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Ask the Slot Expert: Video poker machine that paid all winning hands22 January 2025
Answer: Ah, yes. I remember playing that machine. The machine was made by WMS Gaming, which through a series of acquisitions, mergers, and spinoffs is now known as Light & Wonder. The machines were on slot floors in the late 1990s and early 2000s. You can read WMS' patent for the game here. John Grochowski wrote about the machines in this column on this site. Quoting from the riveting patent text:
It can be a challenge to figure out why a hand paid what it did. In his article, John describes having to explain to a slot supervisor why he was paid a strange amount for a royal flush on a non-progressive machine. John had to explain that not only was he paid for a royal flush, he was also paid for a straight flush, a flush, and a straight. Likewise, a straight flush would also earn a payout for a flush and a straight. Determining the payout for the sequence=based hands is straightforward. The set-based hands can be tricky. Consider this hand: 7♥ 7♦ 7♣ J♣ J♠. How many entries in the paytable apply to this hand? If you didn't skip over the quote from the patent above, you know the answer is four. The full house is obvious as are the 3-of-a-kind and high pair. What's the fourth entry? You also have two pair hiding in that hand. This similar hand 7♥ 7♦ 7♣ 8♣ 8♠ pays a little less. The pair in the full house is no longer a high pair. Now consider this hand: Q♥ Q♦ Q♣ J♣ J♠. We have a full house, 3-of-a-kind, and two pair. We also have a high pair in jacks and a high pair in queens. Do we get paid for two high pairs? According to the patent, the program checks "whether the player's hand includes a full house, in which case the player is compensated for the full house, three-of-a-kind, two pair and a pair of jacks or better if they are present." How about this hand T♥ Q♦ Q♣ J♣ J♠ ? From the patent: "It is determined whether the player has two pair, for which the player is compensated for the two pair and a pair of jacks or better, if present." It looks like the Multi Pay payout algorithm is very similar to the standard payout algorithm: if hand is royal flush, pay and stop checking; if hand is straight flush, pay and stop checking; etc. The difference is that the Multi Pay algorithm doesn't stop when it finds an applicable paytable entry. It keeps on checking and accumulates all the applicable payouts. Like the standard algorithm, it looks like the Multi Pay algorithm checks only whether a paytable entry is present in the hand, not how many times a paytable entry is in a hand. These machines are long gone and slot manufacturers have pretty much ceded the video poker market to IGT. If you would like to see more non-smoking areas on slot floors in Las Vegas, please sign my petition on change.org. Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert™, at slotexpert@slotexpert.com.
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