Reason #3 why the Wizard likes Bovada:

Excellent Odds

In my opinion many online casinos are too stingy when setting the odds on their games. They think they will make more money that way but I believe they are misguided, because when players lose too quickly it’s not fun, and those players might not come back.

Bovada is one of the few casinos that understands this. They offer generous odds to let you play longer and get you a better chance of winning. Among their generous offerings are Full-Pay Jacks or Better returning 99.54%, six other video poker games paying over 99%, single-zero roulette, and my favorite, Pick ’em Poker, returning 99.95%!

Kudos to Bovada for not being afraid to give their players a good gamble.

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Triple Trouble

Last Update: May 11, 2010

Triple Trouble is a video poker variation I noticed at the Red Rock casino in May, 2007. It was also seen in a peyote induced hallucination by Tony Soprano, in the episode in which he visited Las Vegas. The base game is conventional video poker. In addition, there are three devils which may light up after the deal or after the draw. If all three are lit after the draw then the player will win three times his bet, plus three free spins, in which all wins will be tripled. If the players gets three devils in a free spin he will win nine times his original bet, but does not earn any additional free spins.

I am told that the free spins probability is 1.6%. When I played it took 186 plays to get my first feature. Here is how often I got each number of devils:

3 devils: 1
2 devils: 24
1 devil: 62
0 devils: 99
Total: 186

I assume I just had bad luck to have to wait so long. The probability of exactly one devil in 186 plays is 15.06%.

The following is the return table of the game offered at the Red Rock, before consideration of the bonus feature.

Triple Trouble — Red Rock Pay Table
Hand	Payoff	Combinations	Probability	Return
Royal flush	800	543603228	0.000027	0.021817
Straight flush	50	2344607496	0.000118	0.005881
Four A	200	4515410220	0.000227	0.045305
Four 2-4	40	10456785924	0.000525	0.020984
Four 5-K	25	31918369380	0.001601	0.040032
Full house	7	213391202292	0.010705	0.074937
Flush	5	222687455196	0.011172	0.055858
Straight	4	291874249212	0.014643	0.058570
Three of a kind	2	1466496448776	0.073570	0.147141
Two pair	1	2405076093936	0.120657	0.120657
Pair	1	4244026406472	0.212912	0.212912
Nonpaying hand	0	11039899885068	0.553844	0.000000
Total		19933230517200	1.000000	0.804094

The average video poker win per bonus feature is 3 + 3 × 3 × 0.804094 = 10.236846. The average win for three devils earned in a free spin is 3 × 9 × 0.016=0.432. The average win per feature is 10.236846 + 0.432 = 10.668846. The return from the feature is 10.668846 × 0.016 = 0.170702. The total return of the game is 0.804094 + 0.170702 = 0.974796.