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Reason #1 why the Wizard likes Bodog:
Excellent customer support
The thing that separates Bodog from the rest is its customer support. Many other online gaming companies outsource their support. It can be difficult getting a response from them, and if you do it is often slow and handled by somebody with little understanding of gambling or even of English. But Bodog's support is handled by Bodog, and their support staff is actually knowledgeable and helpful. I'm so confident that you'll have a good experience with Bodog that if you have a problem getting paid and you can't resolve it with them on your own, I'll talk to them myself. I personally have known the Bodog management for about three years and always found them to be professional, friendly, and knowledgeable. I have also personally visited one of their call centers so I could see first-hand how they handle customer issues. (More on my mediation service.) If you have a problem with any other casino besides Bodog, I can't help you. I get complaints from players of other online casinos every day who have difficulty getting paid. However that isn't my job nor my problem. If you play at Bodog after clicking through my site I'll stand behind you 100%. Any place else and you're on your own. (Visit Bodog) Jacks or Better at Bodog. One click and you're in:
No popups, no download, no registration, no B.S., just the game. |
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There is 6/5 Double Double Bonus Poker machine with a $10,100 royal payout. It's a $1 machine, that can take a big hit on the bankroll with only 94% paybakck. I know as the jackpot increases, so does the payback percentage. I would never even consider playing this machine otherwise. Is it worth playing? The floor manager says it's been as high as $12,000 once before. Should I consider playing it, or just not even waste my time and money? — Nathan from Edina, MN
The return of 6/5 double double bonus is 0.946569, to be exact. My table says the probability of a royal is 0.000025. However, I like to use more significant digits that that, so let’s take the return, divided by the win, which is 0.020297/800 = 0.00002537. The return of all the wins besides the royal is 0.926273. Let’s call j the breakeven jackpot amount. Solving for j:
1 = 0.926273 + 0.00002537*j The 2,906 is measured in bet units. For a $1 machine ($5 total bet) the breakeven point would be $5*2,906 = $14,530. So, $12,000 is still a long way away from break-even. Before some perfectionist writes me, as the progressive goes up, the optimal strategy will change, to be more aggressive towards playing for royals. My answer assumes the player follows the same 6/5 optimal strategy the entire time. A simple approximation for any 52-card video poker game is to add 0.5% for every extra 1,000 coins in the meter. In the case of a $10,100 meter, that is $6,100 higher than a non-progressive. It is a dollar game, so that is 6,100 coins, so add 0.5% × (6,100/1,000) = 3.05% to the base return. The base return is 92.63%, so the total return could be approximated as 94.66% + 3.05% = 97.71%. The actual return for a $10,100 meter is 97.75%, so pretty close. May 26, 2008
At the Betfair "Zero Lounge" they pay 976 instead of 800 for the royal flush on a 9/6
to bring the expected return up to 100%. This will have some effect on video poker
strategy (slightly favoring plays that have a chance at the royal over ones that
don't). Any chance of publishing an updated strategy for these odds? Cheers.
— Brett from Dublin, Ireland
Playing the optimal 9/6 strategy in this game will result in a return of 0.999796. That is an error rate of only 0.02%, which is not worth learning a new strategy over, in my opinion. March 4, 2008
I've been unable to find a risk-of-ruin table for full-pay pick 'em poker or related info about its variance. The $1 full-pay machines clearly have the best returns in the buffalo-niagara region, but i'm uncertain about suggested bankrolls. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks. – Fred from Buffalo
The standard deviation in Pick ‘em Poker is 3.87. The standard deviation in conventional video poker tends to run from about 4.4 to 6.4. I don’t have any risk of ruin tables for Pick ‘em Poker. So the best advice I can offer is to use the jacks or better table in my video poker appendix 1. Jacks or Better has the lowest standard deviation in that appendix at 4.42, so you can be a little more aggressive than that table calls for.
July 11, 2006
Have you ever evaluated Spin Poker and does it pay off comparable to regular multi-hand video poker? What is unique about spin poker is that while it is a multi-hand game, is that on the draw, once a card is drawn it is gone and can not come up on another line. While I have done well at this game, I've been very uneasy about this aspect of it. - Jeff from San Diego, California The same can be said about standard video poker, once a card is discarded it can not come back on the draw. Thus the expected return in Spin Poker is the same as conventional video poker with the same pay table. Sept. 11, 2005 I read your recent article on Anything's Wild. Just curious: How is it possible to get a Natural Royal Flush if the player chooses a 10, Jack, Queen, King, or Ace as his wild card? If T,J,Q,K or A are chosen, how does a "natural" royal differ from a "wild" royal? I don't recall this in the rule but I would assume they are the same as in One Eyed Jacks, in which a wild card is not forced to be wild if the player would otherwise have a natural royal flush. Jan. 23, 2005 Do you have a book on various versions of video poker, or can you recommend a book where can I get strategies for Bonus Poker, Double Bonus, Tripple Bonus, Double Double Bonus, and Tripple Double Bonus? Video poker does not suit itself well to books. There are so many different games and pay tables, and they add new ones so quickly, that a book would be dry and quickly outdated. I recommend getting video poker software that can produce a strategy for almost any game. Two examples of such software are Video Poker Strategy Master and Frugal Video Poker. May 30, 2004 My wife and I play Aces and Faces in Tunica, MS, on a regular basis. We have used the basic Jacks or Better strategy as indicated on your site. Is this the optimal strategy for this game? If not, can you tell us what the optimal strategy would be on this game? Thanks. -Vance & Ashley No! You can get a near optimal strategy for almost any game with Video Poker Strategy Master or Frugal Video Poker. March 7, 2003 Hello Professor, would it be possible for you to provide an optimal strategy for Crypto's double bonus poker? Also, could you recommend a strategy generator that will create a near-optimal strategy for any video poker game with any paytable? - Jan from Ontario, Canada There are two software programs that can produce near optimal strategies for almost any video poker game. One if Video Poker Strategy Master by Tom Ski and the other is Frugal Video Poker by Jean Scott. Winpoker 7.0 promises to offer this feature as well but as of this writing it is not out yet. I don't like to give away too many video poker strategies for free because other experts have to make a living selling video poker software or strategy cards. Feb. 4, 2003 Say you are dealt 4 to a flush (4 spades for example.) In triple play video poker, you can get the same card 3 times, 1 on each line (like the 2 of spades for 3 flushes.) However, in spin poker, there is no "replacement" - I could not get the 2 of spades on all 3 lines. Does this change the strategy, or is it offset by the number of lines you can win on? - Tim from Chicago, Illinois No, the strategy does not change. The odds are strategy are the same whether the replacement cards are all dealt from the same deck or each hand from a different deck. However there would be less volatility in a game like Spin Poker where all replacement cards are dealt from the same deck. Nov. 28, 2002 I often play video Double-Down Stud when I'm in Las Vegas. I was curious as to how good/bad the total return of these machines are compared to the various forms of video poker. The machines at the Riviera (one of the few places I've seen these machines) have the following payouts: One-coin pay table
--------------------
Pair, 6-10's 1
Pair, J-A's 2
2 Pair 3
3 of a Kind 4
Straight 6
Flush 9
Full House 12
4 of a Kind 50
Straight-Flush 200
Royal Flush 1,000
2-5 coins, multiply 1-coin payout 5-coin Royal pays 20,000 coins With correct play, what is the return of these machines? As a side note, these machines earn slot points at the same rate as video poker (half the rate of the regular slots), but I find that I accumulate point faster due to the obvious double-down situations. Does that indirectly improve the return? I enjoy your website very much! Thanks!! - Tim Dupay from Newburgh, New York Under this pay table the house edge is 2.10% and the element of risk is 1.68%. The strategy is the same as indicated in my Double Down Stud section. Counting the raise towards cash back is like getting an extra 25% above cash back on the original bet only. Nov. 3, 2002 Hi, have you ever heard any complaints about "SLOTLAND casino" because I am a bit suspicious about their space jack game. Playing the perfect strategy the expected return is 101.7%. But after playing many and many hands I have not made any profit. So, I would like to have your opinion! - LEGRAND Stephanie from Les Clayes Sous Bois, France Actually I get a player return of 101.62%. Buried within their rules is this statement, "Please note that all games share the same mechanism which determines the jackpot win. Thus, with card games, the probability of hitting the jackpot combination is not natural but controlled by this shared random mechanism in the same way as slot machines' wins." It is my understanding that they offered this game for quite a while before posting this warning. I just don't trust any casino that would rig a card game, even if they admit it in the fine print. Aug. 4, 2002 Do you have any advice/thoughts on Spin Poker? The company that makes the game says to use the same strategy as you would use on jacks or better (if playing jacks or better SP). I've played it at the Claridge and it seems like the placement of the cards you are holding, makes a difference, such as if they are bunched up or spaced out. Also, I think you should expand your coverage on the n-play machines since it is getting more popular everyday and some people are losing a lot of money on these. I've also seen some triply play draw poker machines at 6/5 which really clean you out, such as the ones at the Tropicana in Atlantic City, which is not the place to play video poker in AC! Thanks for the great site! - Jef from Atlantic City, USA IGT was right when they said you should use the same strategy for Spin Poker as single line video poker. Mathematically speaking the odds are the same. However Spin Poker has greater volatility since 9 different lines share many of the same cards. The same is true of multi-play video poker, the strategy and return is the same for a single line game. I do get into the volatility of multi-play video poker in my video poker appendix 3. June 28, 2002 Where can I find a strategy for playing Pick 'em poker? - Frank Dame You can buy the video poker strategy master which can generate a very good strategy for this game as well as most any other video poker variation. June 13, 2001 Real Time Gaming's Joker Poker has the huge payout for a sequential Royal flush, which give the game a positive expected value. My question: is it ever optimum play to keep a 10,J or Q in the correct position for the sequential RF, in what would otherwise be a throwaway hand? - Denis Jones from Rochester, New York You should keep the 10, J, and Q in the right positions unless you have a pat straight flush or a deuce. The expected value of this hand is about 28 times your bet, more or less depending on the discards. Feb. 18, 2001 Q: I'm playing an 8/5 bonus machine that pays $1199 for a royal flush and double for four 8's, in addition to the normal bonus schedule for four 2's, 3's, 4's, and aces. My slot card and max coins are required. Is this 100%+? - Malcolm McCahan of Laughlin, Nevada USA A: The $1199 payoff is amusing, just under the $1200 limit for which the casino would be obligated to report the win to the IRS. Winpoker 6 software allows for analysis of custom designed games and in this case the return is 100.0079%. Feb. 19, 2000
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