Ask The Slot Expert

Dear John,

I would like to know what are the odds on Deuces Wild. I love this game and it's something about the deuces. Friends tell me not to play them because it hard to get four deuces and at times it really is. I have put hundreds of dollars in hoping to get the deuces.

Also, why is it that if you play the dollars instead of quarters in the same machine and same game that the odds are better on quarters than dollars? I am very puzzled about this.

Thank you for your assistance,
Louise

Dear Louise:

Paybacks on Deuces Wild run from 94% to over 100%, depending on the paytable. You'd have to send me the paytable on the machine you were playing for me to be able to tell you the long-term payback with perfect play

When using the proper strategy, you should hit 4 deuces once in about every 5,000 hands on the average. That makes them fairly rare, but still ten times more frequent than a royal flush.

I'm not sure what you mean by your last question. I've never seen a multi-denomination machine on which the dollar paytable was not at least as good as the quarter paytable for the same video poker game. I have seen casinos, however, which have some quarter games with higher long-term paybacks than some or all of their dollar machines. The reasons are many: they're testing the quarter machines; they're testing the higher paytable; the quarter machines are old and going to be retired soon, so the casino doesn't want to go to the expense of changing the paytable, etc.

There is another reason why a casino might have some quarter machines that have higher long-term paybacks than some of their higher-denomination machines, particularly multi-play dollars and $2 and up machines. You rarely see positive expectations machines at these high denominations because they would be too profitable for video poker pros. At 600 hands per hour, a pro could earn $30 per hour playing a dollar machine that returns 100.1%. Make that a $5 machine or a Five-Play, however, and the pro could earn $150 per hour.

Best of luck in and out of the casinos!
John

Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert, at slotexpert@home.com.

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