contest game

[dora]

October's contest has made me realize that the super times 100 play game's odds aren't too good.  Break even after 100 hands would be 60,000 credits.  I've only reached the 55,000 mark about half the games I've play.  Only hit over 100,000 once in about 50 games.  We don't have the game at our local casino but I don't think I'm going to search it out!  Fun contest though.  Love the site - I'm on here every morning!

[royal flush]

like other games you need to be dealt a big hand then the credits come in big time the stp adds about .25% to ev on average but increases volatility

[jim18]

The October contest is 100 hand STP.  I think it is reasonable that the winning score would be higher than in most other games.  The winning score is 1.2 million.  Roughly equal to being dealt a RF on the first hand, with a bonus of 3X.  All of this is believable to me, even though I have never been dealt a RF on the deal.However, what drives me crazy is that 100 STP is one of the games that we can play for practice.  The top score ever posted there is 20% below the top score in the contest.  In fact the contestants in second - sixth place all have higher scores than the record indicated for 100 hand STP.  How many different people played this game since it was added to the array of games available to us?  How many thousands of hands did they play during that period of time?It is noteworthy when a record is broken in sports as well as in VP gaming.  But when that record is broken six times over, it causes me to wonder.

[Webman]

Wow, what a great question... it caused me to look those stats up.Some things to keep in mind... 1) The Top Scores only shows gold member top scores, since basic member scores are not tracked in the leaderboards.2) The Top Scores for normal play reflect a user's total for the entire day, INCLUDING LOSSES. In a contest, all scores are positive since they count up from zero. Additionally, it's your best total in just 200 hands (which do not include any losses in the many other sessions), whereas someone who wins a million points in this volatile game in normal daily play may very well have "spent" 100,000 credits in making that happen.3) In normal play (as opposed to contest play), people tend to spread their play over several games in a day, and only a few times a week. In a contest, people are far more dedicated.Having said that, I'm still surprised at the following numbers, which demonstrate the statistical power of these monthly contests where 10,000+ people all play a specific game for a week. With this in mind, it's no wonder you see the crazy jackpots we do in a contest. They are representative of a LOT of video poker play.The statistics are as follows:The total number of DEALS for 100 play super times pay since we launched it on the site, again only Gold Member play and excluding personal challenges and other contests, is 21,730,669.The total number of deals in this contest alone (which has still not concluded) is currently 22,326,564!That's some interesting stuff there. Thanks for the question.

[jim18]

WebmanThanks for taking the time to answer my question.  Actually, I was just making a statement, and did not expect a response from you.You have come up with some interesting facts that I overlooked.If a player in the contest can only play 200 hands, then I think it is safe to say that you have a large following of people that come to this site just for the contest.  You have more people playing in the contest that you have players playing in the daily practice games.Appears to me that the purpose of the contest is to generate new customers, by attracting new players to your site.  If that is your goal, then I truly hope it is successful for both you and the many players who come to your site.I will leave it to others to ask the question: What is the value that these contest players bring to the site?  It is kind of like the illegal immigration issue.  Big business loves the illegals, as they pay them less money for their time.  But what do the illegals contribute to the community?  And by comparison, what do the contest players bring to this site, if all they do is play in contests.  The answer I think is that they bring advertising dollars to this site.  Great for business, but what does it do for those of us who are members of this community?Anyway, there is no need for you to respond to my comments.  I am just giving an opinion, not asking for any changes to be made to your business model.

[New2vp]

The statistics are as follows:The total number of DEALS for 100 play super times pay since we launched it on the site, again only Gold Member play and excluding personal challenges and other contests, is 21,730,669.The total number of deals in this contest alone (which has still not concluded) is currently 22,326,564!That's some interesting stuff there. Thanks for the question.Webman,The new leading score in the contest is a bit more incredible than usual, even given millions of deals.If I did the probability calculations correctly, the odds of getting two (or more) dealt royals AND one (or more) dealt Quad Aces + Kicker in 100 hands is a bit over 188 Billion to one.  This means 188 Billion games, not deals, with a game consisting of 100 deals each.  That might be a "few" more games than have occurred in all the contests to date.Add to that the odds of getting at least one multiplier in those 3 deals (about 19% of the time) and the odds have increased to over 1 Trillion to one against.Certainly this could have occurred by chance, depending on the precision and cycle length of the RNG, but I am going to guess that if this were a 100-play STP machine in a land casino, the game would have had a high probability of being shut down and re-checked when the 2nd dealt royal followed the first within 20 hands.  An AWAK 10 hands after that...pretty great luck!  Yeah, this might have been shut down whether it was a video poker machine or a slot machine.And that's not all...the winning score NOT COUNTING the top 3 hands was 395,140 vs.an average score for all 100 deals being somewhere in the 58,000+ ballpark.  I'm going to guess that the odds for 97 hands being nearly 400,000 is pretty far up there, probably more than 2000 to 1, especially when no single hands can be greater than 200,000 (since any such hands would have appeared in the display of the top 3 hands), but when we already know that the chances are at least 1 Trillion to 1, I don't know if it matters if it is really more like 2 Quadrillion to 1.  Still fairly unlikely.Good luck everyone, but you'll need more than that to challenge poptix, but who knows?  Maybe two dealt quad aces with 8x and 10x and draws with lots of kickers.  Dream on!

[New2vp]

It's fitting that it is a Halloween contest.  Pretty s-p-o-o-o-k-y!

[Tomcat1569]

How about Gold member-only tourneys so those who keep this site alive have something more to play for? Would that run afoul of the gaming rules?

[edog743]

Tomcat, I have been grousing about a gold only contest for a while now. With no luck.

[Tomcat1569]

Tomcat, I have been grousing about a gold only contest for a while now. With no luck.
 So let's get 'er done! Do we need to circulate a petition?