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Gaming Guru
Deal Me In: Uncle Sam loves those $1,200 jackpots13 December 2013
The $1,200 threshold, Sam, came about 40 years ago when the government and casino industry negotiated that specific sum. Prior to dollar slots, video poker and progressives, you had to be a high roller playing quarters on a mechanical reel machine to hit a jackpot that large. The $1,200 divide has never changed despite the fact that a $1,200 jackpot is now quite common. With the huge increase of jackpots today, the casino industry would love to see the limit higher since the paperwork is quite time consuming. Unfortunately, don’t plan on this happening anytime soon. If it were raised to say, $2,500, Uncle Sam wouldn’t be getting his cut of the lesser jackpots that are currently being hit. Allow me, Sam, a quick word to the wise. Before you fritter away your taxable win, put some ka-ching aside for your namesake Uncle, because when you win, he wins too! Dear Mark: You have stated that “generally speaking,” on slot machines you get a better return when playing up in denomination. You say dollar machines return better than quarters, quarters than nickels. Does the denomination on a 9-6 Jacks-or-Better video poker game pay more on dollars than on quarters? Kathleen C. On slot machines, Kathleen, yes, “generally speaking,” the higher the denomination the higher the payback percentage. Video poker differs from slot machines in that when you change the paytables, you change the percentage return. A 9-6 Jacks-or-Better machine is the same game, with the same average paybacks, regardless of whether you are playing dollars, quarters or nickels. You identify the payback percentage on a video poker machine by looking at the pay table. Your example, 9-6 Jacks or Better game that pays 9-for-1 on full houses and 6-for-1 on flushes, will return 99.5 percent with expert play regardless of the coin denomination. Combining your skills with incentives like cash back and other comps, mathematically, you now have an overall return greater than 100 percent, making it a “positive expectation” game. Sadly, hardly any 9-6 Jacks-or-Better machines are on the casino floor any more. In their place, the casino now uses a virtual screwdriver and tightens the machine just by changing the flush and full house paybacks. By offering an 8-5 Jacks-or-Better game, one that pays 8-for-1 on a full house and 5-for-1 on a flush, your return drops to 97.3 percent with expert play, and less for mere mortals who just wing it. Fortunately, with video poker, paytables are in full view for you to compare and shop for value when you change denominations from nickels to quarters, quarters to dollars and even higher. Once again, as a general rule, you will note that the paytable for the dollar denomination VP machine tends to be more generous than the paytable for the quarter game, and the quarter denomination’s heftier than the nickel denomination. My recommendation here, Kathleen, will always remain the same. Play within your means on machines that offer the best paytables, use perfect basic strategy, use your Player’s Card, and over the long run, you will experience more good results than bad. Gambling Wisdom of the Week: “Las Vegas is the City of Fish and Chips. Some poor fish is always losing his chips.” – Hod Shewell, The World's Greatest Blackjack Book (1980) Recent Articles
Mark Pilarski |
Mark Pilarski |