front page
blackjack
poker
secrets
archive
video
gm store
resources
advertising
contact us

FRONT PAGE - GameMasters Secret's Page

The GameMaster's Secrets:
Internet Advantage Play: Video Poker - Part 1

Making a profit at any Video Poker game - "live" or at an Internet casino - is made difficult by the very nature of the game itself. Sure, you might get lucky and hit a bonus hand like 4 Aces, which will put you in a profit situation but most often you'll pump the $$$ into the machine and walk away with nothing to show for your effort. That's why there are few Video Poker "pros" in the world and those that are also teach the game and write about it or have some other source of income beyond what they earn from the machines. That's not to say one cannot make at profit at VP; I'm just pointing out that the profits are relatively small overall and are never consistent enough to allow a fulltime player to rely upon his winnings to pay the monthly bills.

I view Video Poker as an alternative to investing a portion of my $$$ in something like the stock market or a savings account. For example, I might be able to make $500 a year on a $10,000 certificate of deposit or maybe make $1500 or $2000 on the same amount of capital by investing in equity stocks or junk bonds, etc., but I can do much better by "investing" in a good VP game. The risks are higher, of course, but I can live with that because my returns are in the 40+% per year range. In this article I'll tell you exactly how I do it, name names where appropriate and show you my "tricks of the trade". Because most Internet versions of Video Poker return less than 100% of the $$$ run through them, the casinos are not worried about being beaten in the long run, like they would be if they were to offer a game such as full-pay Deuces Wild, which returns 100.4%. Full-pay Deuces are mostly gone from the 'Net, but can still be found - usually in quarter denomination - at many brick-and-mortar casinos.

So, if a game has a long-term return of less than 100%, how can I make a long-term profit at them? There are two factors that work in my favor - the first being the periodic bonuses that some casinos pay to their loyal customers and the other is what I call the "coin flip" factor. I prevously wrote an article about the second factor, which is entitled "Coin Flips and Video Poker" and it can be found in the Secrets archive here; you should read it. In a nutshell, I recognized that a VP game which returns nearly 100% is basically a coin flip with several distinct advantages. Let's say you and a friend decide to engage in a little game of flip the coin. First of all, you both probably already know that neither of you can gain a long-term edge, assuming the coin is "honest"; that is, there's an equal chance heads or tails will show on any given flip. Play long enough and the number of heads will approach 50% of the tosses and the number of tails will do the same.

But, an interesting facet of this type of trial is that the percentage will always get closer and closer to 50% on each side, however the actual difference from a numbers point of view will actually increase. For example, in a trial of 100 flips, you could easily end with 47 heads and 53 tails (about 70% of one Standard Deviation), which is a 47-53 percent ratio and a difference of 6 between the actual number of heads and tails. In a trial of 1000 flips, you could just as easily end with 490 heads and 510 tails (the same 70% of one Standard Deviation), which is now a 49-51 percent ratio, but you can see that the actual difference between the number of heads and tails is 20, quite a bit larger than the difference of 6 that we saw in the 100 flips. The main advantage to using VP as the coin flip is that your friend get upset if you want to quit after you're ahead by 20 bets, but a casino doesn't get upset if you quit after winning $200, $300 or more. Another advantage is that your friend will pay you only "even-money" (1 to 1) on your bet, but a Video Poker game might pay you $800 for 4 Aces or $4000 for a Royal Flush. Because you're being paid nothing on many hands, those "bonuses" only bring your return up to about 100% (depending upon the game played), but there is nothing that says you have to lose $800 before you hit quad Aces. You'll probably lose something, but you might hit them when you've got only $300 invested, which would give you a $500 profit for that playing session. Yes, if you continue to play long enough, you'll give back the $500 profit, but the nice thing is that you can also expect to make back a $500 loss if you play long enough. After all it's just a big coin flip, which means both you and the casino will break even in the long run if the game returns exactly 100%. Unfortunately, the casino has a small edge in the game I'll tell you about, so unless you can make up for that in some way my whole idea is a long-term loser.

Ideally, we want to play a game that returns an amount as close as possible to 100% and we want the casino to give us extra $$$ to make up for their edge, thus turning the game into a 100+% "coin flip." Am I dreaming? Nope. Here it is:

Pick 'Em Poker at Bodog Casino

As this is being written in April, 2006 the Pick 'Em Poker VP game there is the "full-pay" version, which returns 99.95% for perfect play. I play the $1 version (the $5 version is not full-pay, but the quarter version is), which basically means I bet $5000 in every 1000 hands of play. The casino's edge is 0.05%, so my expectation is to lose $2.50 for every $5000 I bet. Now understand, I may start with only $500, but I can easily generate $5000 in total bets in about two hours (Pick 'Em plays very quickly) because I'm betting my $$$ over and over again. At the end of a two hour session I might be up $400, down $600 or somewhere in between, but it's highly unlikely that I'll be down exactly $2.50, which is my expectation. The variance of the game will affect my results much more than the expectation. Expectation is "linear" (it travels a gradually-sloping line down) but variance is not linear - it jumps all over the place, both up and down; obviously up is good, down is bad. The more I play, the more my results will mirror expectation; variance will become less and less important and unless I can get some $$$ from the casino to offset my negative expectation, I'm doomed to lose it all. Or, I can just quit when I'm up but that basically means I have to give up the game forever, which I'm not willing to do.

Again, as this is being written, there is a wonderful deposit bonus policy at Bodog Casino, which is to give customers a 10% bonus on each deposit - not just your first deposit - every deposit. (That may have changed by the time you read this, so check it out first). If I deposit $500 for example, the casino gives me an extra $50, so if I bet $5000 with an expectation of losing $2.50, I'll end with a $47.50 "profit", although my actual results may be completely different due to variance. What it basically boils down to is the fact that the 10% bonus makes the game break-even for 100,000 hands of play at the $1 denomination game. Within that 100,000 hands of play I may win or I may lose much more than $50, but I really don't care because I played a 100% return game and that's my goal - to play as many hands as possible at a game where my return is 100% or more. Why is that important and my wins and losses aren't? Long-term perspective is the answer. Eventually, I'm going to hit a $1199 Straight Flush or a $6000 Royal Flush and they will either make back my losses or give me a profit. So long as I have an expectation of breaking even on 100,000 hands from the bonuses along the way and can tolerate the inevitable downswings, a long-term profit is possible.

An analysis of Pick 'Em Poker shows that a Straight Flush will occur - on average - once every 38,450 hands of play and a Royal will occur - again, on average - once every 352,000 hands. But there is no law in heaven or on earth that says I cannot hit a SF in 15,000 hands or a Royal in 100,000 hands; neither is there a law that says I must hit a SF in 38,450 hands, nor a Royal in 352,000 hands. Either hand can easily happen earlier than expected or much later than expected - it's that old variance again. Getting ahead of the "curve" is the ideal, but it may not happen, so I must be willing to play the game enough to get to the long-term and that's why this is an "investment" to me. I deposit $500, get a $50 bonus and lose it all. I deposit another $500, get another $50 deposit and lose it all again. I'm putting $$$ into my investment and collecting nothing, which is too tough for many advantage players, let alone most gamblers.

But then, one fine day along comes a bunch of quads (they pay $600) and a Straight Flush caps it off. Hallelujah! A solid winning session that puts me in the profit zone, far ahead of expectation. I get back all of the $$$ I put in plus some, so I draw out most of it because I want to deposit more in the future and get those lovely 10% bonuses. I wait a week and deposit $500, but will they give me a bonus? Yes, indeed. I play and lose it, so I deposit another $500 and get another $50 bonus. I play a lot of hands - at least 10,000 - which is $50,000 in total bets and make $600 in the process. I withdraw everything but $100 and wait 3 days before depositing again. Another bonus? Yep, the same 10%. And so it goes.

I'm sure there's a line between a "big player" who bets $2500+ an hour and withdraws $$$ on a regular basis and a "bonus abuser" who is depositing and withdrawing regularly just for the 10%, but I don't (yet) know where that line is. The casino's website says this: "Bonuses are issued for new money only, withdrawing and re-depositing money back into your account will not earn bonuses", which seems to imply you get the bonuses only if you lose. That's reasonable and by the very nature of Video Poker, it's possible that one could deposit $5000 in $500 increments, lose it all, then make another deposit of $500, get a bonus and hit a $6000 Royal, thus showing a profit. But as far as I can recall, I got bonuses every time I deposited, so I think there is some discretion at work here (they know me only by my "real" name, so it's not favortism) and they evidently like players who give them decent action. I never have and never will condone or encourage bonus "abuse", so you're on your own in that area; I just know my experience with Bodog Casino has been both pleasant and profitable.

Some Final Thoughts

  • Another game that interests me is called "All Aces" at Royal Vegas Casino, which returns 99.92% for "perfect" play. It's a variation of Double Bonus Poker, but quad Aces pay 2000 and the Full House, Flush and Straight pay less. It's available in $.25, $.50 and $1 denominations. The variance per coin bet is a lofty 65+.

  • The variance for Bodog's Pick 'Em Poker is 15.01 per coin; for 9/6 Jacks it's 19.51, which means your bankroll swings will not be huge, as in full-pay Double Bonus, where it's 28.25.
  • If you do not have a proper strategy chart for any of the games mentioned here, email me at Aceten1@mindspring.com and I'll send you one.
  • Bodog Casino also gives bonuses based upon your total bets, but darn if I can figure out how much it is. My guess is that it's about 0.1% or so, which may make the Pick 'Em game profitable even without the deposit bonuses. The $$$ just seem to show up in my account from time-to-time and it's always welcome.
  • The technique I talked about here isn't for the faint of heart, so act accordingly.

I'll see you here next time.

  

2006 Articles


2005 Articles


2004 Articles


2003 Articles


2002 Articles


2001 Articles


1999 Articles


1997 Articles