Little help

[pokeherguy]

I got a buddy who has been playing slots for years and no question about it he spends far more time in the casino than myself. He pretty much got murdered this year playing $5 slots and was asking me about video poker vs. slots. I don't think I'm a very good example for him to go by because I got my butt handed to me because of where I chose to play a huge part of the year playing. Since he plays $5 slots x 2 credits he is spending $10 a spin so I suggested he picks the vp game he likes best learn all about the game and go from there. He's kinda jumping the gun on me by asking me if he were to play the same as myself what he expect to be his outcome. I know this is an impossible question to answer but given the payback percentages and and amount of hands played could anyone give me a general idea? Lets say he does the following:
 
Game: DDB single line
Payback percentage: 98.98%
Denomination: $2 @ max ($10 hand)
Amount of hands: 250,000
 
 
The reason I chose 98.98% payback is because its the best we have in the area for DDB the game I play. As a general rule how much money would he end up losing by the years end. I did the math and came up with $25,500.

[cddenver]

Game: DDB single line
Payback percentage: 98.98%
Denomination: $2 @ max ($10 hand)
Amount of hands: 250,000
 
The reason I chose 98.98% payback is because its the best we have in the area for DDB the game I play. As a general rule how much money would he end up losing by the years end. I did the math and came up with $25,500.
 
That number's correct, but only with perfect play.  Learning to play VP in a casino can be an expensive proposition so he might think about investing in a PC training program first.   DDB can be a tough one for a new player to learn as a first game.  A simpler game to learn would be straight JoB, and if it's available at 9/6 has a 99.5% payback.

[New2vp]

It is probably more realistic to look at a range of results to see what might possibly happen.  I have some software featuring Lenny Frome, Masque Video Poker Strategy Pro, that uses a strategy table that is not perfect with no penalty cards.  You can run large simulations on it fairly quickly (lots quicker than WinPoker) where random draws are played according to the imperfect strategy table in the software.  For ten different years, the results in dollars were as follows:


7,590


-91,630


-32,330


9,740


-54,550


-53,050


-25,890


-2,140


-83,330


-53,030

In this case, in 2 out of 10 years, the results were positive, and one year had a fairly small loss.  However, there were 5 years with losses over $50,000.  Overall, this was an average loss of 1.51%, a little worse than the 1.02% expected loss for this game, so this may have been a bit of an unlucky sample.  Nevertheless, there certainly might be a chance, perhaps around 9 or 10%, that any given year's results would be worse than even the poorest results in this small sample: a loss of around $92,000.Good luck!  I hope he gets some good comps!

[New2vp]

I didn't see CD's message until after I made the previous post and I certainly agree with his points.  Definitely experience in making the correct selections is necessary to get expected or simulated results. 

[cddenver]

Good luck!  I hope he gets some good comps!

 

Thanks for pointing out that normal year-to-year variations in what you're hitting - or not hitting! - as far as top pays go have a big impact in any given year.  Ditto for what you said about good comps.   With a total play of $2.5M from PG's scenario and a simple CB rate of 0.25% each year's numbers get better by $6,250.  Throw in bonus points days and cash coupons.  Hit the comped buffet daily for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. 

[pokeherguy]

Thanks for the help, from my understanding those losing numbers can be improved upon greatly when a player learns to recognize the natural "hot & cold" cycles of the machine. I've evidently lost my touch because after years of coming up in the positive return column playing DDB at 98.98% without any comps or points I posted pretty close to that -$25,890.

[jm002546]

  One other factor.  In those big win years he's going to be out 30% or so from income tax, maybe more for state income tax. So the average yearly loss will be even greater than the mean.

[New2vp]

It seems like Lenny Frome was a pretty smart guy.  Even though his early attempts at strategy tables were not always perfect, they were pretty close in most cases.  I don't know if he ever had the privilege to learn about the value of cycles , but if he did, maybe they were built in to the random number generators that his software used for the simulations.  A loss of over $90,000 seems to be a fairly cold cycle to me.

[cddenver]

Thanks for the help, from my understanding those losing numbers can be improved upon greatly when a player learns to recognize the natural "hot & cold" cycles of the machine.
 
The annual ups-and-downs that New2vp posted really don't have anything to do with individual machines; it's simply the total play and the card combinations you'd see over time at work.
 
If the 250K hands being played annually were at a table with real cards and a FAST dealer () you'd see the same kinds of ups-and-downs.  Five tables and five dealers - same thing.  Ten tables and ten dealers - same thing.  It's the 250K hands in total that lead to results like those New2vp posted, not where and when they're being played.

[cddenver]

  One other factor.  In those big win years he's going to be out 30% or so from income tax, maybe more for state income tax. So the average yearly loss will be even greater than the mean.
 
Good point, thanks!