Gaming Guru

Have the paybacks on full-pay video poker machines gone down?

Dear John,

I think you work for the casinos. I have been playing video poker for the past 5-yrs, much of my play being in Las Vegas. I use Bob Dancer's theory of play and have been using his software for the all of the 5-yrs. I know how to select full pay machines and understand the odds. My feedback is that there have been less and less paybacks on the full pay machines without the pay scale changing. All of my competitive advantage players are talking about it and we all can't be wrong. Don't say it's just an unlucky day because sometimes moving to a different casino that day works. It appears that they are either paying that day for almost everybody or they are cold to everybody. It never used to be that way so something is up. The bankroll to play is going up and up on quarters and the payback is going down and down. The casinos are screwing with us and we all know it!

SN

Dear SN,

Okay, let's say that's it's not true that video poker machines in Las Vegas have to deal from a fair deck, and that it's not true that the only way to change the payback on a video poker machine is to change the paytable. Let's say that what you've described is outside the bounds of what can happen in a random game and that almost every video poker hasn't gone through a prolonged losing streak at some point in their video poker careers.

Let's say that the casinos are screwing with you and you all know it.

Why are you and the rest of your group of competitive advantage players still playing?

John

Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert, at slotexpert@comcast.net. Because of the volume of mail I receive, I regret that I can't reply to every question.