Finally, another good STP hit for me.

[Webman]

Webman; I DEFY you to show where or how this theory is complete dooky.

I’m not allowed to post pictures of that nature on this forum.

[Waiting4RF]

Video Poker for Winners is a good example of how VIdeo Poker can be riggged. You can select the kinds of hands you want dealt. Mixed, easy, medium, or advanced. Play advanced and you will see your return drop drastically.

[Vman96]

Video Poker for Winners is a good example of how VIdeo Poker can be riggged. You can select the kinds of hands you want dealt. Mixed, easy, medium, or advanced. Play advanced and you will see your return drop drastically.

Totally agree. The most difficult holds have a middling return, often around the 2.4 to 3.2 out of 5 coin mark. It's a no-brainer to hold things like dealt quads and other great hands that makes your return near 100%.

It's up to laws/casinos' integrities/gaming companies' integrities/regulatory agencies to keep VP fair.

I cannot completely rule out a major conspiracy theory among the four prongs I listed above existing somewhere in the US. But in my experience, VP is in the realm of "fair" in the places I've played at where the law dictates "Vegas Style" VP. And remember, "Vegas Style" VP does include Atlantic City.

[Tedlark]

I disagree. Being able to select the difficulty of hands on VPW while playing on your home computer is not a good example of how video poker can be "rigged."

W4RF, are you saying that casino based video poker machines are "rigged" because they may, more often than not, deal advanced hands?

[Waiting4RF]

Tedlark, Webman said to use VPW software in STP mode to prove that STP starting hands will be dealt normally based on the actual return observed. I was pointing out that you can select the type of dealt hands in VPW. If VPW is supposed to be just like the casinos, then there is a way in software to rig a machine.

[Webman]

I understand your point.... that's a good example of what DaBurglar's theory might look like in practice. Any machine dealing cards in a manner such as the "difficult hands" feature in VPW would of course be blatantly against the regulations that dictate how the cards must be dealt in a class 3 poker game.

My point, of course, was that if you want to study starting hand frequency in Super Times Pay, you could look at the game returns in VPW (using random cards, not the subset of difficult hands) as evidence that this is not built into the game design, or use the software to do your own test without using your money in a casino.

Are these conspiracy theories likely? I think there are good reasons to doubt as much.

As others have mentioned in the past, why would a casino ever drop their pay tables if they could keep better pay tables and manipulate the game in a different manner to increase their profits instead?

Secondly, video poker represents a fraction of casino games on most floors and it would be perhaps the easiest game to spot any sort of tampering because of the nature of the game. It would be foolish to even attempt this when you have a floor full of slot games that would be virtually undetectable if win frequencies were changed. There too, we must of course rely on regulation.

I think people greatly underestimate what would be required to tamper with these games in the manner described. Interestingly, you never hear these theories from successful advantage players, who have the most at stake if the games were ever to be tampered with or not behave as expected.

[mightwin]

I believe I forget that video poker (or slots) is gambling. Chance.

I get upset when I don't win something. I don't play enough hands to compare with what the math is telling me will be the somewhat normal outcome.

It's easy to dream up a million reasons why the machine is not paying you a jackpot. It's not easy to remember it's only a chance at winning.

When I was playing video poker exclusively - I did see wins. Lots of quads with kickers on Double Double. But when you start chasing the royal and use most or all of your winnings to do so - it's upsetting.

The one thing I forget each time in a casino - it's my money and I can walk out the door with it and go home. It's my fault when I spend more for a chance to win.

[Waiting4RF]

You could track your hands in the casino. You could keep track of someone else's hands in the casino from a distance and that wouldn't cost anything. Use a text editor on your phone. Enter x for dealt hand that was not a winner, p=high pair, t=two pair, 3=3 of a kind, s=straight, f=flush, h=full house, q=quad, a=straight flush, r=royal flush. You are only tracking dealt hands, not the draw. The text would look like
x x x p
x x 3
x x x x x p
x t
f
x x x p

20 hands, 3 pairs dealt, 1 two pair, 1 three of a kind, 1 flush

Copy the text into an email to get the data into Word. Then in Word, search for the letter and it will show you how many times that letter or number was found. A frequency example: Take the total number of hands divided by number of three of a kind occurances to get your real life average frequency of occurance. It should be close to 47. Keep the results over many sessions to calculate your long term average. Then compare the gimmick games with the single hand game averages to see if they are normal.

[FAA]

Nice system!

[DaBurglar]

So, they can do an RNG end run with everything still legitimate anyway!

No they can't! Such tampering would unquestionably be illegal, and a casino that was caught doing it (if, in fact, it's even possible to do), would likely be severely punished.

People, or companies or organizations that are engaged in something that is wrong or illegal or even merely questionable OBVIOUSLY are going to go to great lengths to hide or misdirect any such investigation that you seem to put complete and total faith in....this is not to prove anything, I am just pointing out the obvious detail that such an endeavor that I put forth above as a POSSIBLE explanation for seemingly weird or statistically skewed results would not be that hard to hide, nor turn on and off as the circumstances require. I've done a lot of inquiring and looking into as regards the whole infrastructure and status of the oversight of AC gambling in general since 2009, and there are numerous potential "cracks" and deficits in how they go about maintaining things such as integrity of the games, especially compared to places like Las Vegas.

And FYI, what I was describing was not an "END RUN" around the RNG, it is a simple programing tweak that can be turned on or off, hidden and re-instated very easily as the circumstances require on a modern Server Setup. I am NOT saying this is 100% happening, but the fact remains the results that many people observe at CET casinos in AC cause a number of concerns to come to mind. If you have not played yourself in AC at the CET properties, at least leave a small space in your mind for the possibility that there may be something to it, until you yourself go and play a sufficient amount to dispel the notion.