Strictly Slots November 2022

The reason we get Aces more often in the big jackpot games is because we adjust strategies to go for them more often. Dealt Ace of clubs, Jack of diamonds, 7 of hearts, 4 of clubs, 2 of hearts in 9-7 Triple Double Bonus, we hold just the Ace and give ourselves a long-shot chance at four Aces with a kicker. Dealt the same hand in 9-7-5 Double Bonus, we hold both the Ace and the Jack. ” “

WHY DON’T PLAYERS CHOOSE ACES OVER BONUS POKER?

This one came from a reader who had recently stayed at a casino that offered 8-5 pay tables on both Bonus Poker andACES Bonus Poker.The pay tables are identical except for one feature: in ACES, each Ace is marked with a letter, and if the four Aces on your screen are in the cor

WHY ISN’T THE JACKPOT ON STRAIGHT FLUSHES? The goal of the game designers is to make a fun game that people will want to come back and play, not necessarily to reflect the true odds of the game. People like the attainable bonus payoff on four Aces. It hap pens often enough that everybody gets it occasionally, and that keeps players coming back. In Jacks or Better, the game on which most other video poker games are based, the only really big jackpot is the 4,000-coin bonanza for a five-coin bet on royal flushes, which come up only about once per 40,391 hands.Game designers saw a need for a large secondary jackpot to shoot for, something that would leave players feeling happy when they left the game. Should that jackpot be on the next rarest hand? In Jacks or Better, straight flushes come up about once per 9,148 hands. For an average customer playing at a modest pace of about 500 hands an hour, that’s more than 18 hours between straight flushes.Those hands just don’t occur often enough to provide much positive reinforcement. Instead, game designers turned to four-Ace hands, and also ramped up the paybacks on other fours-of-a-kind. In Double Bonus Poker, four Aces come up about once per 4,406 hands, and four 2s, 3s or 4s about once per 1,896.TheAces pay 800 coins for a five-coin bet, and the 2s, 3s or 4s pay 400. On a quarter machine, that’s $200 on the Aces, $100 on the low cards. Taken together,on the average quads worth at least $100 will come up about once per 1,316 hands, or once per 2.6 hours of play. If you don’t get such a hand in a given session, chances are someone playing near you will.That’s much more of an attraction to keep players coming back than putting the big payoff on a hand that comes up only once per 18 hours. Payoffs on straight flushes are sometimes enhanced. I’ve played games with 400- and 500-coin straight flushes, instead of the usual 250. They’re not made the centerpiece of the game, or even a strong No. 2 jackpot to royal flushes. Players are fond of chasing the Aces, and the Ace-centric games are here to stay. D

rect order to spell out A-C-E-S, your prize is 4,000 coins instead of 400. Starting from the left, the Aces have to be in positions 1-2-3-4 or 2-3-4-5.The non-Ace card in your final hand can’t be in the middle. I once had a hand of A-C-9 of diamonds-E-S.The Aces were in the proper order, but with that 9 in the middle breaking up the spelling, my return was 400 coins, not 4,000. It doesn’t happen often enough to add much more to the payback percentage.With an 8-5 pay table,Bonus Poker returns 99.2 percent with expert play, while the ACES version returns 99.4 percent. Still, that’s a little extra return with no extra risk. It would seem reasonable for theACES machines to draw more players than the Bonus Poker machines. That they don’t is part of a long-standing part of video poker.There are many players who don’t know the difference between games, or at least don’t know or fully understand the differences between different pay tables on the same games. At the beginning of the 1990s,when I was first becoming aware of such things, the Tropicana in Las Vegas had a long bank of Jacks or Bet ter machines. In my mind’s eye, there are 16 machines in the bank, but this was a long time ago, so the memory may cheat a bit. The games alternated pay tables, so that a 9-6 machine was next to an 8-5 that was next to another 9-6 that was next to another 8-5, and so on. My wife Marcy and I were on a three-night stay, and I played at that bank quite a lot. I observed that players seemed to be choosing games indiscriminately.There were as many players at 8-5 games as at 9-6 ma chines, even when there were spots open. I finally broke down and asked a player next to me why he chose that machine when the one on the other side had a higher pay table.He said,“I was on that one this morning. Didn’t win a thing.” Those who are interested enough and informed enough to read a publication like Strictly Slots might always pick the highest pay table on their game of choice, but that’s not the always case with the general population of casino-goers.

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