Maybe once in 800 hours of swift play, maybe
not
February 19,
2010
Dear Mark: If
these two games were to be played correctly,
which is better to play, blackjack or video
poker? I would argue that it is video poker,
simply because it offers a large jackpot if
you hit a royal, whereas blackjack doesn’t.
Donald B.
If you were
to utilize expert play on both video poker
and perfect basic strategy on blackjack (a
9/6 jacks-or-better video poker machine or
multiple-deck blackjack), both will have
approximately the same house edge of 0.5%.
But even with a royal flush jackpot lying in
wait, would video poker still be the better
play?
Well, Donald, it really
is about personal preference, but for me,
it’s blackjack, because even with equality
between games, you will still end up losing
more money per hour at video poker. Here’s
the math. At 50 hands per hour, a $5
blackjack player risks only $250, and with
basic strategy narrowing the house edge to
0.5%, the basic strategy player will lose
only $1.25. Contrariwise, a video poker
player risking the maximum coin amount on a
dollar machine, $5, at a steady pace of 500
hands per hour, will put in play $2,500
during the hour, creating an hourly loss of
$12.50. That’s 10 times the risk, and
with it 10 times the loss.
Moreover, Donald, the minuscule 0.5% house
edge figures in your hitting a royal flush.
If not, the casino advantage would be
considerably higher. As a matter of fact,
Donald, the royal flush is so dominant in
the casino’s payout calculations for video
poker machines, that until you hit that
royal flush, you’ll be losing some serious
coinage, especially on a $1 machine.
Even with your keen eye identifying
machines with a decent payback, and
employing perfect play, those elusive royal
flushes appear, on average, once in every
40,000 hands. The house edge without hitting
a royal flush on a $1 Jacks-or-better 9/6
machine is 2.5%, all the while you’re
yearning for that royal.
Dear Mark: When I asked a slot
attendant what percentage quarter machines
were returning, she stated they keep no
records on paybacks for any of their
machines. Can this be true? Charlie O.
You may have gotten a Sorry
Charlie response from the slot attendant,
who by the way, may have had less than six
months employment in gaming, but the answer
was pure poppycock.
Undeniably, some casinos are not required by
their state to release information on slot
machine percentage paybacks; other states
break down casino returns by geographic
area, and in some states, it’s easy to find
out the average slot payback percentage on
all slot machines for an individual casino.
But to say the casino keeps no records of
paybacks for various categories of machines
is simply bunk. Reason being, Charlie, is
that every slot machine and accounting
system used by the casino contains the data
needed to make that calculation. Whether
they release that information to the general
public is one thing, but to say it doesn’t
exist is false.
Gambling Wisdom of the Week: "What
is a random shuffle? One mathematician has
defined the random shuffle as equivalent to
scattering the cards in a windstorm and
having them retrieved by a blindfolded
inebriate." --Jerry L. Patterson & Eddie
Olsen, Break the Dealer
