Originally Posted by mickeycrimm View Post
So I go back and take a look at the quarter Game Kings. The sign said payouts between 50 and 250 coins pays double. The GK's were against a wall but were linked to machines out on the floor.

For video poker they had 9/6 Jacks, Double Bonus, Double Double Bonus, etc. And there was a 4-Card Keno game. No Blackjack. The only thing that qualified for the double pay on video poker was the Four of a Kinds and the Straight Flush. And some of the Four of a Kinds on Double and Double Double didn't qualify. 9/6 Jacks would be the best game to play The max bet was $1.25. There were no Full Houses that payed 50 coins.

Why in the hell were they playing video poker? 9/6 would be the best play but just a $25 wager in the double time with a 6% edge meant it was worth only about $2 per double time....and you had to keep the machine qualified. So that's not what they were doing.

I was stumped on the video poker so I moved on to the 4-Card Keno.

It was $1 max bet per card. I go thru the payscale and quickly see that a 2-Spot payed 60 coins. That would fit in the 50-250 parameters.

I quickly did the math on the 2-Spot. Keno math is easy once you get the hang out of it. The 2-Spot math is easy to do on a pocket calculator.

80X79/2X1 = 3160 possible two spots on the card.

20X19/2X1 = 190 combinations where the 2-Spot hits.

3160/190 means the frequency of the 2-Spot is 16.63158

I set all 4 cards up with 2-Spots. Different numbers on every card. Then tested it to see how many games per minute. It was 10 games per minute. So that would be 10 X 4 cards at $1 per card = a wager of $40.

The payback of the 2-Spot is pretty simple

15/16.63158 = 90.19%. So in double time it would be 180.38%

With an 80.38% edge the double time would be worth:

$40 X .8038% = $32.15

That was a much higher yield than the video poker I had been working.

Then it was time to test keeping the machine qualified. I hit the 1-coin button. It cleared the other three cards of numbers and everything and left just the 1 coin bet on one card. Houston we have a problem.

I set the cards up again and it took to long. The double time would be over by the time I got the cards set up again.

Once I got the cards set up and hit the max bet button again I seen that the only way to keep the game set up and qualified was I had to play one coin on each card. It would be a $600 wager per hour with a 10% drop to keep the game qualified for the double times. No way, Jose.

So I was sitting there thinking, thinking, thinking.....

How in the hell?

What in the hell were they doing?

And they were playing video poker too?

What the hell is the video poker for?

All of a sudden it dawned on me. They must have been using the video poker to keep the machine qualified.

I moved the game over to 9/6 Jacks played a hand then quickly hit the button to return to the game selection screen then hit the 4-Card Keno sensor. When the Keno game came up I quickly hit the max bet button.

Yep, that was it. That's what they were doing.

I timed it to see how much time was lost switching games. I could get out only 8 games in double time instead of 10. That was a little cut in pay, but not bad, about $25 per double time.

The cost to stay qualified betting one coin was negligible on the 9/6, less than $5 an hour.

So I was a happy camper at that point. I went into the gift shop and bought a hat. I got on the machine farthest away from the aisle. If I got made sitting on this bank the other hustlers would quickly pile in.

Other hustlers on the bank meant the money pool would get sucked down....
Terrific story Mickey. I take it that you could not just temporarily drop the denom size (with 4 cards active) to keep the machine qualified until double time since you were already at the minimum bet size.
Here's something that might be considered hilarious:the DU bug was available in 2002 IIRC. Imagine exploiting the DU bug during double time - just a pipe dream obviously.