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The theory would rely on Video Poker being the *one* slot machine in the casino that uses random chance in shuffling.

Video poker isn't a slot machine, and the shuffling is purely random.

The skill comes in knowing what cards to keep on the "hard" hands, but other people have figured it out for you, so you don't have to be as "smart", just have a good memory.

Not quite, you can get payout of 100.7% if you pick the right machine and strategy. Add on comps and free drinks, and you can end up well ahead. Not my idea of a good time, but some people love that.

http://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/
"Full-Pay Deuces Wild optimal strategy (return of 100.76%)"

Its still an edge (See here.). In the long long run you won't win. GGP states the opposite: "it's pretty much the only game where the house isn't assured of winning over the longterm on any given player"

A good formula for "Expected Happiness", from the Wizard of Odds (4th question down):

When the prizes become life-changing amounts, the wise player should play conservatively at the expense of maximizing expected value. A good strategy should be to maximize expected happiness. A good function to measure happiness I think is the log of your total wealth. Let's take a person with existing wealth of $100,000 who is presented with two cases of $0.01 and $1,000,000. By taking "no deal" the expected happiness is 0.5*log($100,000.01) + 0.5*log($1,100,000) = 5.520696. Let b be the bank offer where the player is indifferent to taking it.

log(b) = 5.520696 b = 105.520696 b = $331,662.50.

So this hypothetical player should be indifferent at a bank offer of $331,662.50. The lesser your wealth going into the game the more conservatively you should play.

The heart of the game is a big random number generator. There are many more possible outcomes than can be represented by the numbers/symbols on the reels. There is a mapping between the random numbers and what the payouts are, this sets the odds. After the next random number is determined, the machine decides what it wants to show on the reels. Usually it likes to show some kind of near miss to keep up player interest. There are other algorithm adjustments you can make to make a machine make frequent small payouts, or occasional big payouts.

Although this is the closest description in this thread of how slot machines work, it's still a bit off, but even Wikipedia gets it right.

To see all the gory details, and why you see the "near miss", check out The Wizard of Odds. The Q&A about slots (and other games) at that site is also a good resource.

Please cite your stats.

Vegas slot machines max out at 93.42%, and are mostly below 93% payouts. I don't see any reason to believe that some Cripple Creek casino has better odds than Vegas.

Using correct blackjack basic strategy brings dealer advantage down to 0.5%, which is a payout of 99% before card counting makes it a reliable money maker over time.

Very informative post, but a couple points...

But the usual trick is to simply shuffle after every round - the tables only have one deck in play (and a pre-shuffled deck standing ready to keep play fast). When the round ends, that old deck is tossed into the shuffler, and the new deck dealt. This completely screws up counting. Smaller casinos simply use less decks - turns out more decks in the shoe make card counting more successful.

Actually, the more decks, the worse it is for counting. In multi-deck shoes, you have to adjust for the "true count". You do +1 and -1 like before, but divide by the number of decks remaining. This tends to even out the bell curve of extremes-- there's fewer "really high" counts. If a shoe hasn't gone hot by the end of the second deck, it probably won't get hot at all. It's best to head to the bathroom at that point.

Ironically, the continuous shuffle machines actaully lower the house edge a tiny bit. BUT they also deal far more hands per hour, and tend to attract for more unskilled players, so the dollars per hour earned by the casino is MUCH higher.

Heck, I'm surprised they haven't equipped the tables with RFID readers and use cards with RFID in them so a computer at the table can maintain the count and watch the bets and point out potential card counters.

Schemes like this get proposed, tested and scrapped quite a bit. They tend to be technically infeasible, illegal, or more often than not, unprofitable. RFID in high-denomination chips, however, is (from last I read) widespread. But that's mainly to combat theft and cheating, rather than counting. A team with a Faraday chip-bag that switched stacks between them every couple shoes could defeat that system easily.

And Blackjack is one of the worst games for a casino - the odds are very low. They only carry it because it's popular. Someone doing basic strategy already has cut down the house advantage to less than half a percent - a very poor return. Card counting tips that into the player's favor.

While I'm sure the casinos would love to gut every table and insert endless rows of slots, BJ isn't as bad for them as it seems. First, a very small minority of players even know basic strategy well enough to earn that 0.05% house edge. Counters get a 2% edge true-- but bad/wannabe counters give it right back. And someone playing but gut/instinct/system/drunk can be playing under a 8%-20% house edge. That's worse that any slot machine, idiot-wheel or Keno player!

Finally - do casinos allow cellphones to be used at tables?

I think it depends region to region. In Canada, there's zero electronic devices allowed. No cellphones at the tables. No mp3 players at the poker tables. I believe you're allowed mp3 players at most poker tables in Vegas. It'll be interesting to see what happens once wearable computers (and heck, implanted computers) become the norm. Though last I checked, "perfect strategy" gives the player an edge of about 3%.

Note: There's lots of stuff about to back up the post. I'm just too lazy to find it all again. I do suggest www.wizardofodds.com and blackjackinfo.com as excellent resources, though.

Pai Gow is also really good for the long haul. It has a low edge, and it takes forever to play a hand. You have an advantage on any hand where you're the banker, so take that option whenever you can.

Those who do understand the odds tend to either play games like blackjack which is the only game in the casino which has positive odds

Those who do understand the odds tend to either play games like blackjack which is the only game in the casino which has positive odds

For reference: http://wizardofodds.com/blackjack/house-edge-calculator.html

That calculates the house's odds. Even if you give every advantage to the player, the house still has the advantage if they are using more than one deck (which is almost always). So even in perfect player conditions, the house still has to be using only one deck for the player to have any advantage.

http://www.redeldorado.com/images/svibe_2002/people8.jpg http://wizardofodds.com/photos/triplets_22k.jpg

Sisters, fraternal twins, ... but all from one egg? They're easy to tell apart, even when they try to look identical.

I think you should read a bit more about your doubling casino strategy if you think it's a good one. Try here for a start.

The problem is that it is easier than you think to lose several bets in a row and run out of betting money after you've doubled it all away.

...

This shows that the Martingale is neither better nor worse than flat betting when measured by the ratio of expected loss to expected bet. All betting systems are equal to flat betting when compared this way, as they should be. In other words, all betting systems are equally worthless.

Second, there is oversight. There's the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. But, admittedly, they blow at customer relations. But with their backs against the server-room, they're actually doing something about this one. They're commissioning an independent investigation to see what's going on. Again-- because it would be bad PR otherwise.

And that's where the real oversight comes in. The players are what keep the online casinos "honest". Players like those who discovered the AP cheats. People who know how the games should be running, and know when things aren't being run correctly. Then there's player run oversight groups like Casinomeister. And there's also people who have put up tons of statistical information about online games, like The Wizard of Odds

A casino with a bad reputation gets spotted, gets talked about, and goes out of business. The online gambling world's potential playerbase is relatively small, and there's a LOT of businesses who want a piece of their action. Screw up once, and every single player has five hundred other places they can go to.

How do you know if you are being cheated? You wouldn't.

Actually, yes, you can.

First, a sucker who wants to lose their money will. They are the outside cases, and will be ignored.

There's secondary research you can do. You can check out any of the watchdog sites, like casinomeister, that catalog the casinos into categories like reputable, rogue, avoid, etc. Look up any casino you're thinking of putting your money into.

Or you can do primary research, which involves tracking thousands of results, and seeing if the resultant house edges are in statistical agreement with the game you're playing. There are other checks you can do-- such as, over several thousand hands, does the player friendly "Ace" card come up 1/13 times?

When it comes down to it, it isn't in an online casino's interest to cheat. They already have a guaranteed, built-in profit. The only thing they need is players to put money into it. So a dishonest casino will get some money, found out and have a ruined reputation-- or an honest one will get a bit less money, but will stay in business to keep generating revenue.

How do you know if you are being cheated? You wouldn't.

Actually, yes, you can.

First, a sucker who wants to lose their money will. They are the outside cases, and will be ignored.

There's secondary research you can do. You can check out any of the watchdog sites, like casinomeister, that catalog the casinos into categories like reputable, rogue, avoid, etc. Look up any casino you're thinking of putting your money into.

Or you can do primary research, which involves tracking thousands of results, and seeing if the resultant house edges are in statistical agreement with the game you're playing. There are other checks you can do-- such as, over several thousand hands, does the player friendly "Ace" card come up 1/13 times?

When it comes down to it, it isn't in an online casino's interest to cheat. They already have a guaranteed, built-in profit. The only thing they need is players to put money into it. So a dishonest casino will get some money, found out and have a ruined reputation-- or an honest one will get a bit less money, but will stay in business to keep generating revenue.

Sure... for THAT situation you may win more often than lose but in the long run you will still lose unless the rules are favorable to you (not likely in a casino), you cheat (something that is clearly illegal), or you "cheat" (something not illegal but will still get you tossed out). For more on strategy see http://wizardofodds.com/ or books at http://www.advantageplayer.com/blackjack/ .

It would be the same as if the dealer in blackjack only dealt himself one card, face up, and then waited for the rest of the table to play through (either busting or holding) before dealing himself the second. Technically, the odds are the same but, from the player's perspective, the possibility of cheating or underhanded play is greatly increased.

A Full Pay Deucesw wild VideoPoker machine even has a negative house edge, so in the long end you are making money on those machines.

An excelent site in this is Wizard of Odds, he explains and calculates house edges for each and every game.

The math is a bit beyond explaining here, But is partially explained here

With 0 and 00, your expected return is 36/38 = 0.947.

With just 0, it's 36/37, or 0.972.

The house advantages are 1 minus that, or 5.3% and 2.8%, respectively. Compare that the 0.6% advantage of, say, Craps with double odds.

http://wizardofodds.com/games/craps/

While I have come ahead in black jack more times then i have lost, technically if you play 1 million $1 games, you should come out with $995,000 provided you are playing perfectly (which isn't hard to do given the small number of possible hands). Various house rules of course lower or raise the odds. Card counting, of course, is the way to go if you want to even the odds but it won't work on 8 decks and, to even the odds, single deck games only give a 6-5 payout on black jacks (rather then the expected 3-2).

At the end of the day, your odds are pretty close to 50-50 provided you play well, and you can get a lot of free booze complements of the house (down in vegas)

Pocker of course is the best way to earn money because, unlike blackjack, you are playing against other players, not the house and thus, your odds are as good as anyone elses so it comes down to skill. Of course the house takes a cut so the table loses overall, but, generally, if you want to earn money gambeling you need to find a game where you compete against other people and get bloody good at it

This site is run by a casino math professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. It contains the odds on all the major casino games, and Java applets that teach you how to play the best odds.

http://www.wizardofodds.com/

Or, you could go to one of the many places on the 'Net that have already done so:

http://wizardofodds.com/games/videopoker/

Find the right game with the right payouts, and the long-term return exceeds 100%.

Especially on the suckers game of roulette. To win big, you either have to spend a very long time and be very lucky, or bet against 35:1 odds and be incredibly lucky.

This page sums it up nicely.

I guess you could bet on points instead of cash, and the winner can get a prize.

Good effort, but the Wizard of Odds site you linked to uses mathematical exhaustion as opposed to you general heuristics.

There is an outstanding product out there to train you to play "optimal" video poker (that is, make the mathematically best choice for any 5-card deal. A crippled shareware version can be found here, but this proprietary software is worth many times its' price: WinPoker (sorry Windows only, and no I have no financial incentive to plug)

Never forget that Poker (against other people online or in person) and Video Poker (where you try to complete the best hand to win a fixed payout) are COMPLETELY different games with very little shared strategy.

I have never been any good at poker... in high school, playing nickel-ante poker, I lost about $25 to just one of my friends. Typically, after about 15 minutes of play, everyone was playing with "my" money.

But recently, I spent some quality time with a hand-held poker game, and played the "hundreds or thousands" of games as described in the article. Not enough to become an expert, but I did come up with a technique to make my 100 credits last longer.

I hacked away as much complexity as I could. The heart of my method is to forget about the effect of getting two cards you need. The chances of getting two specific cards is something like 1/52 * 1/52 = 1/2704 -- too small to care about. So the entire method is about the next card.

Of course, I put it online: How To Lose Less At Video Poker. At the risk of slashdotting my own server, I'm curious if anyone can find any obvious flaws in the method.

I found this Java-based tutorial that purports to generate the "optimum payout" -- it often disagrees with me, presumably because it's trying for big payouts. My method doesn't promise profit, only smaller losses.

An important disclaimer: I've never used my method with any non-trivial amount of actual cash. Here in Texas, there are video poker machines in every Quickie Mart, but I just don't see the appeal. Now, if they would put in a Pac-Man machine...

The only bet in the house that has decent odds is the odds on a pass line bet on the craps table.

Bzzzt. I think you meant don't pass plus odds :) ... From Wizard of Odds, a straight Pass bet has a house edge of 1.41%, while Don't Pass Line is 1.364%. Add odds betting in (let's use double odds, 2X), and combined house edge for Pass plus double odds is 0.606%, while Don't Pass plus double odds is 0.455%. If you can find a spot with a low table minimum and 100X odds, and you can actually afford to play full odds on the Don't Pass on that table, you enjoy probably the best house edge of any casino game, at a paltry 0.014%. Of course ... even at a dollar table, you've got $201 laid out on the table just to get those odds, and if you actually win a hundred bucks when the seven comes out, everybody at the table is going to be really pissed at you :)

Looks up to me (minus the "the"):

Wizard of Odds

And here is the story you were talking about.

Looks up to me (minus the "the"):

Wizard of Odds

And here is the story you were talking about.