My friend Mark isn’t a casino regular, but he likes to play a little video poker now and then. His goal is just to have a good time and stay in action for a couple of hours.
“Do you have a guide to how much cash I need to last a couple of hours?” he asked.
I showed him the bankroll calculator on Video Poker for Winners software, and assumed expert play for 1,000 hands --- about two hours play for anaverage player.
First up was Jacks or Better on three pay tables --- the full-pay 9-6 game, paying 9-for-1 on full houses and 6-for-1 on flushes, which returns 99.54 percent with expert play; the 8-5 game(97.30 percent); and the 7-5 game (96.15 percent) that’s becoming all too common on quarter games.
Jacks or Better is the least volatile of common video poker games, a game that’s designed to keep you in your seat. There are no big four-of-a-kind bonuses that are going to make your day. Allquads pay 125 coins for a five-coin wager. But the 2-for-1 payoff on two pairs packs a different kind of wallop, one that will keep you going for extra chances at the bigger pays.
The average loss for two hours of betting $1.25 a hand on a quarter machine is $5.75 with a 9-6 pay table, $34.75 at 8-5 and $48.12 at 7-5 --- which ought to tell you why I’m alwaysharping on finding the best pay tables. In the days when each video poker machine had just one game --- no touching the screen to try a different game --- I once found a long row of 18 machinesthat alternated between 9-6 and 8-5 pay tables. There were as many players at the low-payers as at the 9-6ers. Ugh.
The required bankroll is much higher than the average loss if you want to give yourself enough for a 5 percent risk of ruin --- a 95 percent chance of surviving two hours without losing it all.That takes $165 on 9-6 Jacks, $185 at 8-5 and $195 at 7-5.
Your chances of having a winning session after two hours are 34.54 percent at 9-6, 22.35 percent at 8-5 and 17.19 percent at 7-5. Settling for a 7-5 pay table instead of 9-6 cuts your chancesof winning in half.
Then I checked probably the most popular video poker game: Double Double Bonus Poker. With a 9-6 pay table, it’s a 98.98 percent return, $12.75 average loss in two hours on a quarter machine,with a $300 bankroll for a 5 percent risk of ruin and a 35.46 percent chance of a winning session. On the 8-5 version that’s become all too common, the payback percentage falls to 96.79percent, average two-hour loss increases to $40.12, the bankroll requirement rises to $320, and the chance of a winning session drops to 30.75 percent.
Double Double Bonus Poker is the more volatile game, with more of its payback concentrated into relatively rare four-of-a-kind hands. Most quads pay 250 for a five-coin wager, and the rewardrises to 400 on four 2s, 3s or 4s; 800 if those low quads are accompanied by an Ace, 2, 3 or 4 kicker; 800 on four Aces; and 2,000 on four Aces with a 2, 3 or 4 kicker. The two-pairs return isreduced to 1-for-1 ---- you just get your money back.
That’s why Double Double Bonus bankroll requirements are higher than in Jacks or Better. But in any game, cuts in the pay table slash your chances of winning. Be wary.
LONGER SESSIONS: Two-hour sessions are extremely volatile. Just about anything can happen in any session as short as a couple of hours. But I’ve had many a two-hour session back when that wasthe length of a riverboat casino cruise, and still often go to a local casino to play for a couple of hours and have lunch or dinner.
But what if you’re going to play longer? What if you’re going on an overnight stay and figure to get in, say, 10 hours of play? Do you have to multiply two-hour bankroll requirements byfive?
No, you don’t. Longer sessions smooth things out a bit. For 10 hours of quarter play on 9-6 Jacks or Better, the bankroll for a 5 percent risk of ruin doesn’t quintuple from $165 to $825.Instead, it’s less than tripled, at $450, while the bankroll requirement for 8-5 Jacks rises to $570.
On the more volatile Double Double Bonus Poker, that $300 bankroll for a 5 percent risk or ruin for two hours rises to $885. That’s a big chunk of cash, but at least it’s not the $1,500 you getwhen multiplying the $300 by five. On the 8-5 version, the bankroll needed for 10 hours is $1,010, and that’s one reason I just won’t play 8-5 Double Double Bonus Poker.
What these terms mean to your video poker play
By Jerry “Stickman” Stich
Two factors that determine a player’s chances of winning or losing on a particular video poker game are the payback (sometimes called return) and variance (also called volatility) of the game.
Payback, or return, is the amount of money that is “paid back” or “returned” in the form of “winning” hands to players from all the money played through a video poker game. It is expressed in percentage terms. What this means is that by playing a game that has a 99.54 percent return, you can expect that in the long run you will get back $99.54 for every $100 of money played or coin-in for that game. If you are a dollar player that plays five dollars per hand, for every 20 hands played ($100 in coin-in), you will have an average return of $99.54 (payback) for each of those twenty hands over the long run.
Another way to talk about this concept is by referring to the house edge. The house edge is what the casino keeps from your video poker play – or any casino game for that matter. The house edge is the difference between the money bet or coin-in and what the game returns to the players. Using a 99.54 percent return like in the example above, the house edge is $100 minus $99.54. This equals 46 cents, or a house edge of .46 percent.
It is important to note how low that house edge is in comparison to other games on the casino floor. When you see signs advertising “Our slots pay back 97.3 percent!” remember that the house edge you are playing against is 2.7 percent! A house edge of .46 percent or a payback of 99.54 percent is the actual house edge and return percentage for the full pay version of Jacks or Better video poker with perfect play (commonly known as 9/6 JOB). I would venture to say there is not a standard slot machine in any major gaming market that has a house edge as low. That is one reason video poker is so popular.
Of course, not all video poker game returns are as high as 99.54 percent. Some go as low as 95 percent; and in some extremely bad situations, even lower. However, on the positive side, some returns are higher – even more than 100 percent! The player has to know how to find, recognize, and learn to play the good games, while avoiding the bad games. Fortunately, this information is readily available in magazines such as this one, as well as in books and on the Internet.
Remember earlier that I used the phrase “in the long run.” After 20 hands on a dollar game playing five dollars per hand, I guarantee you will NOT have $99.54. You will have $100, or $105, or $85, or any multiple of five dollars, since that is what the hands pay. You will have ups and downs during your playing session. Your credit balance will swing up and it will swing down. However, after thousands upon thousands of hands played, the average return paid will be very close to $99.54 for every $100 in coin-in you ran through this game.
The swings in bankroll that you experience are due to volatility or variance. Volatility is a generic term which refers to how high or low the bankroll swings. Variance is a mathematical term that puts a number on the volatility. It measures how far a set of values is spread out. The variance of video poker games runs from a low of about 12-15 to a high of nearly 200.
Poker Bankroll Tracker
You might ask what difference volatility makes to the video poker player. Plenty! The higher the volatility, the higher – and lower – the bankroll swings. If you are fortunate enough to hit a large paying hand early in your session or video poker playing career, you will have plenty of money to continue playing. What if you don’t hit any large paying hands early on? In a high volatility game, the player loses at a much faster rate than they would on a low volatility game. The bankroll requirements for a high volatility game are much higher than for a low volatility game. Therefore, you must have enough cash, or bankroll, to ride through the losing streaks.
A future article will discuss bankroll requirements in more detail. For now, just be aware that multiple, high-paying hands on a game’s payback schedule come with a price. That price is steeper losing streaks and a correspondingly higher bankroll requirement.
I suggest the following guidelines for deciding whether to play a video poker game based on its variance. From a bankroll safety point of view, if the variance is under 40, it is a fairly safe – albeit possibly boring – game to play. A variance of 40-80 means it may be an exciting ride, but think carefully about whether you have the bankroll and emotional will to play this game as there will be significant losing streaks. If the variance is over 80, seriously consider a different game. Unless you are certain you have a large enough bankroll and can emotionally endure potentially huge losing streaks, these games may not be for you.
