History of video poker

https://ggbmagazine.com/article/the-intelligent-game/

This is kinda interesting. History of video poker.

Here is the best part ..

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Bittman says he was intrigued by Triple Play Poker in particular. “I looked at the game and said, who did the math on this? And it was a reputable (mathematician). I said, there’s no way this doesn’t pay back to the player more than 100 percent. He said, ‘No, we did the math. The base paytable that you use doesn’t change the math at all. It’s exactly the same.’

“I couldn’t get my mind around that, so of course, we had all these mathematicians, Ph.Ds. We sent it up to them. When we ran all the simulations and checked all the math, it was like Ernie said. So we said, my God, this is a firecracker. It ups the bet. It’s a whole new dimension for the game, and the most beautiful thing about it is the base game stays the same, so people are familiar with it.”

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All these mathematicians, PhDs.. what should be obvious to any AP who can figure out anything on their own. I guess maybe a case of CYA and too much money to spend or just bs.

Multi-hand vp was an important innovation, but it's been less successful than I would have guessed. The article mentions people fighting over the Triple Play machines at Sunset Station, but probably most of them went back to single line after the novelty wore off.

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Originally Posted by Don Perignom

Multi-hand vp was an important innovation, but it's been less successful than I would have guessed. The article mentions people fighting over the Triple Play machines at Sunset Station, but probably most of them went back to single line after the novelty wore off.

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Yea, turns out removing a ton of variance from a game isn't exactly what people want. I loved 100 hand when I first started playing it but haven't put a dollar in such a machine in forever.

I think it works with ultimate x because multipliers may add variance back.

Multihand fucked VP promos in a big way.

Things like bonuses for getting a certain quads or double royals or whatever were way too easy to hit on 10 line vs single line. Obviously casinos could have said something like "only the bottom most hand qualifies", but they're too ignorant to figure that out.

But more importantly, places giving too much bounceback or comps to players who could play correctly now became a much bigger issue. On single line most semi-sharp players were probably stuck at the $1 coin denom. $5/hand, 600 hands/hr (machines were slow). At 3k coin in/hr there's only so much damage a person can do. The jump to $5 coins was pretty severe and required a lot of capital that the weekend warriors didn't have.

But now on a 10-play quarter denom those $1 single players could more than double their coin in. The newer multiplay machines could often play more hands/hr than the slow single line ones. People could increase their coin in while keeping their variance roughly the same if they dropped a denom.

My biggest regret is never seeing a full pay pickem multiplay machine.

It appears your "biggest regret" SHOULD be your near complete lack of understanding about why MPVP was introduced.

armpit

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Originally Posted by accountinquestion

https://ggbmagazine.com/article/the-intelligent-game/

This is kinda interesting. History of video poker.

Here is the best part ..

Quote:

---

Bittman says he was intrigued by Triple Play Poker in particular. “I looked at the game and said, who did the math on this? And it was a reputable (mathematician). I said, there’s no way this doesn’t pay back to the player more than 100 percent. He said, ‘No, we did the math. The base paytable that you use doesn’t change the math at all. It’s exactly the same.’

“I couldn’t get my mind around that, so of course, we had all these mathematicians, Ph.Ds. We sent it up to them. When we ran all the simulations and checked all the math, it was like Ernie said. So we said, my God, this is a firecracker. It ups the bet. It’s a whole new dimension for the game, and the most beautiful thing about it is the base game stays the same, so people are familiar with it.”

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All these mathematicians, PhDs.. what should be obvious to any AP who can figure out anything on their own. I guess maybe a case of CYA and too much money to spend or just bs.

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Very interesting read. Thank you for posting that!

Oh and since this is VCT F&*k you also.

Kidding, thanks again.

What were some of the first VP advantage plays?

I looked around online. In the early 1980s, some blackjack APs switched over to VP whenever a progressive went high enough. In 1984, Stanford Wong published strategies in his newsletter, then followed up in 1988 with a full book titled "Professional Video Poker." The BJ21 site has a free PDF of an updated edition.

Wong focused heavily on 8/5 JoB progressives, including guidelines for adjusting strategy to jackpot level. Highest he found was $18,500 on $1 denom at Harvey's. 8/5 JoB is 97.3% base, and jackpot increase rates were typically either 1 or 2%.

Other plays must have been available, but may not have been known or understood. In a 1991 update, Wong added EVs for more pay schedules including 100.65% Joker and 100.76% FPDW. But no strategies. Strategies would soon be provided by other authors including Lenny Frome and Dan Paymar.

Today, slot club value is a critical component. I doubt slot clubs had much presence in the 1980s, but casinos probably ran some good promos. Card of the day, double royals, etc.

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Originally Posted by Don Perignom

What were some of the first VP advantage plays?

I looked around online. In the early 1980s, some blackjack APs switched over to VP whenever a progressive went high enough. In 1984, Stanford Wong published strategies in his newsletter, then followed up in 1988 with a full book titled "Professional Video Poker." The BJ21 site has a free PDF of an updated edition.

Wong focused heavily on 8/5 JoB progressives, including guidelines for adjusting strategy to jackpot level. Highest he found was $18,500 on $1 denom at Harvey's. 8/5 JoB is 97.3% base, and jackpot increase rates were typically either 1 or 2%.

Other plays must have been available, but may not have been known or understood. In a 1991 update, Wong added EVs for more pay schedules including 100.65% Joker and 100.76% FPDW. But no strategies. Strategies would soon be provided by other authors including Lenny Frome and Dan Paymar.

Today, slot club value is a critical component. I doubt slot clubs had much presence in the 1980s, but casinos probably ran some good promos. Card of the day, double royals, etc.

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That I can help with -- although my video poker probably lifetime averages just 50-60 hours a year, I was there for the beginning of slot clubs and how comps were figured. I have a good story regarding the opening of slot clubs at the Gold Coast and my trench coat with deep pockets.

Video poker and slot comps actually tie into how race and sports comps changed and evolved over time, also. It's too much to post in one or two go's. Maybe I'll do a blog this week regarding it. Remember, initially, slots and video poker had identical comp rates. One of my classic stories is how I got three royals in about 700 hands one day, with two of them with just a single coin-in. LOL. It's a terrible story, but funny. Anyway, one of them was on the old bank of FPDW, which was a 25-cent progressive, in the Palms. FPDW was available many places in Las Vegas back then, sometimes for dollars. Initially, to put things in perspective, race betting and sports betting also had the same comp rates. There was a four/five year period where the majority of comps transitioned from discretionary to club-oriented comps.

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Originally Posted by redietz

I have a good story regarding the opening of slot clubs at the Gold Coast and my trench coat with deep pockets.

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Gold Coast opened in late 1986 and was for many years a Michael Gaughan property.

According to LVA, the first Vegas slot club was at Golden Nugget in the mid-1980s. But it was really only a ticket dispensing system. Assigned players cards didn't come along until later.

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FPDW was available many places in Las Vegas back then, sometimes for dollars.

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Including Treasure Island. I found this comment at LVA:

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When I first started going to LAS in the early '90s, TI had a slot club only for dollar and up players. It payed .67% cash back (not free play, but actual cash) plus another .67% in comps (although when I calculated mine it always was more like .85%). I played 9/6 JOB, so I was playing a positive expectation in cash alone, plus comps that put me at around a 1% house edge. But here's the best part. I guess no one had fully figured out the correct play for DW, because TI had a full bank of $1, full-pay DW machines - which mostly sat empty! So if anyone had known the correct strategy, they could have played at a 1.37% cash advantage plus comps putting them at better than 2% in the black! Of course, the DW machines quickly vanished, and the club cut VP cash back to .33%, but even there is was a pretty sweet deal for a 9/6 JOB player!

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Originally Posted by Don Perignom

Gold Coast opened in late 1986 and was for many years a Michael Gaughan property.

According to LVA, the first Vegas slot club was at Golden Nugget in the mid-1980s. But it was really only a ticket dispensing system. Assigned players cards didn't come along until later.



Including Treasure Island. I found this comment at LVA:

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When I first started going to LAS in the early '90s, TI had a slot club only for dollar and up players. It payed .67% cash back (not free play, but actual cash) plus another .67% in comps (although when I calculated mine it always was more like .85%). I played 9/6 JOB, so I was playing a positive expectation in cash alone, plus comps that put me at around a 1% house edge. But here's the best part. I guess no one had fully figured out the correct play for DW, because TI had a full bank of $1, full-pay DW machines - which mostly sat empty! So if anyone had known the correct strategy, they could have played at a 1.37% cash advantage plus comps putting them at better than 2% in the black! Of course, the DW machines quickly vanished, and the club cut VP cash back to .33%, but even there is was a pretty sweet deal for a 9/6 JOB player!

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The first slot club at Gold Coast was not how you envision slot clubs today. It took some time for them to roll out the plastic tracking cards. Originally, the "slot club" was just a tracking system at the cage. You bought in to get quarters (remember, all coin machines then), and you received punch cards that were marked with each $10 coin buy-in (and remember -- $10 then was more like $30-$40 today). It took a long time for the plastic slot cards so ubiquitous today to become standard.

I started going to Las Vegas in the early 80's. I was in town when Lefty Rosenthal's car being blown up made the front page.

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Originally Posted by redietz

Originally, the "slot club" was just a tracking system at the cage. You bought in to get quarters (remember, all coin machines then), and you received punch cards that were marked with each $10 coin buy-in (and remember -- $10 then was more like $30-$40 today). It took a long time for the plastic slot cards so ubiquitous today to become standard.

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Yes, before my time but I remember reading about such systems. That seems like it would have been hard to police. Buy a bunch of coins, dump them into a bucket, cash out and repeat.

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Originally Posted by Don Perignom

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Originally Posted by redietz

Originally, the "slot club" was just a tracking system at the cage. You bought in to get quarters (remember, all coin machines then), and you received punch cards that were marked with each $10 coin buy-in (and remember -- $10 then was more like $30-$40 today). It took a long time for the plastic slot cards so ubiquitous today to become standard.

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Yes, before my time but I remember reading about such systems. That seems like it would have been hard to police. Buy a bunch of coins, dump them into a bucket, cash out and repeat.

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Welcome to my Gold Coast story. You kind of ruined the punchline. If you filled up a punch card, you got a free dinner. I'd run my quarters through once, then put the coins into my trench coat pockets. After the first two days of the "slot club," I had 20-some free dinners. I was actually staying there, so I would go up to my room and dump the coins out of my coat pockets, then go back downstairs and rinse/repeat, as you suggested.

Ah, those were the days.

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Originally Posted by redietz

You kind of ruined the punchline.

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Sorry, I'll try to be more careful.

Soylent Green is probably not people.

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Originally Posted by redietz

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Originally Posted by Don Perignom

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Originally Posted by redietz

Originally, the "slot club" was just a tracking system at the cage. You bought in to get quarters (remember, all coin machines then), and you received punch cards that were marked with each $10 coin buy-in (and remember -- $10 then was more like $30-$40 today). It took a long time for the plastic slot cards so ubiquitous today to become standard.

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Yes, before my time but I remember reading about such systems. That seems like it would have been hard to police. Buy a bunch of coins, dump them into a bucket, cash out and repeat.

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Welcome to my Gold Coast story. You kind of ruined the punchline. If you filled up a punch card, you got a free dinner. I'd run my quarters through once, then put the coins into my trench coat pockets. After the first two days of the "slot club," I had 20-some free dinners. I was actually staying there, so I would go up to my room and dump the coins out of my coat pockets, then go back downstairs and rinse/repeat, as you suggested.

Ah, those were the days.

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It was also a plot line in the movie Hard Eight

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Originally Posted by DGenBen

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Originally Posted by redietz

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Originally Posted by Don Perignom

Yes, before my time but I remember reading about such systems. That seems like it would have been hard to police. Buy a bunch of coins, dump them into a bucket, cash out and repeat.

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Welcome to my Gold Coast story. You kind of ruined the punchline. If you filled up a punch card, you got a free dinner. I'd run my quarters through once, then put the coins into my trench coat pockets. After the first two days of the "slot club," I had 20-some free dinners. I was actually staying there, so I would go up to my room and dump the coins out of my coat pockets, then go back downstairs and rinse/repeat, as you suggested.

Ah, those were the days.

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It was also a plot line in the movie Hard Eight

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Just looked up Hard Eight on Rotten Tomatoes. Now I've gotta see it. I love John C. Reilly.

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Originally Posted by redietz

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Originally Posted by DGenBen

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Originally Posted by redietz

Welcome to my Gold Coast story. You kind of ruined the punchline. If you filled up a punch card, you got a free dinner. I'd run my quarters through once, then put the coins into my trench coat pockets. After the first two days of the "slot club," I had 20-some free dinners. I was actually staying there, so I would go up to my room and dump the coins out of my coat pockets, then go back downstairs and rinse/repeat, as you suggested.

Ah, those were the days.

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It was also a plot line in the movie Hard Eight

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Just looked up Hard Eight on Rotten Tomatoes. Now I've gotta see it. I love John C. Reilly.

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A very enjoyable movie!

It was an engineer in the early 70's for Bally's that conceived of the idea of tying a deck of cards to a random number generator. Bally execs werent keen on the game. They thought it would be a loser.

The first machines were placed in Sam's Town in 1976. It was the 9/6 payscale except the lowest paying hand was two pair. The bank started out getting plenty of action but then it petered out. The main complaint was it sucked down the money to fast.

Someone in Bally's came up with the idea of one pair, jacks of better being the low hand. This brought the RTP up. They put the machines back in and they got continuous action.

At the time Bally had no way of knowing what the RTP was. They paid people to play the game and recorded the results.

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

Someone in Bally's came up with the idea of one pair, jacks of better being the low hand. This brought the RTP up. They put the machines back in and they got continuous action.

At the time Bally had no way of knowing what the RTP was. They paid people to play the game and recorded the results.

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The payout adjustment boosted potential RTP from 81.4 to 99.5%. The way I've heard the story, players also enjoyed the illusion of being paid for a push. Probably no way to know for sure.

I wonder though why they would put out an 81.4% product to begin with. If they tested the game at all, they must have been roughly aware of the low return.

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Originally Posted by Don Perignom

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

Someone in Bally's came up with the idea of one pair, jacks of better being the low hand. This brought the RTP up. They put the machines back in and they got continuous action.

At the time Bally had no way of knowing what the RTP was. They paid people to play the game and recorded the results.

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The payout adjustment boosted potential RTP from 81.4 to 99.5%. The way I've heard the story, players also enjoyed the illusion of being paid for a push. Probably no way to know for sure.

I wonder though why they would put out an 81.4% product to begin with. If they tested the game at all, they must have been roughly aware of the low return.

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Bally still didn't think the potential of video poker was any good. A small group broke away from Bally with the video poker product....and they had a 20 year non-compete clause. Biggest bonehead move Bally every made. By the time the 20 year non-compete was up video poker was the biggest money maker on the casino floor. The name of the new company eventually became IGT.

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Originally Posted by Don Perignom

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

Someone in Bally's came up with the idea of one pair, jacks of better being the low hand. This brought the RTP up. They put the machines back in and they got continuous action.

At the time Bally had no way of knowing what the RTP was. They paid people to play the game and recorded the results.

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The payout adjustment boosted potential RTP from 81.4 to 99.5%. The way I've heard the story, players also enjoyed the illusion of being paid for a push. Probably no way to know for sure.

I wonder though why they would put out an 81.4% product to begin with. If they tested the game at all, they must have been roughly aware of the low return.

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I think 2 pair payed 2 for 1 on the payscale.

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

I think 2 pair payed 2 for 1 on the payscale.

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Yes, exactly the same as the modern version but without the last line of the payscale. The revision added a 1 for 1 on the high pair, creating a payout on a net zero outcome. By my math, the hit frequency surged from 24 to 45.5%.

Players seem to have liked the higher hit frequency. They crave volatility, but still demand hit frequency. Most popular variant ever is DDB, which maintains the same 45% hit frequency by extending the 1 for 1 up the payscale.

Video slots are popular partly because of hit frequency. Players love a constant stream of payouts, even if many are net losses.

By that same logic, multi-play should be the dominant form of vp. But it isn't. Nothing makes sense, lol.

From that article:

-in the current environment, where operators are tightening up their offerings by removing underperforming games from the floor, offering high returns in video poker makes sense. “If you don’t have any of that product, you won’t have that customer,” he says. “A lot of people mistakenly think I’m going to get rid of my 2 percent pokers because the hold’s so low, and put in a higher-holding video slot. They’re not the same customer. You just won’t have that customer."

I've always understood this. You won't get those VP players, as well as the friends and spouses that they bring along who may play other, more profitable games. But looking at the diminishing FP paytables we are seeing, it seems most casino operators don't understand this.

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Originally Posted by jdog

But looking at the diminishing FP paytables we are seeing, it seems most casino operators don't understand this.

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They seem very dismissive of history. Sure, it's possible we're into a new era and the old methods are obsolete, but I think I agree with you that there will be consequences.

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Originally Posted by Don Perignom

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

I think 2 pair payed 2 for 1 on the payscale.

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Yes, exactly the same as the modern version but without the last line of the payscale. The revision added a 1 for 1 on the high pair, creating a payout on a net zero outcome. By my math, the hit frequency surged from 24 to 45.5%.

Players seem to have liked the higher hit frequency. They crave volatility, but still demand hit frequency. Most popular variant ever is DDB, which maintains the same 45% hit frequency by extending the 1 for 1 up the payscale.

Video slots are popular partly because of hit frequency. Players love a constant stream of payouts, even if many are net losses.

By that same logic, multi-play should be the dominant form of vp. But it isn't. Nothing makes sense, lol.

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That hit frequency trend is discussed in Natasha Dow Schull's book, Addiction By Design. The constant stream of payouts, even if many are net losses, has a name and an acronym that I can't remember off the top of my head. It's Losses Disguised As Wins or something like that.