The average amount of money that a video poker machine returns to the player after a long period of play is called the payback. The payback is usually stated as a percentage of the amount that the player invested in the machine. If, for example, the payback of a game is 98%, then, over the long term, you can expect to sustain a 2% loss on each hand. The payback of the game also determines the average profit made by the casino, which is called the house percentage. For a payback of 98%, every $100 put into the machine will return a long-term average of $98 to the player. The remaining $2 is the casino’s profit. Actually, the $98 is an expectation. It could be more and it could be less. It is the amount that, statistically-speaking, is expected to be returned in the form of winnings over a very long period of time. Over the short term, however, anything can happen. For any given machine, there are two payback numbers. One is the maximum payback for perfect play. This is the payback of interest to the player. It is the highest possible return when the best playing strategy is used. It is what i have in mind whenever the term “payback” is used in this chapter. To the casino, this payback has only academic interest because it does not directly define the casino’s profit. The other payback is based on the actual recorded return from the machine. It is the one that the casino cares about because it is an estimate of the casino’s potential long-term profit on that machine. Since many players do not apply the best strategy or bet the maximum coins, the payback for those players is typically 2% to 4% lower than for perfect play. Thus, if the maximum attainable payback on a machine is 98%, the actual recorded payback will typically be 95% to 96%, leaving the casino with a 4% to 5% profit. Coin multipliers All video party poker machines employ coin/credit multipliers. Most machines will accept one through five coins (or credits) for each hand played. The more coins deposited, the higher the payout for each winning hand. The payouts increase proportionately to the number of coins or credits, except that the largest jackpot is significantly higher when five coins are played. Coin multipliers are designed to encourage players to bet the maximum number of coins. For most winning hands, the payout for five coins is five times the payout for one coin. For the top hand, however, the jackpot payout for five coins is typically sixteen to twenty times the payout for one coin. For example, the payout for a royal flush is typically 250 coins or credits for each coin or credit played. Thus, for two coins played, you would win 500 coins; for three coins, you would win 750; and for four coins, you would win 1000. For five coins, however, instead of winning 1250 coins, you would win 4000 coins. On some machines, you would win 4700 or 5000 coins. As a result, when fewer than the maximum number of coins is bet, the average long-term payback percentage is reduced by 1% to 2%. For this reason, the strategies presented in this chapter are based on five-coin play. The only exception is for the second chance machines described below. Details of the games Even within a single casino, there can be a bewildering array of different kinds of video poker machines. One way to sort them out is to group them into major categories. Many players come to prefer certain types of machines, which is fine as long as they seek out the best paying machines within that type. Although new kinds of video poker machines regularly appear, the following are the most common in today’s casinos:
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