Think Loss Rate

            How much of a difference is there in terms of payback from one casino game to another?  Most table games have a payback between 97 and 99.5%.  Video Poker can range from about 95% to 101%.  Slot machines probably range from about 85% up to 95%.  Sidebets, quite frankly are all over the place, ranging from just over the legal limit of 75% and going up to the low-mid 90%.  While there is a lot of overlap, one of the largest determining factors is strategy.  More complex strategy means a combination of more human error and/or Players not even trying to follow it.  Simple strategy is much easier to learn and follow.  Three Card Poker has one simple strategy rule.  Follow it and you should approach the theoretical payback of about 98%.  Don't follow it and you can only do worse.

            Video Poker has paybacks considerably higher.  Not all of the versions, but you can still find plenty of them well above 98%.  Video Poker's strategy, however, is far more complex than Three Card Poker's strategy.  The average Video Poker machine has more than 30 different strategy items that need to be memorized and in the appropriate order so that you know how to play the hand.  So, first you need to review the hand and determine the realistic ways the hand can be played and then you have to know which of these ways has the highest expected value, which tells us which way the hand should be played.

            In most games, many of the hands are pretty obvious even if you knew little.  If you're dealt a 6-7-8 in Three Card Poker, I don't think you need to have read a book to know what to do.  What if you are dealt K-3-2?  What about Q-8-2?  What about Q-3-2?   For each hand, the Player is really asking himself if he is better off Playing or Folding.  Those are the only two options in Three Card Poker.  The answer is pretty obvious for the Straight and a good deal less obvious for the other three hands.  The strategy is determined by the math behind the question of whether the Player is better off Folding or Playing.  By Folding, the Player forfeits his original wager (one unit).  By Playing, he wagers an additional unit.  If Playing can return at least that additional unit (on average), then the hand is worth Playing.   The Player does not have to perform some complex calculation on each hand.  The decision is to Play or Fold and the math works out very neatly.  For every hand stronger or equal to Q-6-4 the Player is better off Playing.  For Q-6-3 or less, he is better of Folding.  You've just become an expert at Three Card Poker strategy.

            Video Poker is not nearly this simple.  First of all, there is no folding and no additional wagers.  You make an original wager and your only goal is to maximize the amount of money you get back on average for each hand.  If you're dealt a Straight off the deal, there isn't much to think about - unless of course it is also a 4-Card Straight Flush or a 4-Card Royal - then what?  What if you're dealt Three of a Kind and 3-Card Royal?  How about a Pair and a 4-Card Flush?  Does it matter if it is a High Pair or a Low Pair?  (Yes, it does!)  

            In Video Poker, the hands are categorized into about 30-40 different hand ranks and partial hand ranks.   Each of these is assigned an expected value.  This expected value is calculated by looking at ALL the possible draws for that hand and tabulating the total units won for each final winning hand.  We then divide this total by the number of possible draws so that we can compare apples to apples.  So, to look at a simple example.  Suppose you are dealt the following hand:

4♥        5♥        6♥        7♥        8♦

            The decision here should NOT be driven by your favorite Clint Eastwood line ("are you feeling lucky, punk?").  It should be driven by the math.   The straight has an expected value ("EV") of 4.00.  There is no draw in this case and the EV is simply the payout of the hand.  If you decide to discard the 8, there are 47 possible draws.  2 will result in a Straight Flush, 5 will result in a Straight (remember that you would have discarded a card that could also have made it a Straight) and 7 that will result in a Flush.  All other cards result in a losing hand.  So, do you throw away the sure 4 units to go for the Straight Flush?  When we add up the payouts of the winning hands, we get 162 units (2 x 50, 5 x 4, 7 x 6).  We divide this by 47 (the number of possible draws) and get 3.45.  As this is less than the EV of the Straight, we keep the Straight.  In the long run, this will be the better move.

            While most Player would play this correctly (I guess?), the simple reality is that except for those that learn the right strategy, there will be a significant number of Players who will NOT play this correctly.  Throw in the roughly 25% of hands that require a real decision and the casinos can count on Player error to help pad their winnings.  This is why they can offer the 99.5% paybacks on so many full-pay jacks or better Video Poker.   Someone like myself might sit down and get the 99.5%, but the vast majority of Players will play well below this level.   They are likely to play in the 97-98% range if they have some idea of what is going on and perhaps as little as 95% if they just 'wing it'.   The difference between 99.5% and 96% may not seem like a lot, but I always suggest you turn that around to the loss rate - 0.5% vs 4%.  Now there is a 700% increase from one to the other.  The impact to your bankroll could be staggering.

Frustration

            I consider myself to be a very competitive person.  Anybody who has ever played against me in a board game or on a sports field is pretty aware of this.   I play fair and hard.  I'll never cheat and don't throw tantrums.  But I really hate to lose.  So, you can only imagine what I feel like when I'm having 'one of those nights' while playing video poker.   Gambling isn't exactly the type of thing one does if they hate to lose.  Even if you're playing video poker or blackjack, games that are near 100%, you're still going to lose more than 50% of the time over short sessions.  Not a bad record if you're the Marlins, but I prefer to win, well, closer to 100% of the time.

            When I'm on the sports field, I have a significant amount of control in the outcome.  If I'm playing tennis, well, it is just about all on me.  If I'm playing softball, I can do my best to get on base when I'm at bat and make all the plays that come to me.  I can't help my right fielder catch the ball, however.  In this regard, gambling is more of a team sport than a single Player sport.  I'm an expert at just about any game in the casino that I will sit down to play.  So, I can make sure that I'll play each hand the way I should to maximize my overall payback.

            Unfortunately, luck still plays a significant portion of casino gambling (kind of like my right fielder catching the flyball?).  I can't control which hands I'm dealt.  In the long run, I know I will get my fair share of each type of hand.  In a given night, the difference between winning and losing is about getting your fair share of key hands.  You're not going to make money off of 4-Card Straights, so you don't usually keep track of how many you got. 

            When we look at the final paying hands of video poker, it should be no surprise that most of the payback comes from the bottom 3 hands.  Jacks or better gives us about 21-22% of our payback.  Two Pair gives us 26%, and Three of a Kind gives us another 20-21%.  This is almost 70% of a total of 99.5% payback.  Straights give us over 4%, Flushes over 6% and and Full Houses around 10%.  That brings us to 90%.   Four of a Kinds give us about 6%, Straight Flushes a mere 0.5% and Royal Flushes the remaining 2%. 

            The more common a hand is, the more likely no matter how weird your session is going that at the end of it, you're going to have very close to the number of those hand that you are supposed to.   So, if you play 3000 hands and the average shows that you should have about 650 High Pairs, you're not going to find out that you only had 500 of them.  Maybe you have 630 on a bad night and 670 on a good night, but you'll get very close to the 21-22% payback you are supposed to.

            On the other end of the spectrum is the Royal Flush.  If you play 3000 hands, you're well below the roughly 40,000 hands it takes to play to catch a Royal.  If you play a session and miss the Royal, you're inherently playing at 97.5%.  If you hit one then, well, you're assuredly playing well over 100%.   As a result, there really isn't a lot to discuss where the Royal is concerned.  It is literally hit or miss.  Straight Flushes simply don't add enough to the mix and are also so rare that you can't really look to them for a good or bad night.

            The critical hand is the Four of a Kinds.  Earlier I said that they make up 6% of the payback.  That is on a jacks or better game.  Move to Bonus or Double Bonus or Double Double Bonus and these number goes way up.   You win or lose in these games based on two key factors.  Do you get your fair share of Quads and which Quads do you get (when playing the bonus games)?   If you play 3000 hands, you can 'expect' to hit about 7 Four of a Kinds.  It would not be uncommon to play this many hands and get only 2 or 3.  If you have one of these nights, you're not likely to walk out a winner.  Quite frankly, you may not walk out with any of your bankroll left.  Fortunately, it is just as common to get 10 or 11 of them.  In these cases, you are very likely to walk out a winner.  If you're playing Double Double, you'll also want to hit some of the bonus Quads and/or the 'double' bonus quad with one of the kickers. 

            Playing the right strategy is, of course, a critical component of getting your fair share of Four of a Kinds.  But, the right strategy does only so much to make the 5th card in Quad 3's also be a 2, 4 or Ace.  Sometimes it just takes luck to have that good night.  Sometimes my right fielder actually catches the ball.  All I can do is hope.

Nutritional Labels for Casino Games?

            Today's column topic comes from my Freshman college roomate.  He posted a question to one of my old columns on my blog (gambatria.blogspot.com).  He wanted to know if I thought if the casinos would ever have to disclose all the key statistics about each game - a sort of 'nutritional label' for each game.  My response was that I didn't think so for 3 reasons.  The latter 2 were more political than mathematical.  This column is about that first reason.  With the exception of slot machines, all that information about each game is already fully known.

            While admittedly, if the average person were to walk up to a game that he has never seen before, he isn't going to know what the payback or win frequency is.   I'm an expert and I couldn't necessarily tell you these key stats about a game I've never seen before.  I might be able to take a good guess about it, depending on whether we are talking about a complete game or a sidebet.  There isn't a lot of variation in table game paybacks.  There are probably very few that are below 97% and, of course, none above 100%.  Sidebets can have a much larger range, as some are as low as 75% and others go up to the mid 90's or even a smidge higher.   If I were to walk up to a video poker machine that has a foreign paytable, but is based on one of the better known games, I can probably peg the payback to within .25% by doing some quick math in my head.

            There is little doubt that putting the key statistics on each machine would make this information far more readily available than the way it is currently done.  But, I wouldn't equate this to a can of soup without a nutritional label.   The list of possible ingredients and the exact quantities in the soup is nearly endless.  Throw in the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of food products (or more?) and it is completely impossible to make a choice based on nutritional content without these labels.  When you walk into a particular casino, you have perhaps a dozen or so choices of which table game to play.  Yes, each casino may have its variation of rules.  One may offer a 6-deck shoe for blackjack and the other may have a single-deck game.  One may hit on soft 17 and the other may stop on all 17s.  But, if you spend time reading a book or two on gambling, you'll quickly learn and likely remember the paybacks of most of these rule variations.

            For many games, there is almost no variations available - especially for the base game.  Want to play Three Card Poker?  It has a 97.98% payback for Ante/Play.  While there are some variations of Pair Plus, the overwhelming number of them have the same paytable, paying 92.72%.   These numbers are not known because Shuffle Entertainment published them, they are known because any mathematician/programmer can calculate these numbers using a variety of techniques.  In the case of Ante/Play, there are a total of 6 cards dealt to the Player and the Dealer (3 each).  There are 22,100 possible Player hands and 18,424 possible Dealer hands for each of the Player hands.  Thanks to the speed of today's computers, a program can run through ALL of these hands (numbering well into the Trillions), determine the right strategy for each Player hand and tell us absolutely everything we would ever want to know about the game - the payback, the win fequency, the probability of winning given any Player hand, how often the Player folds, how often the Dealer doesn't qualify, etc... 

            Unlike food, casino games are, well, gambling.  Part of gambling is rewarding those people who are more prepared and more knowledgeable about gambling.   The strategy for Three Card Poker doesn't take a PhD to learn.  It takes about 20 seconds (or less).  Play a Q-6-4 or better.    You could read this just about anywhere on the internet.  If you want to know the details about the strategy (how and why), you can read a booklet on the game (I suggest my very own Expert Strategy for Three Card Poker, but that's just me!)  Armed with this strategy you are very likely to do better than someone who has no idea what to do over the short run and almost assuredly so over the long run. 

            For years, people have asked me if I'm banned from casinos because of my in-depth knowledge of table games or if I'm 'hated' by the casinos for arming people with the strategies for how to play the games.  I'd like to think that I've had at least some influence on how people play.  But, I don't think the casinos care one bit.  Even with the best strategies, all casino games (except a few video poker variants) have house advantages.  The casinos are totally fine with a few people playing near the theoretical payback as results are all relative.  A few people who are winning in the short run or who are doing better than the rest can keep the rest of the Players in the game.  After all, if the other guy can win, why can't I?  Of course, this is far more true IF you know the right strategy. 

            I've often surmised that if I were to stand near a Three Card Poker table, handing out my booklet for free that only 20-25% of the Players would actually use the strategy.  Half of these people would probably give it up within the hour when the results don't match the theory - ignoring the time factor that is required for this to happen.  What this really translates to is that I don't think it would matter one bit if the casinos were to put a little sign on each table that had the payback and win frequency of the game.  Most Players would probably ignore them.  After all, how many people really read those nutritional labels on food anyhow?  And that's about what actually goes INTO your body!

            

Psychological Warfare - How they 'rig' slot machines

            A few years ago, I wrote a column about a story I read in The Economist magazine.  It described a study done testing the impact of near misses on a slot machine on the human brain.  What the researchers found out was that near misses generated almost an identical reaction in the brain as an actual win.  So, if bar-bar-plum (a loser) can make the Player feel almost as good as bar-bar-bar (as winner), all the manufacturers have to do is figure out how make near misses show up a lot and Players will feel like their winning almost all the time.  Fortunately, the regulations and the technology do not make this much of a challenge.  Slot machines can legally be programmed to generate a disproportionate number of near misses relative to what might be considered random.   So, while they might throw in some fruit salad once in a while as an ugly loser, most of your losses will appear to be 'oh so close' to winners.

            Now, a new study was released this week that says the bells and whistles used on slot machines makes the Player feel like he is winning even when he isn't.  The days of coins dropping out of the slot are virtually gone, so the casinos added sound effects to the machine.  When you used to hit a cherry and get 2 coins back and heard klink-klink, this was simply not the same as hearing 20 or 100 coins going klink-klink-klink.  But, in the digital age, no one says the sound effects has to mimic the actual win.  So, the casinos can have a simple 2-coin win sound a lot like a 10-coin win.   To prove the theory, the researchers had slot Players play with sound and without sound.  Those with sound had a stronger impression that they were winning, even when they weren't.

            While this latter concept can be used for video poker, it holds a little less water because in most varieties of video poker there is no such thing as winning but really losing.  While many hands in video poker result in a push - which may FEEL like winning because your original wager is returned (i.e. Jacks or Better), there is generally no hand that returns only a portion of your original wager.  With the new generation of slot machines it is not uncommon to wager dozens of coins.  Frequently, a 'win' will result in getting only a fraction of your wager back.  Did you really win?  If you wager 20 coins and get back 5, is this a win or a loss.  Admittedly, I am the first to argue that once you wager the money it is lost and any money you get back is a 'victory'.  This seems much more applicable to table games where you play 30-40 hands/hour rather than a slot or video poker machine where you can play hundreds of hands per hour and repeatedly wagering 20 and returning 5 can quickly wipe out your bankroll.

            So, what is a Player to do when faced with all of this psychological warfare used by the casinos?  Ironically, you have to use your own type of science against them.  The science of math.  Yes, with the exceptions of some varieties of video poker, the math says that in the long run you will lose.  I've written many times that you need to look at casino games as a form of entertainment.  The question is do you want your night of entertainment to cost $20-$40 or to cost $100-$200?  I'm guessing that you'll get a lot more value for your money if you spend less money.  Most of the games in the casino are built to allow the Player to win about a third of the time over a 3 hour session.  This assumes that you learn to play each game correctly and try to pick the right games/paytables to play. 

            While I strongly advocate for playing video poker, if you wind up playing a jacks or better that pays 6-5 (Full House/Flush), you'll be playing a game that has a payback below 96% and your chances of winning will decrease considerably.   In similar fashion, playing a full-pay game has limited value if you don't learn the right strategy.  Casinos rely on these two factors for games like video poker.  Slots have no strategy and inherently have lower paybacks, so they need to come up with ways to essentially fool the Player into thinking he is doing better than he actually is.  Video Poker doesn't need to create artificial near misses.  A deck of cards and a dealt hand do an amazing job of creating these in its natural random fashion. 

            To combat the near misses and the bells and whistles of the casino requires doing a little bit of homework to learn which games to play and to learn the right strategy for those games.    It requires some discipline to stick to those strategies and to seek out the right games.  Math can be your rock to the casino's 'psychological warfare' scissors.

An Error of Commission?

            A couple of weeks ago I discussed methods used by game developers to create a house advantage.  I realized that I left off two common one.  They are somewhat related as the second one was created in attempt to get rid of the first.  The first method is called taking a commission, which I've generally thought of as a misnomer, because it only applies to winning bets.  In the games of Pai Gow Poker and Baccarat, certain wagers pay a 5% commission when they win.  Another way of looking at this is that the Player is paid 19 to 20 for a winning wager, which I think is more accurate.  Commissions, to me, are paid on a wager, not on a winning wager.  If you pay a commission to a real estate agent, you don't pay it if you get a good deal or only on your profit, you pay it when your house sells - on the gross sales price.

            If you wager $20 and you lose, you lose $20.  If the wager pushes, you get your full $20 back.  If you win, you get $39 - your $20 plus the $19 you win.  So, in reality, you're simply making a wager that pays a little less than even money.  In Pai Gow Poker, this applies to the base wager.  A mechanism such as this must be used because the only other advantage that the House has is that it wins hands that are copies.  But, with a 2-card hand and a 5-card hand, ties are not that common.  While this provides some advantage to the house, it simply isn't enough.  So, they pay 19 to 20 for winning hands.  At first glance, this might seem to create a 2.5% house advantage because the Player and Dealer win nearly the same number of hands.   However, since it is paid only only wins and about 42% of all hands finish as pushes, we find that it really only generates a little under a 1.5% house edge.  When combined with the house edge generated by the house winning copies and the overall house edge is about 2.73%.  This is offset somewhat if the Player chooses to act as the banker which provide an edge for the Player.  But, I'll save that for another day.

            In Baccarat, the Player has the option to wager on either the Player or the Banker hand.  In reality, it is more like Hand 1 and Hand 2 because no hand really belongs to the Player if you can wager on the other hand.  Based on the drawing rules used in Baccarat, the Banker hand has a small advantage.  Because the Player can wager on this hand, this translates to an advantage to the Player.  To offset this, the House again takes a commission on winning wagers on the Banker Hand.   Again, winning wagers on the Banker Hand pay 19 to 20.  The net impact is that the Banker Hand wager has a 1.06% house edge, which is actually LOWER than the Player Hand Wager without a commission.

            The problem with paying commissions is not that it costs the Player money.  Every casino game costs the Player money.  The real question is not what mechanism is used to generate the house edge, but how much of a house edge it generates.  In the case of these two games, it generates a relatively normal sized edge.  Pai Gow's edge is a little on the high side and Baccarat's is on the lower side.  But, nothing incredibly unusual about either.  The issue is that the commission is slow and messy.  Players don't always wager in multiples of $20.  In these cases, the casino might use some method to accrue the commission and then take it when the amount adds up to a round amount.  Calculating a 19 to 20 payback is also not a simple thing for the Dealer.  Sure, a $100 wager pays $95 which is easy enough, but still messier than paying $100.  But, what about when the Player wagers $75?

            These issues led to a desire to do away with the commissions in these games.  In both cases, a similar mechanism was used.   In the case of Pai Gow, a hand that is normally a sure loser for the House is turned into a Push.  In one common version of 'commission free' Pai Gow, if the Dealer has a Queen High Pai Gow hand, then the hand is automatically a Push.  This creates a house advantage nearly identical to the commission.   Now all wins can pay even money and the game is cleaner and simpler.   Only in the occasional situation where the Dealer has this hand is the normal flow interrupted at all, and the impact is relatively minimal to game speed.

            In Baccarat, one of the common mechanisms is to take a sure winner for the Banker hand and turn it into a Push.  The most common hand is a Banker 3-card 7 which wins.  The impact, like in Pai Gow is a virtually identical payback but with the messy commission removed.  Now all wagers can pay even money and the only impact is that special Banker Hand and even when that happens it simply becomes a push.

            In order to be an Expert Player, a Player needs to understand that all casino games are built with a House edge.  The edge comes from a variety of mechanisms.  The specific mechanism is not important to the end financial result.  It can impact the feel of the game and a Player may prefer one mechanism vs. another.  However, that House edge will be there no matter what.  If you play a no-commission version of Baccarat or Pai Gow, mathematically you're playing a nearly identical version of the game.  If you like the simplicity of the no-commission version, play that.  If you get annoyed and pushing hands you should win, then maybe these versions aren't for you.  At the end of the night, you'll probably be a nearly similar financial situation.

            

Advantage: Dealer

            I don't think this will shock any of you.  Every table game has a house advantage.  Numerous mechanisms are used to build this house advantage.  By now, most Players are probably used to most of these methods, that they barely notice them.  If the game of Three Card Poker were played such that the Player made a wager, got three cards and then simply went head-to-head against the Dealer's 3 cards, the game would be a 100% payback.  Any game in which the Player and Dealer get the same number of cards and no decisions after the initial wager is made is simply one big push.

            In the game of blackjack, the Player must act first.  If he busts, he loses.  It won't matter if the Dealer busts also.  This is an advantage for the house.  The Player's ability to double down, split and decide when to hit/stick are advantages for the Player.  I've often be quite amazed that the game of blackjack was developed centuries ago without the use of computers (obviously) and somehow managed to deliver a payback right where you would want it! 

            In the game of Three Card Poker, the Player and Dealer receive the same number of cards, so that's an even game.  The Player, however, gets to decide when to Play/Fold so this is an advantage to him.  He can take his really weak hands and walk away from them without making another wager.  He can wait for his stronger hands and Play.  In the background to this process is the fact that because the Dealer always gets 3 cards, the Player knows what the 'average' hand for the Dealer is.  In fact, he can know the frequency of every possible hand.  This is what allows him to create the proper strategy for Playing vs. Folding.  If the game ended here, the Player would have a significant advantage.  To offset this and get back to a house advantage, the Dealer must qualify with a Queen High Hand.  As a result of this, the Dealer essentially surrenders 30% of his weakest hands and cuts the payout to the Player in half.  For a small portion of these hands, a bad Player might actually benefit - by Playing a hand below Q-6-4 and going against the right strategy.  Despite these occasional wins, the casinos will more than gladly make up for this with all the Jack High hands that the Player will lose.

            Ultimate Texas Hold'em adds a twist to the idea of Dealer qualifying.  In UTH, if the Dealer doesn't qualify, the Ante wager pushes, but the Play wager stays in Play.  If we were to use this rule in Three Card Poker, it wouldn't make a difference to the overall payback because a Player should fold every hand that would result in loss where the Dealer does not qualify.  However, in UTH, Players sometimes make a 4x wager or a 2x wager with something less than a Pair.  If the hand doesn't develop (usually you're shooting for a Straight or a Flush), the Player may be left with a very poor hand.  If we used the TCP qualifying rule, the Play wager might push and the Ante wager would pay even money.  In UTH qualifying, the Ante pushes and the Play wager is in play.  The Player could be left with a Queen High hand.  If the Dealer has an Ace High hand, the Ante will push and the Play wager will lose.  This subtle difference in how qualifying is handled gives the casino just a smidge more edge.  In the case of UTH, this is the difference between the game having no house edge and having just the right amount of house edge.

            Moving on, we find ourselves at Four Card Poker.  Four Card Poker has no Dealer qualifying.  Every hand is in play.  All wagers are in play (assuming the Player doesn't fold).   So, where does the house advantage come from?  The Dealer gets an extra card.  Despite the name of the game, the Player gets five cards to make his best 4-card hand.  The Dealer gets six cards to make his best 4-card hand.  This little 'advantage' is enough to get rid of qualifying and to allow the Player to make a 3x Play wager if he so chooses.  If the Dealer were to get the same number of cards as the Player, then each would win the same percent of hands.  Even to allow an optional 1x Player wager would require the adding of some sort of qualifying.  To allow a 3x Play wager, the qualifying might not even be enough.  Instead the Dealer gets an extra card, meaning that he will win a larger percentage of the hands. 

            I'm sure that if I were to look at all the games on the casino floor, I'd see a variety of other different methods for creating a house advantage.  While each has a math component and provide different amounts of house advantage, the real impact of the methods is more psychological than mathematical.  How do you feel about the Dealer having a stronger hand, on average, by being dealt more cards?  If you beat the Dealer, you might win more than you would if you play him in a game where you are each dealt the same number of cards.  There is no real correct answer.  There is simply a variety of proven methods for doing this - and probably even more that haven't been thought of yet.

The Nature of the Game

            My elder son has finished up his year in college and came home the other day.  As we do our best to keep him entertained while in Vegas, we went to the Laugh Factory at the Tropicana the other night.  Invariably, when comedians are in Las Vegas, they will tell jokes about the dry heat and about losing money while gambling.  I think I've been very honest about the odds of long-term winning while gambling.  With the rare exception of some tough to find video poker games and/or the ability to count in blackjack, you're simply not going to win in the long term.  But, this doesn't mean that you have to 'lose your shirt' either. 

            A few weeks ago, I showed how playing blackjack for an hour, a $5 Player should expect to lose only a little over $1/hour.  This, of course, assumes playing properly.  If you are too timid to double down on soft hands, or don't like splitting 2's looking into a 7, then, well, all bets are off as to what your payback will really be.  The comedian was hopefully joking when he talked about struggling to add up his cards while playing blackjack.  If you're really struggling with this, maybe you should try Casino War or Three Card Poker.

            In that same column where I talked about the average you can expect to lose while playing blackjack, I also spoke of the average you can expect to lose while playing full-pay jacks or better video poker.  As the two games have similar paybacks, the only real difference is the average amount you wager in an hour of each game.  Much to many Player's surprise, a max-coin quarter video poker actually wagers more in an hour than a $5 blackjack Player.  That said, however, the game of video poker is far more volatile and while the average loss rate by only be a couple of bucks an hour (depending on speed of play), actual results will wind up all over the place.  Blackjack is a much less volatile game and we will find that our actual results will really tend to be very close to the theoretical amount.

            To help illustrate this point, I ran 100,000 multi-hour sessions of blackjack, each consisting of 100 hands.  I then tabulated the amount won or lost, rounding to the nearest dollar.   First of all, the Player had a winning session nearly 46% of the time.  He lost 49% of the time, with the remainder being breaking even.  Around 32% of the time, the Player will wind up within $20 of his starting point, with only a slight slant towards the losing side.    He will wind up within $40 of his original bankroll more than 55% of the time.   He will wind up losing $100 or more only 5% of the time.  To be clear, this is NOT the same as saying that if he starts with $100, he will go 'bust' only 5% of the time.  The simulation I ran does NOT take into account a Player who may have at some point been down more than $100 and then came back to lose less than $100.  This will not be a huge number, but it will add to the total.

            I'm not downplaying the impact of losing $100.  This is not a small amount and could be considered to be a high cost for 2+ hours of entertainment.  At the same time, we are only talking about a 1 in 20 chance.  At the same time, the Player has a 4.4% chance of WINNING $100 or more.   That's why it is called gambling.

            But, the overall point is that the notion that everytime you gamble you're going to lose your shirt is simply not accurate.  If we assume that 'paying' up to $25 is a fair price for the 2-3 hours of entertainment value, then we find that the Player will meet this goal 62% of the time.  In fact of this 62%, he will actually wind up winning money nearly 75% of the time. 

            As stated earlier, this all assumes playing properly.  This tends to be what trips up Players far more often that the basic nature of the game.  Blackjack has a payback of about 99.5% when played properly.  Played improperly, the payback could drop dramatically,  If you drop it to 98%, which is still a respectable payback for most table games, this may not seem like a lot.  However, turned around, it means the casino advantage increases fourfold.  If I were to simulate such a strategy, we would find that the numbers are not so generous to the Player, and the likelihood of losing one's shirt will go up considerably.

            Thus, while the nature of the game it still one where the Player will lose in the long run, the Player can still greatly control (within reason), just how much will be lost by learning to play using the right strategy.

3-Card Straight Flushes and Deuces Wild

            

            I love getting together with friends.  Invariably, I get asked questions about casino games that becomes fodder for a column.  This past week, I got several possible topics based on some questions I was peppered with.  One dealt with 3-Card Straight Flushes.  Another dealt with which High Cards to hold and when.  Lastly, I was 'informed' that Deuces Wild is a bad game to play because of poor payback.  Admittedly, these came from friends who will openly state that they are not expert Players.  One of these friends also asked me what benefit there was to the casino to offer games with a Player advantage.  The simple answer to this is that so few people play these games correctly, that they're willing to allow 1% or 0.1% or maybe 0.01% of the people to make a few dollars at the expense of the other 99+%.  The rest of the questions I was asked only proves the point.  If you don't know when to hold a 3-Card Straight Flush or which High Cards to hold, the odds are (no pun intended) is that you're not going to play the 100+% game at 100+%.

            So, I'll use this week's column to answer their questions and hopefully educate some of you on how to move a few steps closer to Expert Strategy.  The first question dealt with 3-Card Straight Flushes.  Normally, Straight Flushes are the black sheep of hands.   They should occur every 9000+ hands, but because so many people ignore the 3-Card Straight Flushes, they tend to be even more rare.  The person who asked the question actually spoke of how often he hit them, which was surprising.  But, not after he told me that he tends to throw Low Pairs in favor of 3-Card Straight Flushes.   This is not such a good idea.

            While 3-Card Straight Flushes tend to be forgotten, you don't want to over value them either.  A Low Pair outranks EVERY 3-Card Straight Flush (NOT 3-Card Royals, however).  When you consider that in jacks or better, every 3-Card Straight Flush, even Inside and Double Inside ones are playable, this can lead to a lot of mistakes if you throw away the Low Pair.  When you consider that a large percentage of 3-Card Straight Flushes are also Low Pairs, this error will prove to be very costly to your bankroll.  I don't have the space here to list out all the strategy for 3-Card Straight Flush, but for now, let's go with, they are below a Low Pair and every one of them is playable.  You also play 4-Card Straights (not Inside) over the comparable 3-Card Straight Flush.  The critical part is that you play even the most awful looking 3-Card Straight Flush over a single High Card, except for the Double Inside with 0 High Cards, which only outranks the Razgu.

            Next up in the question bin was how to play High Cards.  Generally speaking, the goal is to keep the suited High Cards.  So, if dealt 3 High Cards and 2 are the same suit, those are the two we play.  If all 3 cards are of a different suit, but one is an Ace, we play the 2 High Cards that are not an Ace.  If it is J-Q-K all of different suits, we hold all 3 cards.   If you have 2 unsuited High Cards and one is an Ace, then you keep both.   That describes which ones to keep.  As for when to keep them, see the earlier part of this article and you learn that we frequently keep a 3-Card Straight Flush made up of 3 Low Cards over a High Card,  So, if dealt 3-4-5 suited and JQ (off suit), we hold the 3-4-5. 

            That brings us to the last question regarding Deuces Wild.  Should it be avoided due to low payback.  I'm not sure where my friend got this notion.  Perhaps he some bad experiences playing it.  If he tried to use his jacks or better strategy on a Deuces Wild game, things would not be pretty.  In reality, Deuces Wild can offer some of the highest paybacks in the casino.  However, like all version of video poker, you have to check the paytable.  Sometimes, different variations of video poker are given different unique names and sometimes, they just scramble the paytable a bit and still call it Deuces Wild.  So, pay attention to the paytable and make sure you are using the right strategy for that paytable.

            While I do my best to give tips out in my column, the only way you're really going to become an expert Player is by learning the complete strategy for the games.  I continue to offer our 3 best selling video poker books for $5 each (includes shipping and handling) to my loyal Gaming Today readers.  You can choose from Expert Video Poker for Las Vegas, which explains everything about the game from start to finish, Winning Strategies for Video Poker, which contains the strategy tables for 60+ video poker variations or Video Poker: America's National Game of Chance, which contains over 200 pages of my father's best columns, stories and quizzes.  If you like to learn from anecdotal stories, this is the book for you.  Just send a check or money order to Gambatria, P.O. Box 36474, Las Vegas, NV 89134.

House Money Breaks the Mold

            As most of you know, I wear two hats in the gaming analysis world.  There are some that might see my two roles as being opposed to each other.  Quite frankly, at first, so did I.  Over the years, however, I realize that they are more complementary than anything else.  On one hand, I analyze games already created and write about them, with the goal being to educate the Player to become the best possible Player he can be.  On the other, I help invent games.  Some may think I do this using my knowledge of how Players act to create games designed to trip them up.  This simply is not the case.  Even when working with inventors, I do my best to steer the game in a direction that offers the highest paybacks possible.

            Let me be clear.  Games are created with a house edge.  If you consider that to be 'rigged', then there isn't much more to discuss.  No casino is going to purposefully put a game on the floor that has a Player edge.  The one and only exception, to the best of my knowledge, is video poker, where there still remains some full-pay machines that pay over 100%.  However, as most of these are at too low of a denomination to really do harm to the casino, they are content to let the very few profit at the expense of the overwhelming majority. 

            In the last several years, I have the pleasure of helping to develop Mississippi Stud and Ultimate Texas Hold'em.  These two games boast paybacks in the mid to high 98% range and up.  Part of the reason they are able to do this is because they require intricate strategy in order to achieve these theoretical paybacks.  This is also one of the reasons why video poker can offer such high paybacks.  To achieve these paybacks require that a Player play using a robust strategy that most Players do not bother to learn.  Slot machines in contrast offer absolutely no strategy.  As a result, the casinos cannot rely on human error for any part of their profits and they must offer lower paybacks.

            The same is true of sidebets for table games.  For the most part, it has pained me when I see the paybacks on sidebets.  It is not uncommon for them to be the mid 80% to low 90% range.  Some, go even lower into the high 70's.  Some sidebets, especially Progressives, offer huge payouts for the Player and so Players are willing to trade this low payback for the remote chance of the life-changing payout.  Like slot machines, casinos must offer these lower paybacks because the sidebets offer no strategy and they cannot rely on any human error to drive profits.  The problem with attempting to offer sidebets with strategy is that the strategy almost assuredly works against the basic strategy of the underlying game.  This is a 'no-no' because the combined payback will now be lower than the two separate paybacks AND it can require the Player to learn some new hybrid strategy that may be more trouble than it is worth.

            Less than a year ago, one sidebet broke this model completely.  I've written about it before, and I have to admit that it is the only sidebet that actually gets me excited.  On the one hand, it is definitely a sidebet.  On the other, it is almost an entirely new game within a game.  Yet, if a Player chooses not to play it, it does not impact the base game.  Quite frankly, even if he does choose to play it, it doesn't affect the base game.  But, it does require learning a strategy for the sidebet.  The game is called House Money , and it is a sidebet to blackjack.

            The game is really quite simple.  If you make the House Money sidebet, you will get paid if the first two cards you are dealt for blackjack are a Suited AK, a 2-Card Straight Flush, a Pair or a Straight.  This works out to be about 21.5% of the time.  The most common payouts are 9,4,3,1 respectively (although there are multiple paytables).   Now, the fun begins.  After you are paid for your sidebet, you have the option to take all of your winnings from your sidebet (which includes the original sidebet wager) and you can add it to your base blackjack wager.  This is AFTER you have seen your two cards and AFTER you have seen the Dealer's upcard.   So, if you're dealt a 10-J suited, you will win 4 to 1 for your sidebet.  Assuming you wagered $5, you will now have the right to take the entire $25 (the $20 you won plus the $5 sidebet wager) and add it to your base blackjack wager. 

            In the case of the 10-J you would ALWAYS want to do this.  The Dealer will check for blackjack prior to you making this additional wager, so you are not risking your winnings if the Dealer has blackjack.  Imagine have a $5 wager on the base game and $5 on the sidebet when dealt this hand.  Dealer turns a 7 up and then flips over a 10.  Your $5 sidebet becomes $25, which turns your base wager into a $30 wager.   When you win this, you just won $50 for being dealt a suited 10-J and winning the blackjack hand.

            One strange fact about House Money is that the payback of the sidebet actually goes UP with more decks.  This is because some of the winning hand are more frequent with more decks.  With 6 or 8 decks, House Money pays 97+% and it makes absolutely NO IMPACT to the base game of blackjack.   That said, it is imperative that you choose to let your winnings ride (i.e. cap your wager) at the right times AND that you play proper blackjack strategy.  If you are dealt a 5-6 against a 7 and choose not to cap your wager OR cap your wager but then 'chicken out' and not Double Down (which requires doubling the ENTIRE wager), then you will not achieve the 97+% payback.

            Below is a matrix that shows the proper strategy for House Money for 6 and 8 deck shoes when the Dealer hits a soft 17.  There are some minor modifications if you are playing with less shoes or if the Dealer sticks on all 17s.  As for basic blackjack strategy, you can find that almost anywhere on the internet or in a book on blackjack.

Hand	Dealer Upcard
	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	A
A-2	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N
2-3	N	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N
3-4	N	N	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N
4-5	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N
5-6	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
6-7	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N
7-8	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N
8-9	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N
9-10	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
10-J/J-Q/Q-K	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
K-A	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
2-2	N	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	N
3-3	N	N	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	N	N
4-4	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	N
5-5	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
6-6	N	N	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	N	N
7-7	N	N	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	N	N
8-8	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	N
9-9	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N
10-10/JJ/QQ/KK	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
A-A	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y

Y - Cap the wager                   N - Take the winnings

            House Money can now be found in Las Vegas at the following casinos - The Cannery, Fiesta Las Vegas, Green Valley Ranch, Jerry's Nugget, Monte Carlo, Palace Station, The Palazzo, Santa Fe Las Vegas, Sunset Station, Texas Station and The Venetian.

            

Win Frequency Overrated

            Why does a good blackjack Player stick on bustable hands aginst a Dealer 6?  The quick answer is that with a 6 upcard, the Dealer is likely to bust.  Of course, this is not completely accurate.  The Dealer's bust rate with a 6 is 'only' 42%, which means 58% of the time, he won't bust.  So, first he is not 'likely' to bust.  He is just more likely to bust with a 6 than with any other card.  58% of the time, he will wind up with a 17 through 21 and will beat your hand.  So, why stick?  Well, we need to take into account how often the Player will bust if he takes a hit.  If the Player busts, it doesn't matter what the Dealer does.  This is all a wordy way of saying that the Player is more likely to win if he sticks than if he hits.  Or, in other words, his expected value is higher if sticks than if he hits.  Depending on his specific hand, it might be a relatively small difference between these expected values or it might be a big difference.  But, the difference doesn't matter.  The correct play is the one that has the highest expected value.  This is the key thing to learn for EVERY casino game.

            Blackjack is essentially a binary game.  You either win or lose your base wager.  With the exception of blackjacks itself and Doubles and Splits, the wager is a single unit and the outcome is either even money or the Player loses.  Thus, the critical factor becomes win frequency because for the most part, one win is worth as much as any other win.  In video poker, the outcomes are a bit more varied and thus the analysis is actually a good deal more complex.  If we define 'winning' as any hand that is Jacks or Better, that leaves us with a win frequency of 45% (roughly), but not all wins are created equal.  There are essentially 9 different levels of winning, ranging from Royal Flush down to a High Pair.  The payouts range from 800 for 1 down to a push (which is all you get paid when you have a High Pair). 

            This explains why when playing video poker the win frequency is not very relevant.  Take the following hand as an example:

8♣       9♣       10♣     Q♣      Q♥

            There are two ways to play this hand.  A Player can keep the pair of Queens and have a sure winner.  He'll still have a chance to improve to Two Pair, Trips, Full House or Quads.  But, his win frequency will be 100%.  His other choice is to go for the 4-Card Inside Straight Flush.  If he chooses to go this route, his win frequency will be around 30%.  Of the 47 draws, 8 will result in a Flush, 3 in a Straight, 2 in a High Pair and 1 as a Straight Flush.  The other 34 will result in a loss.  If you're motivated by win percentage, then the right play is to stick with the pair of Queens.  If you're motivated to use the proper strategy, you use expected value to guide you.  When the math is all done, we find that the 4-Card Inside Straight Flush has an expected value of 2.39.  The Pair of Queens has an expected value of 1.54.  It's not really much of a choice.  The 4-Card Inside Straight Flush is by far the superior play.

            Decisions for casino games are made based on the criteria of expected value.  This is not a concept unique to any particular game.  The same methodology that developed blackjack strategy is essentially the same one used for video poker or Three Card Poker or Ultimate Texas Hold'em.  Some of the toughest decisions are of the type I just described where the Player might have to give up a sure winner to go for a hand that in the long run will pay more, but will have a significantly lower win frequency.  The example I gave here is probably not all that hard to follow.  Since the sure win is only a single unit, it won't feel like you are giving up much.  

            But, you may have to make a similar decision if you are dealt a Flush that is also a 4-Card Royal.  If you're playing max-coin quarters, you'll be giving up a sure $7.50 to go for that big payout of $1000.   IF you're a dollar player, you'll be risking $30 to win $4000.  Definitely worth it, but it might just be a little harder to walk away from that sure $30.

The Cheap Cost of Entertainment

            I received an e-mail this week from a loyal reader who was questioning some of the numbers from my recent column.  The column was discussing the definition of payback and had the amount of the buy-in is irrelevant to the discussion of the payback.  The example I cited was discussing someone who sat down to play 100 hands of $5 blackjack.  With a payback of 99.5%, a Player can expect to lose $2.80.  The point of the column was to discuss how this $2.80 will not change no matter how much the Player buys in for.  If he buys in for $20 or $100 he will still lose the same $2.80.  All that changes is the percent of the Player's bankroll that he will lose.  The $2.80 is a fixed amount.

            My reader questioned this calculation.  Not so much for its pure math, but because I 'ignored' the situation where the Player might lose his first 4 hands be 'bankrupt.'  My reader is quite correct.  The situation I described ignored the numerous circumstances in which the Player will actually lose his entire buy-in before reaching 100 hands.  With a buy-in of only $20, this is fairly likely to occur.  Roughly 1 in 16 times, he will lose the first 4 hands and be done right then and there.  This doesn't even include the times he may double or split in the first couple of hands and go broke before even 4 hands. 

            That said, this was not really the purpose behind my calculation.  Since the point was to show how the expected loss rate does not change based on the buy-in, I could have just as easily used a $100 and $500 buy-in in my examples.  With a $100 buy-in, it is far less likely that the Player will go broke before 100 hands.  However, my reader does bring up a very, very important point about the importance of being properly bankrolled for any game.  The amount will vary greatly from game to game, mostly dependent on the volatility of the game.  Blackjack is a relatively low volatility game so $100 would be good enough most of the time.

            The second part that the reader questioned was my math regarding the anticipated loss while playing 1000 hands of full-pay jacks or better video poker at max-coin quarters.  I said that it would be $6.25.  My reader wished that his expected loss was only $6.25 and that this would make it 'cheap entertainment'.  Well, I stand by this number.  On a max-coin machine, the Player will wager $1.25 per hand.  Over 1000 hands, he will wager $1250.  A full-pay jacks or better machine pays about 99.5%.  Losing just 0.5% of his total wager brings us back to $6.25.

            Of course, this is the long term average.  Unlike blackjack, video poker has a much higher volatility.  Blackjack is a lot like a coin toss.  You win about half the hands.  You lose about half the hands.  Except for actual blackjacks, splits and double downs, all  payouts are even money to the original wager.  There tends not to be huge swings in how you will do.  After 1000 hands, you'd probably be very close to the theoretical 99.5% for blackjack. 

            Video poker is quite different.  You 'win' about 45% of your hands, but an overwhelming majority of these are really pushes (High Pair).  The rest of the payouts range from even money all the way up to 800 for 1 for a Royal Flush.  That Royal accounts for about 2% of the total payback.  This means that until you hit the Royal, you're only playing a 97.5% game which means the loss rate over 1000 hands would be closer to $20.  Eventually, you will hit that Royal and for that 1000 hands, you will have a significant win.  When you add up the TOTAL amount you wager and multiply it by 0.5% (the loss rate), the total amount you've lost should be very close to this number.  At the same time, if you hit more Royals than 'average', you'll probably be up significantly.  If you hit less than average, your loss rate is likely to be quite a bit more.

            When we tie together the two thoughts that my reader brought to me, we realize the importance of being properly bankrolled when playing video poker.  Given the volatility of the game, it becomes even more important to make sure you are in the game until you get to one of the big hands.  In jacks or better, this mostly means the Royal.  In double double bonus video poker, you have the luxury of a few of the Quad payouts AND the Royal. 

            I had an opportunity to experience this first hand twice this past week.  I ventured out on 2 separate occasions to play video poker.  In one case, I was down about $40-$50 when I hit two solid hands and came all the way back and left even.  In the other case, I hung around even most of the night.  I was down about $5 when I hit I was dealt 3 Aces on a five-play double double machines.  Short of being dealt quads, this is about all you can hope for.  Now all you have to do is hit the Quads.  On the fifth hand, I was dealt an Ace and a 3.  Not only did I hit the 4 Aces, I hit the bonus 4 Aces.  About 5 hands later, I left up with a nice victory.  In the case of my first night, if I had brought only $40 with me, my bankroll would've been gone and I never would've made it to the big hands.  Also, if I weren't using proper strategy, my losses up to that point would have been that much larger, and even a $60 or $80 bankroll might not have lasted as long as it needed to.

            Proper strategy and proper bankrolling are keys to achieving the theoretical paybacks of a casino game.  In turn, this is what can lead you have 'only' that much of an expected loss rate and get a cheap night of entertainment.

Customer Power

            There were two different articles that appeared today that on the surface appeared only marginally related.  Yet, to someone like me, I found that they were far more important to one another than meets the eye.  The first article discussed the upcoming building boom here in Las Vegas.  Several major casino building projects are in the planning stages and Las Vegas may, in a few years, welcome its first major new casinos in several years.  One of the sub-plots of this article was some local columnists discussing what they felt was needed to build a perfect casino.

            In reading these suggestions, I can't say that I have a lot of hope that many (any?) of them would be implemented.  One of the suggestions dealt with the idea of putting the attractions near the front of the casino and the casino way in the back.  Another dealt with moving the restaurants closer to the self-parking garages.  Yet another suggested that casinos go smoke-free (I'm all for this one!).  The one that got my attention was the one that requested that casinos do away with blackjack that pays only 6 to 5 (instead of the traditional 3 to 2).  This one also mentioned better paying slots, but the focus was on blackjack.

            For those who have read my column over the years, you know I'm all for 3 to 2 blackjack and do my best to warn people about playing 6 to 5.  Roughly, 1 in 21 hands will be a blackajck.  That's about 2 hands per hour.  If you're a $5 player, this will cost you about $3/hour.  This may not seem like a lot, but it will increase your loss rate by about 300%!  A 99.5% game quickly becomes a 98% game and now you're playing a game that requires a great deal of strategy with a payback that is in the same range as many of the table games with little strategy.

            That brings me to the 2nd article I read today.  It talked about how gaming revenue in Las Vegas was WAY UP compared to last year, for the month of February.  A significant portion of this was due to the Chinese New Year occurring in February of this year vs. January of last year.  But, even when this is accounted for, revenue was still up.  Revenue on the strip was up even more than the rest of the city.  It is on the strip that we find virtually all of the 6 to 5 blackjack tables.

            6 to 5 blackjack was created because over time blackjack Players were getting better and better and the hold at blackjack tables was dropping.  Casinos have a lot of overhead to cover - from Dealer salaries to the massive electricity bills.  While every business should run efficiently, this is not exactly the case of they should keep the customer happy at all costs even if it means eking out a small profit.  Casinos are expected to make huge profits at the tables and slots to help offset many of the things they provide at low cost or free.  I have no idea what the cost is to present the pirate ship battle at the Treasure Island, but they've been doing for about 20 years for free every night.  The money to do these performances comes from the gambling side of things.

            So, the casino decided to come up with a way to greatly increase the house edge on blackjack.  They could have tweaked the rules a bit - use larger shoes, limit when the Player can double, etc..  But, these have limited practical impact to the house edge.  One of the most common Player errors is not doubling on soft hands when they should.  So, eliminating this as an option doesn't really help the casino at all.  So, they chose to pay blackjack at 6 to 5 and take a bit out of the bankroll of the good and bad player alike.

            Now, if you've been going to a buffet on the strip that give you free drinks included with the price of the buffet and all of a sudden they tell you that they're going to start charging you for your sodas, you might think twice about where to eat.  Yet, for some reason, paying 6 to 5 didn't have much of an impact to the amount of money people wagered on blackjack. 

            However, if we look at the report about Las Vegas gaming revenue for February, we find that the biggest spike occurred on the Strip.  If you head out to the casinos in the 'suburbs' where you find more local Players, you'll find almost NO 6 to 5 blackjack.  Local players tend to be better players (or they don't stay local very long) and the better player knows that playing 6 to 5 blackjack is very hard on your wallet.   You need to learn a complex strategy just to be able to earn a 98% payback?  A Player can sit and play a relatively simple game like Three Card Poker and earn the same payback and have a chance for a larger single payoff (with Trips of a 3-Card Straight Flush).  And, if you're not an accomplished blackjack Player, your real payback could easily drop to 95-96% which leaves a Player with very little chance of having a winning session.

            But, if nobody complains about having to pay for the soda, AND they have the same number of customers this month as they did last month (or more!), then there is little reason for the casino to go back and give out free drinks at the buffet.  This is even more true at the tables.  If a Player is just going to sit and take his 6 to 5 payout with little regard to the impact to his wallet, who can blame the casinos for making this their basic offering.

The Definition of Payback

            I never get through a holiday without a serious discussion of what I do for a living with someone I've never met before.  Family (and friend) functions tend to bring together people for a large meal leaving them with loads of time to discuss all sorts of things.  As I have one of the more unique jobs around, my vocation tends to take up a larger than proportionate amount of the time we spend together.  This past holiday season was no different.

            First I listened to one person tell me how he has a system for roulette.  Admittedly, he didn't get a chance to explain it to me in much details when I had to tell him that it doesn't work.  No system does.  He told me how each time he came to Vegas, he would use this system and invariably walk away with a few hundred dollars.  Of course, his sample size was about 6-12 sessions, which isn't exactly statistically significant.  Based on what he told me, I commend my new found friend for his discipline which can be an important part of any successful gambling story.  Know when to get out when you are ahead.  But, that said, if you really have a system that nets you $400 in an hour or two, it is forever repeatable, which means you do it every night and then you send out a team of people to repeat your system.  No 'real' system could work only if you use it once every few weeks.

            Next up in the discussion came my favorite topic (ha!) - slot machines.  The system here was to attempt to outguess when the machine was going to pay off by altering the amount wagered for each 'pull'.  It was hard to keep a straight face when we got to this point.  I've heard of people varying their bet when playing blackjack in an attempt to guess the next cards.  If you do this well, it is card counting.  If you simply try to outsmart the shoe, you're just guessing.  If you try it with a slot machine, you are definitely guessing. 

            We've all seen the disclaimer that says 'past performance is not an indication of future returns'.  Nothing could be more true with slot machines.  What happened in the last spin has absolutely no bearing on what happens in the next one.  A slot machine is programmed to have a winning spin some percent of the time.  Every time you spin the wheels, the chance of winning is this exact percent.  With some combinatorial math we can also say that the probability of having X winning hands in Y spins will be some percent (assuming we know the probability of winning in any given spin).  But that is only true for the next Y spins.  We absolutely, positively CANNOT use any of the past spins in our calculation.  If the past 100 spins were losers, the probability of winning on the next spin is still whatever it is.  If the past 100 spins were winners, the probability of winning on the next spin is the same percent. 

            When I suggested to my new friend that he might want to avoid slot machines due to their 92+% payback, which makes them some of the worst payers in the casino.  Of course, when you look at the machine you have no way of knowing if it is programmed at 98% of 85%, which is as much as part of the problem as the average of 92+%.  My friend wanted to know how this payback was calculated especially when taking into account the way he plays - altering his wager from spin to spin.

            I explained that the payback used for any game is the highest payback that can be obtained by a Player assuming he plays using the best possible strategy he can.  For a game like video poker this means he uses perfect strategy to play each hand and that he plays max-coin in order to get the benefit of the 800 for 1 payout for Royal Flushes.  For slot machines, there is no strategy, so that does not impact the payback.  With slots, the impact of max-coin can frequently be even greater than with video poker.  Not only do you buy additional lines with additional wagers, you sometimes also buy additional combinations of winning hands.   As a result, playing less than max-coin can be even more punishing to your bankroll.  The payback of a slot machine thus assumes a max-coin play on each spin.

            Payback (for any game) is the amount that a Player can expect to have returned out of the TOTAL amount wagered.    The amount you buy-in for is completely irrelevant to this definition.  If you sit down at a blackjack table for $20 and play 100 hands of a $5 table, you'll wind up wagering about $565 (when you account for splits and double downs).  With a 99.5% payback, you can expect to lose about $2.80.  This works out to be 14% of your buy-in, but if you had bought in for $100 it would've been 2.8%.  Just further proof that the buy-in is not relevant to the payback discussion. 

            If you play 1000 hands of video poker (quarter machine, max-coin), you'll wager $1250.  If you're playing full pay jacks or better with a 99.5% payback, you can expect to get back $1243.75.  No matter how much you put into the machine, you should expect to have lost $6.25.  If you play less than max-coin, your expected loss will be higher.

            Slot machines are no different.  If you spin the wheels 1000 times on a nickel machine with 27 lines, you'll wager $1800.  You won't know the exact payback of that machine, but if we use a generous 95% payback, you can expect to get back $1710 of that $1800 wager and sustain a $90 loss.   If you choose to vary your bet from spin to spin, your payback might be even lower, raising your expected loss.

            In all these cases, the paybacks are expected 'long-term' paybacks.  Long-term can mean different things to different games.  In a 2-3 hour session of playing, your results can and will greatly vary from the examples shown here.

When 2 is better than 3

            When my father developed the first strategies for video poker, a few surprises definitely showed up.  Playing 4-Card Flushes over Low Pairs was not such a surprise, but playing the Low Pair over 4-Card Straights was.   One of the other significant surprises was how to play the numerous hands that contain High Cards.   If you had 3 High Cards of the same suit, it wasn't much of a surprise to hold all three.  Even if one of those 'High' cards was only a 10.  A 3-Card Royal is a pretty strong hand, even if it takes a bit of a long shot to actually hit the Royal.

            Without the mathematical analysis of video poker to guide the Player, most found themselves holding on to all cards Jack or Higher.  This would probably be the right play if you were sitting at a Poker table.  When playing Poker, there is little benefit to drawing a Royal over a Straight or a Flush.  All are very likely to leave you as a winner and the amount you win will not change based on your final hand value.  In the meantime, you'll increase your chance (or will you?) of grabbing a High Pair which will may be enough to win the hand.

            But video poker is not table poker and a Royal has a good deal more value than a Straight or a Flush - 200 to 130+ times as much.  This makes taking the risk of getting the Royal far more worthwhile in video poker than table Poker.  As a result, the decision of what to do when you're dealt a J♥, Q♦, A♥ not as clear as one might think.  Let's take a look at the detailed analysis.

            If the Player holds the 3 High Cards, there are 1081 possible resulting draws.  32.2% of the time the Player will wind up with a High Pair.  If the Player holds only the 2 suited High Cards, he will wind up with a High Pair 30.3% of the time.  So, the probability is a little less, but we're not talking a huge difference.  The Player may only have 2 High Cards instead of 3, but he will draw 3 cards instead of 2 helping to even things out a bit.

            Moving on, with the 3 High Cards, the Player will draw a Two Pair about 2.5% of the time.  With the 2 High Cards he will pull a Two Pair about 4.4% of the time.  The score has been quickly settled with the High Pair frequencies.  For as often as the Player will wind up with fewer Pairs he will wind up with more Two Pairs.  Given Two Pairs pay twice as much, this puts the 2 suited High Cards in the lead.            The pattern continues with Trips, with the Player drawing about twice as many by holding onto only the 2 suited High Cards.  

            Things turn around when we look at Straights.  It should be no surprise that the probability of drawing a Straight goes way up when you hold 3 High Cards as compared to 2 High Cards.   The exact probabilities will be impacted by the specific cards, but in this particular case the probability with 3 High Cards is about 1.5% vs 0.3% for 2 High Cards. 

            For the 3 High Card hands, the hands stop there.  There is ZERO chance of drawing a Flush, Full House, Quads, a Straight Flush or the Royal.  For the 2 High Card hand, we still have a 1% chance of drawing a Flush and slim, yet possible chances to get a Full House, Quads or the elusive Royal.  In this particular case, there is no chance for a Straight Flush, but if I had chosen a suited J-K for my example, this would exist as well.

            If we were to ignore all the hands Flush and above, the two hands would have nearly identical expected values, with the 3 High Card hand slightly higher, However, there is no reason to ignore these hands.  In fact, we specifically play the 2 High Card hand for the specific reason that we have the opportunity to draw all these relatively high paying hands simply by discarding the 1 off-suit card, all while barely impacting the overall expected value of the lower hands. 

            As a result, the decision is not really a hard one to make, even if it was an originally surprising part of the strategy.  Our 2-Card Royal with an Ace has an expected value of about 0.58.  Our 3 High Card expected value is a mere 0.46%. 

            This type of hand is a fairly common one and repeatedly playing it the wrong way will take a bite out of your bankroll.  This is why the 'seat of your pants' approach or using table Poker strategy can be quite ruinous to your results.  Sometimes, 2 can be better than 3.

VP Machines Playing Themselves

            This past week, I received an e-mail from a reader who told me about some video poker machines at the Soboba Indian Casino in Banning, California that sort of played themselves.  After being dealt the initial five cards, the machine would mark the cards that should be held (presumably according to some form of 'perfect' strategy).   If you wanted to hold a different set of cards, you had to 'uncheck' the hold buttons on those cards and hold the ones you wanted.  My reader wanted to know if this is the direction that video poker is heading.

            A little over a year ago, I received an e-mail from a company called Incredible Technologies that asked my opinion on a video poker game that they were offering at Red Rock Station.  It allowed the player to 'earn' strategy tips through winning hands.  This is not quite the same as the first situation as this only provides the Player with tips that he still has to listen to as opposed to going out of his way to ignore the strategy.   Is this the direction that video poker is heading?

            I tend to doubt it, and quite frankly a significant part of me certainly hopes not.   Just to be clear, my reasons for hoping this is not the new wave of video poker machines is NOT any fear of being made less relevant to video poker strategy or fear of losing some revenue.   While most of my columns for Gaming Today deal with video poker, most of my income is derived from table games.  In the 10+ years that I've been analyzing games, I think I've left my mark in that arena and don't have to worry about being the video poker guru that my father was.

            No, my reasons for hoping that this is not a new trend is that I think it is bad for Players.  Well, bad for good Players.  I supposed it might be good for bad Players.  The problem with this is that it tends to move video poker machines a few steps closer to slot machines.  There will still be significant differences.  The biggest being that we will still be able to know the payback of a video poker machine by looking at the paytable.  However, if all Players begin to play very close to the theoretical payback because the casinos hand the Player the strategy, then there will be NO way that they will be able to continue to offer 99%+ paybacks.  Casinos can offer games with high paybacks because they know that such a small number of Players utilize these strategies.  They can rely on human error to drive profits while still (truthfully) claiming paybacks near 100%.  It is the best of both worlds for them. 

            That brings me to the reasons why I doubt this is going to be a new hot trend that will overwhelm the video poker market.  Why would the casinos want to mess with what already is such a great situation.  They get to advertise machines with paybacks at near or over 100%.  Yet, they know that the games are almost never played anywhere near this amount.  Just like blackjack with a 99.5% payback but holds 9-15%, video poker machines do about the same.   Given the speed that video poker can be played, the profits that can be gotten from even quarter machines can easily outpace blackjack. 

            Most casinos are well aware that people such as me exist.  We write articles trying to get people to play the proper strategy.  We sell books and software to make Players, well, better Players.  At the same time, casinos know that despite this wealth of knowledge that is out there, most Players either don't bother with it at all or make some half-hearted attempt to use it or use it and then abandon it when they don't break the bank.  I've often surmised that I could hand out free copies of Expert Strategy for Three Card Poker at the entrance of a casino and STILL 75% of the Players who would sit down at a Three Card Poker table would not bother to follow the strategy in the least.   So, on the whole, casinos are not very afraid of Players bearing strategy because they are such a minority.

            However, handing the Player the strategy and then daring them to pick a different one may be far more than casinos are willing to do where strategy is concerned.  It is one thing to question when a Player wants to stand on a soft 16 in blackjack.  It is something all together different when a big flashing light comes on to say STICK when a Player has a 16 vs. a Dealer 2, and then only way the Dealer can hit is if he is willing to turn off the stick sign and go out of his way to hit.  In the case of video poker, if a Player really wants to not use the house strategy, then he is likely to find a different machine altogether.  After all, who wants to have to turn off the machine's decisions before entering his own on every hand?  So, there is a good chance that the actual payback of the video poker machine is going to quickly approach whatever the theoretical payback is.  Since the casinos will never allow games to be offered at 99% in this case, there only choice would be to greatly reduce the payback of video poker, which in turn will scare off all the good Players while at the same time, probably increasing the payback of many of the bad Players, as their errors will no longer be a factor.

            So, the only way I can see casinos adopting this concept is if they have some crazy reason to scare off some of their most loyal Players and want to reduce profits.  Nope, I don't see this as a big trend.  At best, perhaps some casinos will use them as a great marketing ploy, but that is it.

            

Beware the Ides of March

            I have to be honest, I had to look up the historical significance and meaning of the "Ides of March."  I knew it occurred on March 15th, but I had no idea what it meant.  It turns out that Julius Caesar was assassinated on March 15th, more than 2000 years ago.  Not a good day for Rome.  2000 years later, it would be not a good day for Frome either.  It was 15 years ago, on March 15, 1998 that my father, Lenny Frome, passed away.  I say this somewhat tongue in cheek, but it is poosible that Las Vegas has changed more since my parents moved here in 1985 than Rome changed since Julius Caesar began his rule.

            In 1985, there was no Bellagio, no Treasure Island, no Excalibur, no New York New York, no Luxor, no Stratosphere and no Venetian.  The hotels that still stand looked quite different than they do today.  Today they reach right out to the Strip. Then, many were set back hundreds of feet.  I believe Caesars was the first to attempt to build a 'people mover' (a moving walkway) to bring people from the street 'all the way' to their front door.  It didn't take long to realize that the walkway only worked in one direction.  There was no assistance in leaving the building.  The overhead walkways that now exist at Flamingo and Tropicana didn't exist either.  Of course, those streets weren't quite as wide as they are now.  If I recall correctly, there were about 500,000 people living in Las Vegas back then as compared to over 2 MILLION today.

            When I tell my friends who live in Vegas that my parents lived on the East side, they want to know why not the 'newer' West side.  Well, the west side was mostly desert when they moved to Las Vegas.  Where I now live was only built in the early 1990's, several years after they moved here.  Some things have stayed the same.  There's still Harrie's Bagelmania (albeit without Harrie, who passed away a few years ago).  Ethel M is still here, although, I think their building got a bit larger in all these years.  The chocolate is still just as good!  Of course, the Hoover Dam is still here, but now it has an incredible concrete suspension bridge which overshadows it a bit.

            Truth be told, my father had little to do with these changes.  But that doesn't mean he didn't leave an incredible impact on Las Vegas.  What he changed was the INSIDE of the casino.  In 1985, if you walked through a Strip casino, you'd hear the clinking of coins from slot machines.  As you meandered through, you'd see almost exclusively Craps, Blackjack and Roulette tables, with an occasional Big Wheel or maybe Pai Gow Tiles game.  Somedays I wonder how the casinos thrived on such meager offerings. 

            Today, you don't hear the clink of any coins because the slots take in cash and give back paper tickets.  If you pay attention, you'll note that many of those 'slots' aren't even slots, they are video poker machines.  Slots got an upgrade and the Player got a fighting chance.  Instead of 92-93% slot machines that require no thinking or skill, a significant amount of the casino floor has become video poker machines, where strategy rules and paybacks can go up over 100%.  Nothing is hidden from the Player and Player's can make informed choices.

            On the table game side of things, the casinos went from effectively 3 choices to literally dozens.  It is a potpourri of games - Three Card Poker, Four Card Poker, Spanish 21, Blackjack Switch, Caribbean Stud Poker, Let It Ride, Crazy 4 Poker, Ultimate Texas Hold'em, Mississippi Stud Poker, etc....  If you are reading Gaming Today right now while still in a casino, please go down to the casino floor and take not of how many of the table games are NOT blackjack, roulette and craps.  Then think about how much more fun the casino is with all of these new games.   Back in the 90's, my father helped to develop Three Card Poker, Let It Ride, Caribbean Stud and Spanish 21.  These games opened the floodgates for all those that followed.

            His impact to the casino was absolutely immeasurable.  About 15 months ago, I nominated my father to the American Gaming Association's Hall of Fame.  Much to my disappointment, they did not pick him.  Two years ago, they elected Blue Man Group to the Hall of Fame.   I recently saw their show at the Monte Carlo.  It was quite entertaining.  But, has Blue Man Group really changed the make up of Las Vegas or casinos in general the way Lenny Frome has?  If not for my father, it is highly likely that Video Poker would never have become nearly as popular as it is today.  Games like Three Card Poker and Let It Ride might not have succeeded, and all the games that followed may never have been given an opportunity to succeed if not for the impact one 'retired' electrical engineer had on the industry.

            Many of you have written to me over the past decade telling me how much you enjoyed reading my father's column in Gaming Today way back when.  If you're one of those people who recognize the impact Lenny Frome had on the casino, then I'm asking you to send an e-mail to Brian Lehman at the American Gaming Association (blehman@americangaming.org) and let him know that you think it's time to induct my father into the Gaming Hall of Fame!

Make the Switch to Blackjack Switch

           

            Over the years, numerous inventors have attempted to tinker with the game of Blackjack.  I warn them to tread very carefully when doing this.  Of all the games in the casino, blackjack strategy has probably become the best learnt strategy.  With the proliferation of computer generated strategies, you see far less splitting of 10's/faces and far less awful choices by the average Player.  You'll still occasionally find the novice who isn't happy until their own hand is 17 or better, even if that means busting it, but you'll now get a collective groan out of the remaining Players instead of several following suit.

            This is where the trouble started for creating a blackjack variant.  Players knew that original Blackjack had a payback of 99.5% (give or take) and they had learned the strategy fairly well.  When someone created some form of blackjack with a twist, they guessed it meant a lower payback (otherwise, why would the casinos offer it?) and it meant a new strategy.  Just like in video poker, if you don't adapt your strategy for the rules of the game, you can't earn the top payback. 

            So, once in a while a new game would hit the floor, Players would give it a try, but, without the right strategy, the theory on payback turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy - and the Player invariably lost more playing the new version than the original.  The new game might have been a bit more exciting than Blackjack, but not enough to overcome the extra losses the Player had to endure.

            As well all know, over the years a few blackjack variants have stuck.  Spanish 21 is likely the most successful of these variants.  It removes the 10's (not the face cards) from the deck.  As this hurts the Players, it returns this missing payback to the Player by offering more liberal rules and some bonus payouts for some novel hands.  This added more excitement to the game and offered the Player some opportunities for something other than mostly even money payouts.   While Spanish 21 is past its prime, it continues to boast a significant presence in the casinos.   It's payback is actually quite comparable to blackjack, but the need to learn a new strategy has kept the casinos happy by having Player error contribute to the hold of the game.

            More recently, Blackjack Switch has also entered the market.  It has roughly 100 tables in the marketplace.  Blackjack Switch uses a unique method to alter the game.  If the Dealer busts with a 22, all Player non-busted hands (except a natural Blackjack) are a push.  This costs the Player several percentage points.  But, to make up for this, Blackjack Switch allows the Player to 'switch' the 2nd card dealt in each of his two hands.  So, if dealt a 5-10 and a 10-6, the 10 and 6 can be swapped to turn the hands into an 11 and a 20.  From two stiffs to two strong hands.  The payback again is comparable to regular blackjack, albeit you must play two hands at a time.

            Blackjack Switch requires not only learning the strategy for the 'Push 22' rule, but you must also learn when to switch cards.  Much of the time it will be fairly obvious as in my earlier example.  In others, less so.  Imagine being dealt a 10-7 and an 8-10 vs a Dealer face card.  What is the right play?  You have two pat hands or you can 'switch' and have a total bust (15) and one strong hand (20).  When we look at the expected values of each of these hands, there is not much of a choice.  17's and 18's against a Dealer 10 are sitting ducks in any blackjack game.  We do the swap and the combined expected value of our hands goes from 1.3 to 1.97.  If you never switched cards, you'd take a 7-8% hit in payback.  No one would ever (hopefully) play this bad, but if you go by the seat of your pants, you're likely to take a 2-3% hit.  Throw in not knowing how to alter your strategy for the Push 22 rule and you could easily take Switch down to a 97% payback from its 99.5+% payback.

           

            Just like in video poker, there is a simple solution for this.  LEARN THE STRATEGY.  To help you with this, my booklet Expert Strategy for Blackjack Switch comes with a full-color pocket-sized strategy card that you can bring with you into the casino.  One side has the expected values for every hand to help you decide when to switch.  The other contains the hit/stick strategy for Push 22.  The retail price is $6.95 for the booklet and the card, but for a limited time, I'll offer them to GT readers for only $5.95.  You can also order ADDITIONAL strategy cards for $1.00 each.  If you would like to order, please send a check or money order to Gambatria, P.O. Box 36474, Las Vegas, NV 89133.

             

It's YOUR Money

            Over the years, I have frequently written about the value of comps.  Comps generally come in two different versions.  One is cash back.  The casino returns a percent of the total amount wagered in the form of additional play.  They do this because the odds are that any Player who plays that much is likely to play the additional money more than a minimal amount and will in the long run lose that money back to the casino, along with more of his own money.

            A second type of comp is that the Player can earn free items, meals or entertainment.  Sometimes, these may be earned on top of cash back and sometimes they are instead of cash back, meaning that a Player can essentially use his cash back to 'buy' something else. 

            Since both of the aforementioned comps are based on the amount a Player plays, you can really look at this as a form of rebate and that in many ways the Player has actually paid for these items.  There is another form of 'comp' which is an entirely different category.  This would be 'free play' that the casinos send out.  While there may be some correlation between how much they give each Player and his actual play, this is not a direct mathematical computation.  Casinos may throw a Player $5 or $10 or $20 just to entice you to come into the casino. 

            The question now is what you choose to do with these 'free plays'.  Unlike 'match plays', they do not require that you put up ANY of you own money.  A 'match play' coupon will pay you an extra $5 when you wager at least $5 on an even money wager (i.e. a hand of blackjack).  This still requires you to wager your own $5.  It is a great play if you are a good (or at least decent) Blackjack Player.  You'll win $10 if you win and lose $5 if you lose.  Again, the hope is that the Player will play the match play coupon and then stay and play for a while.  If you're planning on playing anyhow, that is fine.  If, however, you are not a knowledgeable Player and wind up sitting for an hour at a game that you don't know, the casino will more than get its $5 back.  Also, a match play coupon is generally only worth about half of its face value.  The coupon is surrendered whether the Player wins or loses.  Since most even money wagers are approximately a 50-50 shot, the Player will win about half of the time and lose half the time.  So, a $5 coupon will only be paid out half the time, making its value $2.50.

            That brings us back to the free play coupons.  While the mechanics of a free play coupon work differently in different casinos, the basics are the same.  You get a certain amount of money to play on a slot machine or video poker machine.  This money must be played at least once through the machine.  So, if given $5, the casino doesn't care if you play $1, quarters or nickels.   You can Play 100 nickels or 20 quarters.  You can play one at a time or max-coin.  Now, if you choose to play one round of video poker at max-coin $1, you'll play one hand.  For most games of video poker, the Player will 'win' about 45% of the time.  This means that 55% of the time, your $5 will result in absolutely nothing.   Another significant portion of the time, you'll wind up with a High Pair and you'll get to keep exactly $5.  The remaining times you'll win anywhere from 2 to 800 per unit and have a rather nice win.  If you had an unlimited number of these free plays, it wouldn't matter much how you choose to play.  But since you get only one of these every so often, it is my opinion that your goal should be to turn the free play into cash which then puts all the choices in your hand.   Unlike the match play, proper use of free play can result in the return of 95-100%+ of the face value most of the time.  Assuming identical paytables, I try to play the lowest denomination available, which allows for the most hands.  The more hands, the more likely you will approach the theoretical payback.  Thus, playing $10 on a 98.6% machine will on average result in a return of $9.86.

            If you are disciplined, at no time are you putting your own money at risk.  Thus, even if you are a bad video poker Player and play the same game at 94%, you should still expect to come out with $9.40 of the $10.00.  Not a bad deal.  I know some of you won't believe to hear me say this, but you'd be better of playing the money through Slots than not using it at all - again, assuming you are disciplined and don't keep playing the money until you lose it and then put more of your own money in.

            A friend of mine recently told me that every time he goes to Reno on a business trip, he stays in a casino that gives him some amount of money in 'free play'.  It doesn't expire for a year and in the past 12 months, he has amassed $400-$500 in 'free play'.  I asked him how come he doesn't play and his response was that he doesn't know how to play video poker and he knows that Slots are not a good play.  I did give him a copy of both "Winning Strategies for Video Poker" and "Video Poker: America's National Game of Chance" to help him along.  But, I also told him that it didn't matter how bad he played.  Even a basic understanding of Poker could probably earn him a 90-95% payback on a jacks or better video poker machine which means he should win back at least a few hundred dollars.  Better in his pocket than the casinos!

New Games at Global Gaming Expo from SHFL

            It is hard to believe that a year has gone by since the last Global Gaming Expo.  Last year, I previewed three games that were on display - Cincinnati Stud, Six Card Poker and Money Market.  To date, one of those (Six Card Poker) has had some success while the other two continue to try and make inroads into the casino.  As I've written many times, no one can guarantee the success of a game.  It is far easier to predict failure.  This is because some attributes of a game are likely to result in the game failing and because 99+% of all games developed fail.

            Because of the extensive analysis and development work that I do with Shuffle Master, I often get to provide a preview of their games to Gaming Today readers.  This year is no different.  I have been told that Shuffle Master will be showcasing both existing successful games, such as Ultimate Texas Hold'em and Mississippi Stud and some very new games like House Money (both Blackjack and Baccarat versions), 6-Card Fortune Pai Gow, Raise It Up, Straight Jack Progressive, Face Up Stud Poker and Free bet Blackjack.  I can't cover all of these games in detail in this column, but I'll do my best to give a little synopsis of each. 

House Money -  I've written about this game twice in the past few months.  Obviously, I'm not the only one who thinks this game is a winner.  This week, House Money Blackjack won an award as the Best Table Game Product or Innovation as determined by Global Gaming Business magazine.   It is a very simple blackjack sidebet, but with a twist.  If you are dealt a Pair, a 2-Card Straight or a 2-Card Straight Flush, you win.  Now you have the option to add your winnings to your base blackjack wager.  So, if you're dealt a Pair of 10's looking into a Dealer 6, you can add your winnings to your base wager and take home even more money.  A similar concept has been developed for Baccarat, but here you win if the Player or the Banker hand is dealt a Pair, and even more if both are dealt Pairs.  You may then take your winnings and place it on the Banker or Player hand  - your choice - regardless of how you played your original wager.  So, if you originally bet Player and the Banker is dealt a Pair of 9's and the Player is dealt a Pair of Jacks, you can STILL take your winnings and put in on the Banker hand - which has already won the hand!

6-Card Fortune Pai Gow -  Have you ever found the House Way to be confusing at Pai Gow?  Well, those days are gone.  In this version of the popular game, the Player and the Dealer each get 6 cards to make a 5-card hand and a 1-card hand.  The Dealer CANNOT break apart any sets (i.e. Pairs, Trips) unless he has 2 Three of a Kinds, a Straight, a Flush or a Straight Flush.  Also, the Player does not LOSE all 1-card hand ties with the house.  It is Pai Gow but even simpler.

Straight Jack Progressive -  This is another blackjack sidebet, but with a Progressive payout.  If your first 2-cards form a 2-card Straight, you win.  You win more if your third card continues the Straight.  If you get dealt a 6-card Straight (A-2-3-4-5-6) you can win a jackpot.  If at any point, your 'hit' card causes the Straight to end, you still win for the longest straight you were dealt, even if the hit card causes you to bust (but the bust card CANNOT extend the Straight).

Free Bet Blackjack-  A new version of blackjack that utilizes the Push 22 rule from Blackjack Switch.  Here you have the opportunity to get certain splits and double downs for free (no additional wagers required to play them). 

Raise It Up - A little like Let It Ride with some Ultimate Texas Hold'em sprinkled in.  This is a 6-card poker paytable game.  You combine your 3 cards with three community cards.  You're not playing against the Dealer, only a paytable.  You win with a Pair of 10's or better.

Face Up Stud Poker - A whole new concept for a table game.  You get to see the ENTIRE hand of the Dealer, but only a portion of your own.  Based on your partial hand, do you think you can beat the Dealer's hand?  If he's got a weak hand, the chances are far greater, so the payout is lower.  If you can beat a strong hand, you can win a lot of money on a single hand - 8 to 1 for beating Trips; 50 to 1 for beating a Flush, etc...

If you make it to the show, I strongly suggest you stop by the Shuffle Master booth and give these games a try.  I find the only way to get a good sense of a game is to sit and play a dozen or two hands.  I'm looking forward to playing these and also wandering around the rest of the Sands Convention Center in search of the next big casino game - almost sounds like a reality tv show, doesn't it?   If you see anything that you find interesting, shoot me an e-mail at elliot@gambatria.com and let me know where I can find it. 

It is not about the Medium

            I don't think there is a game in the casino more misunderstood than video poker.  Even in the days when slots were mechanical, most people considered video poker to just be another slot machine, but one with a computer screen.  I think many people just think that it was too hard to create a mechanical machine using cards, so they digitized it all, but it still plays like a slot machine - all because the hardware looks roughly the same.  It is NOT the hardware that makes the game.

            This past week, I met a gentleman who told me he likes to play keno slots.  I have to be honest and say I had no idea what he was talking about.  He explained that he picks a certain amount of numbers from 1 to 80 and then the machine picks 20 numbers and he gets paid if the 20 picked includes at least some amount of the ones he picked.  I politely looked at him and said there is nothing 'slots' about what he just described.  He simply was playing keno in video version (hence it is called 'video keno').  He was playing the EXACT same game as if he was playing in a keno parlor marking the little pieces of paper and handing them to the scantily clad woman.  Ironically, the video version of keno tends to pay higher than the old fashioned version because the Player can play far more hands per hour.  I explained to this man that the machine pulls 20 completely random numbers and throws them onto the board.  It does NOT decide ahead of time that you will hit 3 of the 8 you marked and then decide which numbers to pull to make that happen.

            This is in essence the very difference between a slot machine and a video keno machine or a video poker machine or a video blackjack machine.  In the latter three games, the machine uses a random number generator to decide which card to deal or which ball to draw.  You win or lose based on the specific cards/balls it randomly draws.  In a slot machine, the machine first determines whether your will win or lose.  If you are to win, it will decide how much you will win and set the symbols in the appropriate fashion.  If you are to lose, it will decide exactly which symbols to show you - always a losing combination - but potentially set up to make you feel like you almost won. 

            Over the years, when I've been asked what I do for a living and explain that I analyze casino games, a frequent follow up question is if I do it for live games or electronic games.  Since the majority of my work is in table games my response is usually just that, but I tell them it really doesn't matter what medium the game is in.  As long as the game is using essentially a random deck of cards (or ping pong balls) where each card has an equal chance of appearing, it does not matter if you are playing a game with a real life dealer, at a casino on an electronic multi-player table, on a stand-alone machine in the casino or playing at home on some software.

            Video blackjack has existed for years in the casino.  They were not always easy to find, but many Players relished the idea of playing for only $1 per hand and having the same experience (well, mathematically) as playing at a live table.  I would certainly understand those that feel that playing on your own machine is not as sociable as playing at a table, but that's not a mathematical difference. 

            In the past few years, many casinos have added multi-player electronic versions of popular table games (i.e. Shuffle Master's TableMaster games).  These games play identically to the live games.  There are times when for one reason or another the casino chooses to employ different paytables, but the probabilities of winning a hand or losing a hand or being dealt a particular hand remains the same.  Any changes to the payback as a result of paytable changes cannot be sneaked past the Player.  These payouts must all be visible on the machine.   Because the digital cards are as random as real cards, we can always calculate the exact payback of any of these games based on the paytable. 

            While the name "Slot machines" presumably comes from the different slots the wheels are in (well, were in when they were mechanical), and there is a little bit of similarity in the notion that video poker cards are in 'slots' in the machine as well, this is where the similarity ends.  The critical difference between games like video poker and slots is that in video poker your cards are determined randomly and you win or lose based on the pattern of these cards.  With slots, whether your win or lose is determined by the machine and then you are presented with symbols to match the pre-determined outcome.   Slots could never be replicated on a live table, but games like video poker, video keno and video blackjack are (or could be).