Do players really know what pay tables are all about?
Yesterday at Rincon I had several conversations with players who were coming and going for short spurts at the $5 progressive Double Double Bonus games. I was playing 8/5 Aces and Faces which share some of the machines in that particular row of machines. I stopped playing DDB there when they downgraded the pay tables to 8/5. It was too easy to lose money even at a pay table of 9/5 on DDB but 8/5 is not worth even trying.
One conversation was with an older and experienced VP player who said to me right up front that the 8/5 pay table was miserable but he was going to give it a shot. He gave it a shot, and as he left he said "the grandkids will inherit a few thousand dollars less."
Another conversation was with a player I see at Rincon all the time and he is devoted to the DDB game there. After taking out a marker and busting he left, only to return a few minutes later with another thousand dollars and he started playing other games. He is well aware of the downgrades of the games and was playing other games besides DDB by taking advantage of the other choices on these Game King machines. He was playing Bonus which had that "odd" pay table with all of the quads paying the same with no premium for Aces, 2, 3 or 4.
Another conversation was with a middle aged woman playing the 8/5 DDB with only one coin in. On her very first play she scores quad 8s... but with one coin in... and within a few minutes, still playing one coin at a time, she loses it all back. That's when she turns to me and asks whether she should hold a small pair, or hold four cards to a low flush (no high cards, no SF possibilities). I advised her to hold the low pair, and a few hands later she asked about holding a pair of queens or if she should go for a straight. I told her to hold the queens and she drew a third. And that's when I asked her if she was a new player.
Yes, she was new to video poker. I asked if she knew what the different pay tables meant or even what the games were? I put the question this way: "Are you familiar with this 8/5 double double bonus game?" And she answered: "What's double double bonus?"
That's when I advised her to switch to Aces and Faces, which she did, and she turned another $100 into $300 playing one coin at a time and left.
Over the course of several hours, I saw many players come and go at those 8/5 DDB machines, some playing a couple of hundred, and then leaving. I have to wonder if any of them really understand or know the game, or the paytable coming to a $5 8/5 DDB with only a few hundred dollars, and some playing less than 5 coins at a time?
For the most part, I think players are just attracted to the progressive jackpot without any regard about what kind of game they actually are playing.
