OK mathletes what is my return. This is a simple answer I am sure but just curious.

I go to the casino today with $0. I apply my $100 free play into a VP. I played 500 hands at JOB for $625 through the machine. I cash out $100 and leave. Do I have a 100% return session or since I started with $0 actual cash is my return different.

Would my return on my spreadsheet be considered different than what the casino thinks. Does any of this even matter to the casino since the paytable is what dictates the return.

My main reason for this question is just curiosity because my casino shows an average slot pay back at 90% but VP machines are considered slots so that is lumped into that number as well. Since I took $100 out of the machine without putting any real money into it does this mean I had a huge payback which would then skew the return of the entire casino or would the casino calculate the $100 in free play as real money but also count it in their promotional fund. I know we are only talking about $100 when they pay out millions so overall would have no effect but what if I won the 25k free slot play they are giving away and I did the same thing.

While typing this I have just confused myself so if this makes no sense please let me know. If any of you can follow what I am trying to ask please respond.

How you account for your results it is up to you. Personally, I choose to treat FP the same as the coin-in which originates from my wallet.

Who cares how the casino accounts for it? As long as you run it through a vp machine, it still depends upon the paytable and not some nebulous claimed payback rate.

Since you cashed out all of your free play, that's a 100% return session to me. If you played 8/5 JoB that day, your average return will be 97.3% with perfect play.

As for the average return being 90%, yes, video poker is often lumped in with the slot return for casino accounting purposes. So that means that the average slot machine pays slightly lower than 90% at that casino. However any slot machine returning under 85% looks to be illegal via state law.

I dunno how it works exactly, but I would think it would be roughly like this. For accounting purposes, the casino probably knows the "hold" of the freeplay on average. For example, lets say the average casino player plays on a 90% machine and cycles through free play for 3 times its value. So then the casino would see (.1)*3 = 30% of the freeplay come back to them. Then they would deduct the remaining 70% from their revenue.

Back from a weekend in vegas... Well, got back two days ago but picked up some kinda stomach thing from either something I ate or just from lack of sleep?

Anyway... SICKEST video poker weekend of my life...

It started on the drive out... I did not sleep Thursday night so I can finish enough "work" and be able to take a weekend off for Vegas. Left Friday night about 9pm I slept in the car as my gambling partner drove (who is not a good influence on me by the way) HA!

Anyway, I woke up getting on pearblossom hwy and ended up driving... As my gambling partners favorite song came on we were talking about Gold Cost Casino and how it pays "Money you can feel" (yes they pay in coins), so I said lets stop...

He went and played $3 craps and I went to $1 Double Bonus Progressive. On my 2nd $100 in the machine it dealt me a straight with an open ended straight flush, I decided to go for it... brick... Next hand dealt me KK44x, I just held the KK and what do you know... two more KK's for a quick $250... I start thinking, this machine is going to start to hit... Not more then a dozen hands later dealth AJd and BAM!!! GOT IT!!! $4317.75



Got my hand pay, gave a very generous tip since I kinda felt bad hitting and running and knowing I will not give any of it back (I hoped)... Cashed out when I was at $200 coins and kept 1 as a souvenir.

Then noticed their $5 progressive machine is a 8/5 bonus poker w/ progressive! How can I refuse!! I played it for a bit, hit a couple of small 4oaK's ($625) and cashed out up a couple hundred... (tip covered).

Ok, its 2:30am now, time to get to Caesars...

Drive to Caesars check in, now im wired after still only having 2 hours of sleep since Thursday. Go to the High Limit room and sit down at the 8/5 Bonus machine $5/$10/$25... Play $5 bonus... Hit a couple small 4oaK's, then switched to $10, and got 4's for $4,000!



Keep playing and playing... Go up stairs broke at about 6 in the morning...

Had a $500 free play promotion, woke up at noon, went to get it, line to long, what else to do to waste time, go play the noon $240 poker tourney... 1st break gets close, I leave a little early to go get my free play, got 5 x 100 slot tickets...

On the way back to the poker room I decided to give the VP machines near the $0.25 progressive a try, played $1 Tripple Bonus Poker Plus, stuck in $100 cash from my pocket (not touching free play yet)... BAM - AAAAx which pays $1200 on this game. (actually had a kicker too but that doesnt count in this one)... While waiting for a verify for the hand pay, I ran into the poker room, dealer was about to pull the cards while I am running to my seat, sit down to the big blind, hi-jack raises, button calls, I look at QJc shove my stack (35+K), call call... AA and AKoff, (AK off called 2 all ins YUMMY!) Whole table says there was a Jack exposed... I'm like so?... board reads... X X Q J X... Scoop! Run out side and get my hand pay... Go back to poker room and after a while I get really tired of sitting around people bitching and complaining about poker and just being around miserable people... so I dumped it in with 5 4 off and busted and went to play my free money...

first $100 free ticket in a $1/$2/$5 machine playing $1 double double bonus.. Held one Ace and got AAAA4 for $2,000! SICK!

Then I decided to give some Double Super Times Pay a try... There is one machine at Caesars.. Its a $0.25 only machine. Played a few hundred threw it, nothing eventufl... Switch to Duces Wild, and got a natural royal flush with no multiplier for $1,000! Royal Count = 2!

Then i decided to try some other games, plopped down infront of this game called "Three Way Action Poker" never played it before... I am playing at the $0.25 level and you have to wager 30 coins ($7.50). Next thing I know its paying me $1,000 I must have hit something and I didn't even know... Didn't pay attention, I just noticed I had over $1000 in the machine!

This is a picture, and now that I look at it again, it was 4oaK w/ 3oak which pays 4000 credits:


I kept playing and got 4AWK and in this game it payed just over $1200



I continued playing a bit and went to the $1 level, and got a royal using the 7 cards: This may or may not be Royal # 3, since 7 cards were needed it may not be considered a true "royal".... I was 1 card off *needed 8s* for a 7 card straight flush (kinda like pai gow)


Kept playing and playing... got dealt 4 kings which was pretty cool:


I don't recall exactly what happened after that but I think I went to a $10 double double bonus machine and put away all my money pretty quick... Back to the ATM I went...

Pulled out $500 and went to a multi line $1/$2/$5 machine that had Tripple Double BOnus on it. I was hoping for 4AWK for 4K but instead I somehow managed to squeeze royal #4 (or 3) out of my butt!!!


Back to the high limit room and play some $10 bonus and relax a bit...

Gutter ball straight flush!


Not more than probably 20 hands later... Open Ended straight flush!


Kept hitting a bunch of small 4oaK's for $1250 here and there...

Overall score for the trip... 30K tier points added / up about $3K for the whole trip, had a freakin blast, and a lot of fun...

WEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

wholly **** batman How many hands do you think you played

I am not sure at all... I play fairly quick, when playing $10 and $5 VP I slow it down a little for obvious reasons...

But I did a lot of play on that $1 Three Way Action (3 poins a push) and on the $10 Bonus (5 points a push).

thanks for the great pics and detailed TR SuitedJunk.......glad you came home a winner....3k WOOT!

Amazing report SJ, and I always enjoy viewing jackpot pics, thanks.

You must have racked up something like $35,000 in W2Gs, which I think beats my lifetime total, lol.

Assuming vp only, your coin-in was $300,000, which for me is several months of play.

And it was only a weekend trip. I don't even want to know what happens if you stay for a week

SJ if you dont mind me asking how much cash did you take with you to start the trip? Was this a "normal" type trip or was it this big because of the early jackpot hit?

It makes me jealous that some people are able to have weekends like this. My wife and I just made a weekend gambling trip and only had 1k budgeted including all expenses so our play was so minimal.

Although 1 awesome thing that happened was they had a free play drawing and everyone received 1 free entry and you received more entries for every 100 points. 1$=1 point. We arrived at 7:50pm, I stuck a $20 in a machine and spun once to activate my free entry and I won the first drawing at 8pm for $500 free play. They drew 10 names every hour for 4 hours. The lady next to me said that she had over 1000 entries. Unfortunately the best VP at this casino is 7/5 JOB YIKES i know. I still put the entire $500 through one machine and cashed it out at $465 with 1 4ok on DDB for 250 credits.

$30,407 in W2G's...

Definitely the most I have ever had in one night.

I was playing way above what I normally play... I am usually a $1 or $2 at most VP player... I have played $5 before a bit but only when having run goods... Never played $10 before...


I went with $2,500 plus a $500 free slot play offer...

I went bust the first night (after hitting the royal and I believe the 4A's for $4K on $10 Bonus...)... The next morning I hit the ATM for $500... Built it back up though...

I was fully comped at caesars for the trip plus my comp dollars took care of food.

Don't think I can every have a run like that again, and I don't think I will ever play $10VP again unless I have much more of a roll to work with... I am much more comfortable at $1 and $2 VP.



Congrats on hitting that first drawing!!

For some reason when ever I play on a lesser returning machine, I keep hitting full houses or 4oaK's it seems very strange...


Looking forward to my next trip although not sure when it will be!

I was playing DDB last night was dealt AAA22 Should I have kept just the AAA or AAA2

I know it has been talked about on here but what android app can I get that would have told me the answer while at the game

Just keep AAA for DDB. Holding a boat is a significant mistake ($5.26 average error on a 8/5 quarter machine). Holding AAA2 is a moderate mistake (69c average error on a 8/5 quarter machine).

The app that was suggested earlier in this thread was the winpoker app for iPhone. According to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/winpoker/ it has yet to be extended to android.

thank you tring, that is what I did but after I was rethinking it. I do not have an iphone so I guess i will just wait for droid to get a version.

Dealt full house w/ AAA in Double Double bonus definitely only hold the AAA

In Tripple Double Bonus they say you should hold AAA2 since AAAA+Kicker pays 4000, although I don't feel I could do that...

Playing thay high the variance is insane. Huge risk of depleting bankroll which you can see on wizardofodds.com. I hit a royal for 25 $1 credits one night and then went to JoB machine and lost 12k in 2 hours at same denimination. It's almost impossible to stop clicking that button.

If you can't make what you know are the mathematically correct plays, perhaps video poker isn't for you. Just a thought.

I was watching a lady next to me play 100-line penny TDB once for the max, and we got all excited that she got dealt AAA, and I didn't notice that she had a low kicker with it until the moment she hit the draw button, and she just held AAA since she didn't know better. The way she was running on that 96% machine, she definitely was getting AAAA+kicker if she kept the kicker. Instead she got about 5 regular quads out of the 100, but I still felt guilty since she was occasionally asking me for advice and that was about a $22.50 mistake for a $6 spin.

FYI, the variance that machine is suicidal. 100 betting units/hand on a single line machine, which is worse than Loose Deuces Wild. DDB is a little over 40 betting units/hand by comparison.

still no royal for me but 10 days ago I hit AAAA2, 2 times in one night on DDB

It killed me to not be able to come on here to post it.

YAY me

That's unfair. If he knows he's making a mathematically incorrect play and is willing to gamble, then let him. It's one thing to know better and gamble anyway and another thing completely to not know better.

It's kinda like taking the ugly chick home... you know you're going to regret it in the morning, but you do it anyway. Knowing the consequences beforehand allows you to make an informed (albeit unwise) decision.

Sorry, but it's completely fair. Many players learn to play vp because they've heard or read that it's a +ev game. These days it doesn't take many errors or lapses in judgment to remove whatever edge the player might have had.

I wasn't advising the poster to swear off vp. I was advising him to re-evaluate his goals and objectives, and then decide whether he should continue playing vp. And I wouldn't have even posted that had his earlier post on this page about a winning trip not contained flashing red warning signs.

If he simply wants to gamble, that is fine with me. After all, if it weren't for the action of the pure gamblers outweighing that of educated players, casinos would not be able to offer profitable vp games. Being knowledgeable of the mathematics behind the game but ignoring it simply makes no sense to me, but to each his own.

So while the forums were down my local casino decided to make some HUGE changes to VP. It makes no sense to me since the best game they have is JOB 8/5. 1 month ago they had 2 banks of VP with approx 50 machines in each. They had 2 large bars with VP the entire way around them and 1 small bank with approx 20 machines.

Today they have 1 bank with 50 with JOB 8/5, 1 bank of 10 machines with JOB 8/5, and 2 bars with JOB 6/5. YIKESSSSSS

Typical short-sighted casino management. They figure if they're making $xxx with a given paytable, they'll make > $xxx if they worsen the paytables. They don't consider that they'll lose a number of players as soon as they make the change as well as lose another group of players who will quickly discover their trip stake doesn't last nearly as long as it used to.

You will almost certainly see further downgrading of paytables before you will see management admit they made a mistake and restore the former paytables.

Terrible. Do they tend to offer 6/5 Bonus Poker there OP? If they do, I would see if Super Times Pay (STP) or Double Super Times Pay (DSTP) offer those payouts if they dont offer 8/5 JoB on those machines. 6/5 Bonus on DSTP has a better payout than standard 8/5 JoB when playing 7 coins. It's sure is a hell of a lot more fun, and it's often my nickel game of choice if I can find it.

The above was posted by Syncmaster on 05-25-2011 at 04:59 PM in this thread. I am trying to determine an average payout overtime. How much is typically bet per min or hour? I am new to VP and it just seems like $100 is a lot to risk for a payout of $0.77.

How much $ bet per hour would depend on what level coin you are playing. Most -EV games are all over the place, from as low as a nickel all the way up to $100 coins.

Most casinos set up the machines so the games that pay close to 100% can only be played at low denominations. Realistically, +EV games are not really found higher than the quarter level anymore. So you are only wagering $1.25 per hand on these games.

What you are looking for is how many hands per hour someone could play. However, that will also very depending on how easy the game is and how experienced they are. These are all guesses, but just to give you an idea I would say...
300/hr for a new player
500/hr for a casual player
700+ for experienced players staying 100% focused.