casino integrity

[notes1]

Tedlark, it is interesting to read all the comments.  I asked once before, but, you may have missed it. what has been your own win/loss/no change experience been with VP over the past 5 years? 

[Tedlark]

  Actually I would be right about no change and that would go back to  about 1998 as this is about the time I started playing more video poker when the multiline games started gaining popularity.   I've hit jackpots as high as 15k and I've had a few progressives in the 7k range. I've hit several jackpots in the 4k-5k range and many 2k jackpots. I can't even count the number of 1k royals I've hit over the years and I've had several multi-royal sessions. I once hit 4 1k royals in one night and this was playing 3-5 hand and once I hit 5 1k royals during a 4 day trip to Las Vegas. Two of those royals were hit within a period of an hour at Rio while I was waiting for my girlfriend to land at McCarran.    I do have losing sessions but they always seem to get balanced out by winning sessions. This is why I say that I would consider myself to be at no change.   I am strictly a recreational player and I would much rather walk away from a machine after eeking out a profit and not dump it back into the machine. I had a brother in law who would hit quad aces or a royal and it seemed as if he wasn't happy unless he were either coming home with a pocket full of money or coming home with nothing more than lint in his poclets.    If I were something other than a recreational gambler I would most likely not be playing video poker. If I were playing video poker in a manner something other than for recreation then I would be ending sessions as soon as I make a profit and coming home. More often than not if I do hit a nice little jackpot in the 2k-3k range I will play some more but I will be coming home with the bulk of my winnings.

[onemoretry]

To mimic the RNG, take your 470 cards, and select say 50 or 100 of them. NOW, from THAT pile, select the card to complete your hand. THAT'S how the random selection works in today's VP machines, to my knowledge. That is how it was explained to me by IGT.

So, your pile may have all 10 of the ten of diamonds, or none at all.

Of course, the actual machine has far more than the 470 cards used in this example to select from, but the concept is the same. When you hit "Draw", the RNG swoops into the string and grabs a set of cards, and from that set, selects the card to present.



With respect to the kitchen table example, you appear to be saying that since the sub-pile does not necessarily contain all the available cards uniformly, and the final selection is from that pile, the odds of the entire selection process have changed. You are overlooking the probabilities governing the composition of the sub-pile. You can't just jump into the middle of a selection process and conclude that the probabilities from there to completion are the same as for the entire selection process.

In the kitchen table example, the process does not start with the sub-pile. It starts with the entire pile.

Your description of the RNG swooping in and selecting a string from which the final selection is made does seem to make sense, as it includes the entire selection process, not just a part of it.

[BillyJoe]

[QUOTE=billyjoe]
To mimic the RNG, take your 470 cards, and select say 50 or 100 of them. NOW, from THAT pile, select the card to complete your hand. THAT'S how the random selection works in today's VP machines, to my knowledge. That is how it was explained to me by IGT.

So, your pile may have all 10 of the ten of diamonds, or none at all.

Of course, the actual machine has far more than the 470 cards used in this example to select from, but the concept is the same. When you hit "Draw", the RNG swoops into the string and grabs a set of cards, and from that set, selects the card to present.



With respect to the kitchen table example, you appear to be saying that since the sub-pile does not necessarily contain all the available cards uniformly, and the final selection is from that pile, the odds of the entire selection process have changed. You are overlooking the probabilities governing the composition of the sub-pile. You can't just jump into the middle of a selection process and conclude that the probabilities from there to completion are the same as for the entire selection process.

In the kitchen table example, the process does not start with the sub-pile. It starts with the entire pile.

Your description of the RNG swooping in and selecting a string from which the final selection is made does seem to make sense, as it includes the entire selection process, not just a part of it. [/QUOTE]
My ONLY point in all this, and then I will let it go, is to point out that NOT EVERY DRAW SELECTION is a 1 in 47 chance. The string that is selected is composed of a mix of available cards, which may contain any combinations, duplicates, repeats, etc. This could be good, or bad, for choosing ONE SPECIFIC CARD.

But, since there are more bad available cards (46) than good available cards (1), I maintain that there is a better chance that your string is working against you for your selection. That is not to say a good selection does not occur, because it does (unless you are VMan ). I am just saying that, with the newer VP technology, still operating within the gaming regulations, your opportunity for a favorable draw has diminished, in most cases.

[BillyJoe]

I am perplexed by billyjoe's posts. On one hand he states his personal experience has not changed over the past 5 years. Yet, he keeps pointing out ways that the newer RNG makes drawing the payoff card more difficult. Maybe, he is correct. A casino does not need to do anything illegal, as they have used legal methods, designed by manufactures to make the returns to the casino higher for them and cost the player more.
The difference, Notes1, for me personally, is Money Management. I know, Bob Dancer is probably throwing up right now if he is reading this, but for me, it helps create (but does not guarantee) a profitable gaming trip.

If I just played and played at VP, the impacts that we have discussed would virtually guarantee losing, probably more now than many years ago. But I do not let a losing session get away from me with regard to my gaming bankroll, and I have learned to recognize a reasonable profitable session when it happens, and stash it. In that way, my VP bankroll has not seen significant changes over the years.

[BillyJoe]

[QUOTE=billyjoe]
To mimic the RNG, take your 470 cards, and select say 50 or 100 of them. NOW, from THAT pile, select the card to complete your hand. THAT'S how the random selection works in today's VP machines, to my knowledge. That is how it was explained to me by IGT.

So, your pile may have all 10 of the ten of diamonds, or none at all.


But if you have ALL 10 of the Royal cards in that sample of 100, then your chances of hitting the royal would become 10/100 = 10%. So scenarios like this make up for the times you grabbed zero of the Royal cards from the 470. In the end, doing this over and over and over and over and over and over leads to the chances of completing the Royal still to be 1 in 47. Otherwise, it breaks the law.
[/QUOTE]
YES - EXACTLY. With an increase to 10% of hitting, you now STILL have a 90% of NOT hitting. So, you probably will not catch the card you seek, but the 'math' has now adjusted itself for all the other opportunities that it previously gave you of LESS than a 1 in 47 chance.

[onemoretry]

]My ONLY point in all this, and then I will let it go, is to point out that NOT EVERY DRAW SELECTION is a 1 in 47 chance. The string that is selected is composed of a mix of available cards, which may contain any combinations, duplicates, repeats, etc. This could be good, or bad, for choosing ONE SPECIFIC CARD.

But, you continue to overlook the fact that the selection of the string, if that is what actually happens, is part of the process - as you yourself stated, it happens after the draw button is pushed. You can't logically separate that step from the rest of the process and say the result of that initial step, and the resulting probability of a successful draw, are the same as the pre draw probability of 1 in 47.

Most competent jurisdictions that regulate video poker require that, at each and every opportunity for a card to be selected, all eligible cards must have the same chance of being drawn. You are suggesting that is not always the case. I think that interpretation is incorrect, and I, too, will now let it go.

[BillyJoe]

[QUOTE=billyjoe]
]My ONLY point in all this, and then I will let it go, is to point out that NOT EVERY DRAW SELECTION is a 1 in 47 chance. The string that is selected is composed of a mix of available cards, which may contain any combinations, duplicates, repeats, etc. This could be good, or bad, for choosing ONE SPECIFIC CARD.

But, you continue to overlook the fact that the selection of the string, if that is what actually happens, is part of the process - as you yourself stated, it happens after the draw button is pushed. You can't logically separate that step from the rest of the process and say the result of that initial step, and the resulting probability of a successful draw, are the same as the pre draw probability of 1 in 47.

Most competent jurisdictions that regulate video poker require that, at each and every opportunity for a card to be selected, all eligible cards must have the same chance of being drawn. You are suggesting that is not always the case. I think that interpretation is incorrect, and I, too, will now let it go.[/QUOTE]
So, just to be clear, you maintain that EVERY opportunity to draw and display a needed card (the ten of Diamonds in our example), is a 1 in 47 chance every single time, and the changes in VP technology have no bearing on how the card is selected to be displayed.

So, when a choir of VP players say that the machines play 'differently' now, and it is more difficult to get premium hands, they are just bemoaning their bad luck.

[onemoretry]

So, just to be clear, you maintain that EVERY opportunity to draw and display a needed card (the ten of Diamonds in our example), is a 1 in 47 chance every single time, and the changes in VP technology have no bearing on how the card is selected to be displayed.

So, when a choir of VP players say that the machines play 'differently' now, and it is more difficult to get premium hands, they are just bemoaning their bad luck.
Yep! (and, I do not believe it's more difficult now to get premium hands than in the past - it's always been damn hard!)

[Vman96]

[QUOTE=Vman96] [QUOTE=billyjoe]
To mimic the RNG, take your 470 cards, and select say 50 or 100 of them. NOW, from THAT pile, select the card to complete your hand. THAT'S how the random selection works in today's VP machines, to my knowledge. That is how it was explained to me by IGT.

So, your pile may have all 10 of the ten of diamonds, or none at all.


But if you have ALL 10 of the Royal cards in that sample of 100, then your chances of hitting the royal would become 10/100 = 10%. So scenarios like this make up for the times you grabbed zero of the Royal cards from the 470. In the end, doing this over and over and over and over and over and over leads to the chances of completing the Royal still to be 1 in 47. Otherwise, it breaks the law.
[/QUOTE]
YES - EXACTLY. With an increase to 10% of hitting, you now STILL have a 90% of NOT hitting. So, you probably will not catch the card you seek, but the 'math' has now adjusted itself for all the other opportunities that it previously gave you of LESS than a 1 in 47 chance. [/QUOTE]

Well of course I'm still going to miss a lot even if I get a sample that is heavily weighted in my favor when we're talking about converting four to a royal here. If I could guarantee converting 4 to a royal 10% of the time all the time, and the rest of the game behaved as expected, I'd take it every day of the week as it would add over 2% to the overall game!

Nevertheless, as long as the game attempts to fill in my royal draws with an expected frequency of 1 in 47, I'm happy because that's the game I expect to play. I believe this has been true everywhere I have played except Alabama where state law clearly pointed out that VP is determined by bingo draws. If my actual results are unlucky, then so be it. Casinos don't survive on winners. And they also barely survive with players like me.