .   The "due" process for such events are long and arduous as one would expect.    Thus, I am reminding everyone, BEFORE WE EVEN determine what if anything is going on with Video Poker machines in any given state and whether it is legal, illegal or something in between,   That IF the worst case materializes and we have been or are being filched in Video Poker over the past 3-4 years, it is neither given nor ensured thats such activity would be caught, discovered and/or made known to the general public, let alone CORRECTED and stamped out forever.   We all would like to believe it is and would be, but that is naive and not consistent with the world we live in or the people we live with.....Having said ALL that, we need to remember this:   Casinos can and do change and update the PAYBACK on slot machines all the time....how is this done?   Simple....the RNG interacts with the individual GAME's program and USER (i.e. CASINO) variables and settings to produce the desired payout over time.....the casinos set these variable settings UP or DOWN depending on what their business goal or objective happens to be.....  The RNG on Video Poker, in the purest truest form of Video Poker that we all WANT to play and have believed for years that we have been playing, simply has 52 numbers (or 53-54 for jokers or an extra ACE, etc)  that constantly shuffle and then interact with the game program to juxtapose the RNG result with the USER (i.e. CASINO) defines paytable.    We all know and can easily calculate WHAT the expected frequencies of hands based on a simple unmodified rng should be........this should be the end of the story on Video Poker for us, and in the state of NEVADA it is the end of the story at least as far as their gaming regs go.      HOWEVER.....Other states, such as New Jersey, do NOT classify Video Poker the same as Nevada....it is another form of slots, albeit a different species of slots.   Each Video Poker game can and is equipped with USER (i.e. casino) DEFINED features, options and settings such that PER BUSINESS and REGULATORY requirements and differences amongst state casino gaming markets, each individual casino can modify its video poker games according to what it wants and can do.....one such thung that it CAN and WANTS to do in a state like New Jersey that regards Video Poker as Slots is set the Game to deal more NON PAYING (dud) hands to reduce the overall payback of the Video Poker game to a range akin to slot machines (low 90s or high 80s percentage).   Somehow they have an option, or setting, or SOMETHING that simply tells the RNG and game program interaction to give greater weight or frequency to the combination of results that yield NON paying hands.    JUST LIKE with a SLOT machine.....I do not know exactly what the setting or feature is but its there (i've never seen it nor operated one but I've been told they exist.   This should neither surprise nor trouble anyone, since these are simple yet robust computer games and features, and technology is extremely robust and user defined in today's world.)     As to florida phil's claim about actually setting SPECIFIC hands or cards, I do not know.....it seems too specific and convoluted to get that specific when all they have to do is ensure a ZERO/Null value to the play result.   But who knows.......Our play results CLEARLY indicate something has drastically changed in the last 7 years or so, definitely since the great recessive depression of 2007......we just need to agree on the EXPLANATION for this, and it is NOT simply (or only or limited to) shrinking paytables.    That certainly is part of it, but NOT the end of it, not even close in places like AC.

[Tedlark]

  DaBurglar ARE...you saying that the NEW JERSY state gaming agency(?) has been CONSOLIDATED into the New Jersey STATE police or do you MEAN that the Gaming Enforcement OFFICERS are New Jersey State Police OFFICERS? In ILLINOIS... Illinois State Police officers are the BADGES for the Illinois Gaming BOARD.    How are (WE) tending to complicate and ...OVERTHINK this entire issue on just how EXACTLY video poker machines work, or even slot machines for that MATTER?    Casinos cannot ALTER the RNG or do anything to DISTORT.... it   Just because I've never seen BIGFOOT... but its there BUT I've been told Bigfeet do EXIST... doesn't mean I believe in Bigfoot, or their reduced stature cousin, smallfoot.

[onemoretry]

Here is an interesting statement I found in an August 19, 2003 Casino City Times article:

"Nevada has the toughest video poker randomness standard in the country, requiring that every card have an equal chance of being dealt. IGT says all its machines live up to that standard. And when we take the frequency of winning hands and combine it with the payoffs per hand, we can calculate long term payback percentages with expert strategy regardless of whether you're playing in casinos in Illinois, Nevada, or anywhere else."

The article was authored by - are you ready for this? - John Grochowski.