The magic number seems to be 2010

[FloridaPhil]

If you think about it the casinos have a tricky walk to make.  They need to make money which means they need people to lose and at the same time they need to keep players happy. It's not the payers fault if developers and public officials build too many casinos or go on tilt and build them too big. Sooner or later the industry will settle out where the remaining casinos are profitable.  If they fail they can always be turned into office buildings or condos.  Are you listening Mr. Trump?I personally don't have a problem with the casino making money.  There is a cost to everything and I think I'm getting my money's worth or I wouldn't play.  Video Poker is great because you can change your bet with the click of a button.  As long as I can adjust the amount of my bet to fit the thickness of my wallet, I'm good. 

[DaBurglar]

This is not new. People have been saying the exact same thing since VP was invented.(NOTE:  THIS IS MY OPINION)  No inherent need for any person or poster to address ANYTHING in response OTHER than the specific points and topics I bring up in the post.........I have been playing VP since 1992, and as i stated several times before, my play from around 1994-95 (when I started to play consistently in terms of both frequency and in terms of ABILITY based on learning the correct calls and methods for the several games of choice I played) until around 2007 I experienced several OUTRIGHT profitable years along with a couple break even years, and my unprofitable years were no where near the abysmal stat trainwrecks I have seen recently.Now, we all know the games today are different in many ways from games 10-15 or more years ago (including far worse paytables, much faster RNGs, etc).....but that still does not COMPLETELY account for the fact that premium hand HITS, and HANDPAYS are harder to come by these days, nor does the increased frequency in non paying hands.....sure, crappier paytables eat your bankroll and therefore, unless you invest MORE $$$, you play less, but I am speaking about the FREQUENCY and/or total PERCENTAGE of premium hits/Royals/HANDPAYS etc  to the overall frequency of hands played.I played almost exclusively in Nevada from 1995 thru 2007,  then in 2009 until now I have played mostly in AC.......I have stated the games in AC could very well be different than Nevada, but no one wants to listen to that....SO lets look at it from other perspectives....and also for myself, in the last year I have tapered off in my TOTAL VP play and instead have chosen to play MORE real live poker:I know personally a total of 6 people really well who also play VP (or have played) at a level and frequency similar to myself (cousins, good friends....that ilk.)   ALL 6 report essentially the same thing. that the past 4-5 years have become far more difficult to win at VP.......one of my cousins has had some slightly profitable years (2011 and this past year) but only because she was lucky enough to hit three Jokers on ULTIMATE four of a kind ($1 denom), something that has very little to do with the PRIMARY issue and workings with Video Poker that we are discussing here......Everytime I go into a casino I talk to other players, and at this point it has to be in the Thousands the number of "opinions" i have received......the VAST VAST majority report the same thing, it is generally harder today to win....Now, NONE of this info that I have typed is PROOF, I know that.......I know people tend to be biased for many reasons, if nothing else to make themselves look better or feel better about LOSING money.     But nonetheless, it is also a known fact that IF....IF  a person is a winner, they DEFINITELY talk that up as much as possible, and from where I sit, VERY few people are claiming success these last 4-5 years.      This cannot be dismissed as mere "smoke" any longer....SOMETHING has changed....I am not saying that SOMETHING is ILLEGAL or constitutes cheating or "riggedness" (I made the word up to make a point!)     But SOMETHING is now at work with modern Video Poker machines which the serious, skilled players have previously never had to contend with....some aspect of HOW the games process or HOW the machines resolve each hand......when someone ultimately pinpoints this "SOMETHING" and players make adjustments to counter it (IF POSSIBLE), then the games will probably change AGAIN to set us right back in the hole.......is that not the typical progression of ALL CASINO GAMES (TABLES, SLOTS, etc.)?????

[olds442jetaway]

This is my opinion on how they do it assuming the long term results on various hands fall within the norms.
1. Allowing more premium hands to hit on lower denomination machines or with fewer coins bet especially when only 1 or 2 coins are bet.

2. Having such long streaks of dud hands that most will bust their bankroll or run out of time to play then compressing the really good hands into a short time frame where an entire area of the casino might light up at the same time.

3. I base this not only on experience and talking to many many vp players about things in general over the last 5 years and so many persoinal observations as well.

4. Although some posts made nothing of this and explained how it wouldn't be possible, I fall back on what one of the head slot techs told me one night when I asked him about RNGs. I said...aren't these machines run completely by a RNG...and his answer was " partial RNGs "...

[shadowman]

There are threads almost exactly like this one in the archives. My opinion is laid out there, but I'll repeat it.

When people start out at VP and do bad, many of them quit. Therefore, a higher percentage of the players that continue to play are those that were lucky.

Eventually, the luck turns and those players start doing poorly. They are doing nothing differently so they end up thinking it is the casino that has made a change.

I've heard comments about "the machines not paying like they used to" over and over again for years. You can always find a group that believe exactly that in any casino.

Meanwhile, there is always a group of new players starting the cycle over again.

As for myself. I've experienced good and bad streaks that have lasted months, even a year plus. However, the streaks always end.

[Tedlark]

  Always nice to read the knowledgable words and thoughts from shadowman, his is one opinion that I (actually WE) as video poker players should consider as accurate as can be.   For the poster from the east coast it's the same old blah, blah, blah, capitalized...

[olds442jetaway]

I might agree somewhat if I ever had a few years of even a lukewarm winning streak. Anyway, the bottom line is nobody knows for sure. For those in that lucky part of the rainbow, hopefully the rainbow will continue. For those like me in the dull and faded part of the rainbow, I hope some of those gold coins will spill out of the bucket and I can catch a couple.

[notes1]

if shadowman's comments refer to players expecting to win, then i am in agreement. but, to deny that reduced paytables, more casinos with less players and states taking a larger cut from casinos (us), that does not have an influence on the cost of playing, seems to denying the obvious.

[MPD001]

If the casinos had the ability, within the regulations, to adjust VP hands to where they pay less frequently, then why are they (1) reducing paytables (2) slashing comps (3) reducing or eliminating earning credits on some VP games? I would think that they would add VP machines with great paytables, and throw all sorts of FreePlay at VP players, knowing that they will reap a bounty the more players that they get.

[olds442jetaway]

I think they are trying to get them on par with slots which usually pay in the 86%-90% range long term. Paytables alone won't do that. If they all had paytables showing 88% returns, almost nobody would play them so they combine somewhat reduced paytables with reduced comps or points, and possible other adjustments as I have described below. That combined with poor play by most vp players, and minimal maintenance on the machines which are ripe with sticky buttons and other malfunctions brings them closer in my opinion to getting the returns down to slot level. I have had more than one host and exec at the casino state that the casino higher ups would be happy to have no vp offered and nothing but slots and some of the table games that the Asian players love. As most know, they are huge gamblers especially in this part of the country.
     edited to fix a couple of typos...

[OTABILL]

[QUOTE=OTABILL] I'm not sure about the high variance games. We have consistently played single line game king DDB well over 95% of the time and have seen the same trend. Paytables have pretty much remained constant. In fact, we usually seem to have the worst results, the better the paytable.

     I can agree there. I think though I lost so much more on the best paytables because I played the most on them and bet at a higher level. My best results last year and this while not great by any means have been on Double Down Stud which is a hard game to find at most casinos and the paytables almost always average between 95 and 98 percent.[/QUOTE]

Olds, it seems to me old fashioned luck has a lot to do with my results. In DDB, if you don't get royals, premium quads and even regular quads within a reasonable amount of hands played, no way one will have a good night regardless of paytable or perfect play. The frequency of these hands has seemingly diminished in recent years. Apropos, during numerous trips to Vegas (and some to Laughlin) during the last 8- 9 years I have not had one royal on single line game kings, nor has my wife, despite hours and hours of play per trip. We don't keep records but I am sure this covers 100,000s of hands played combined. However, fooling around one night in the casino on a cruise ship with the worst odds possible, I hit a royal! One of the few I have hit lifetime in a casino.