Why Play Max Coins?
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Generally speaking, I advise players to play max-coins
when playing video poker. For most
versions, this means 5 coins. The penny
Player puts up 5 cents, the nickel player 25 cents, the quarter player puts up
$1.25 and the dollar player has to put up $5 per hand. This is done for one simple purpose. On most video poker machines, the top payout
- the Royal Flush - changes from 250 for 1 to 800 for 1 when that 5th coins is
put in. If you are playing a
Progressive, the only way to win that jackpot is to play 5 coins.
A payout of 800 for 1 on the Royal is worth approximately
2% of the total payback of the machine.
A payout of only 250 reduces this down to about 0.65%. So, the Player is giving up more than 1.25%
of payback if he plays below max-coin.
In similar fashion, if the machine is offering a Progressive, which
should push the Royal payout to above 800, then the Player would be
surrendering even more payback by playing below the max-coin level.
The notion of playing max-coin does NOT mean you should
wager 5 times the amount you feel comfortable wagering. Instead it means you should consider lowering
your denomination to the next lower level and then play 5 coins. So, rather than playing 1 quarter, you should
play 5 nickels. This, of course, assumes
that all things are otherwise equal. It
is certainly possible that when you go to a nickel machine (or change to the
nickel option on a multi-denominational machine) that the paybacks may change
as well and you may find that the payback on the nickel machine is well below
that of the quarter. This makes things
a bit more complicated. If the quarter
machines pays 99.5% at max-coin, then it will be closer to 98% if you play 1
quarter. If the nickel machines pays
98.5% at max-coin, then you'll still be better off playing max-coin nickels.
There are a few times when you may want to play less than
max-coin. The first is when you are
first leaning how to play. As you are
more apt to make mistakes at this point, you might be better off simply playing
1 nickel at a time. Yes, you will be
playing at a lower payback, but at this point, your goal is to become a better
player while playing on a real machine.
Ideally, you'd spend most of your 'learning' time playing on your
computer (or phone or tablet) at home for free ,but I realize that playing for
free may be a lot less exciting than even playing for a single nickel.
Another reason that you may not want to play max-coin is
your bankroll. If your bankroll is not large
enough to support playing max-coin then you might be better off playing
single-coin. Once your bankroll is
gone, you're done and you need to make sure you have enough money available to
ride out the cold streaks. Of course,
one solution to this issue is again to simply drop down in denomination. So, this advice really only applies if
machines of a lower denomination are not available. Since the advent of the multi-denominational
machine, finding machines that play the denomination you want to play has
become much easier, however. So, this
second reason may have limited practical applications. But, if you find yourself in a situation
where your bankroll will support 5 nickel play, but you only have quarter
machines available, you may want to consider playing a single quarter as
opposed to five quarters.
One critical point to consider. Just because you switch a machine from
quarter play to nickel play, do NOT assume that the paytable is the same even
if you are switching to the same variety of video poker. There are no requirements that state that a
machine must use the same paytable when you move from one denomination to
another. In similar fashion, don't
assume that a bank of similar (or identical) looking machines all have the same
paytable. Casinos frequently and
presumably purposefully mix the machines up, making sure to sprinkle higher
paying machines in with lower paying ones.
I dare say that you may find no rhyme or reason to the pattern of
machines on the casino floor.
