All set? Okay, as you now know, the double-up option has no house edge attached to it; it's what we call a 'fair' game, so in the long run, you lose as much at it as you'll win. But it can get you to the long run faster, IF you're lucky. That's not a word I use very often, since luck seldom plays a role in what I do, but it applies here, since this is just a sophisticated coin toss.

But let's say you don't live near a casino, so you can't devote the time it takes grind out the $$$ from the machines, but you're ready for some gambling before the plane leaves. By using the double up option, you can compress time and, if you're lucky, walk away a big winner at relatively low risk.

It's simple. Just pick a payoff and double it to some big number which thrills you. Well, maybe not that simple, but it can be done. For example, at a 9/6 Jacks or Better machine, you can expect to hit a Full House about once every 90 hands. Since it pays 45 for 5, if you can double and redouble it 6 times, you'll have 2880 coins. On a quarter machine, that's a respectable $720 for a risk of $11.25. Remember, you have, with a Full House, 45 coins which are yours to keep, but you're risking all of it in the doubling process, so the gamble is 45 coins, not the 5 you initially bet.

The real question here is whether it's better to try doubling a Full House or a Straight or a Pair or some other hand. I think I can provide an answer to that by examining the return each hand offers in the overall game. What I mean is that a full-pay Jacks or Better machine returns 99.5% of all the $$$ put in it, if the player uses proper playing strategy. Part of that 99.5% comes from hitting a Pair, another portion comes from Flushes and so forth. It seems logical to me that the ideal doubling option would be a hand which doesn't contribute a very large portion of the total return, yet it's a fairly large number, so it only needs to be doubled 5 or 6 times ("only") to turn into some serious $$$.

Here's a chart of the returns contributed by all the payoffs in a 9/6 Jacks or Better game:

Now, let's examine this a bit. You can see that a pair, two-pair and trips supply almost 70% of the 99.5% total return. If we try doubling those hands and fail, time after time, we're cutting our 'interim' return by quite a bit. On the other hand, a straight flush provides only .5% of the total return, so it's a good candidate for doubling, but it happens so infrequently the plane may leave before we hit one. So, we obviously have to find some middle ground for this to be effective. The Full House is appealing since, as I mentioned earlier, we only need to double it six times to make some serious $$$. But, as you can see from above, the Full House contributes over 10% of the total return. Too much to risk, I think. That leaves us with the Flush and Straight and they are pretty good candidates. A flush pays 30, so if you can double it 6 times, you'll end up with 1920 coins, or almost $500. While you're attempting to do that, you're giving up about 6% of the total return. A straight, when doubled 6 times yields $320; not bad for a $4 investment. Maybe the straight is the best choice: "You pays yer money and you takes yer choice."

Just what are the odds or probability of doubling a hand six times? The math here is very simple. Since doubling is a 50-50 proposition, the probability of doing it successfully one time is 0.5. Doing it twice is .5 X .5 = .25 or 1 in 4. To figure the probability of doubling six times in a row, just multiply .5 X .5 X .5 X .5 X .5 X .5 = .015625 or 1 in 64. That means on average you'll try it 63 times and lose. But the 64th try will get you even on the process. Since a straight will occur about once every 88 hands, it should take you 88 X 64 = 5600 hands or so to pull this off. Of course, if we thought it would take us 64 tries to do it, we wouldn't bother. Remember that these probabilities are averages, so it's just as likely you'll double a straight six times on your first try as it is you'll do it on your 100th try.

This whole technique is just a way to 'take a shot' and nothing more. But it's a well-considered and reasonable 'shot'.