Vegas Dealer wrote (snip):
Dan, you wrote:
3. Playing the double-up slows your play on the VP game. If
it's a sub-100% game then that's good (it does not increase
the EV, but it reduces your loss rate simply because you play
fewer hands).More importantly, where is it written that doubling is a 50/50
chance? How do we know that there are not more losing combinations
than winning?
It is written in Nevada Gaming Regulations, which mandate that in a game representing a real game (e.g., a card game), the probabilities must be the same as in the real game. Thus, as in the regular video poker game, each unseen card must have equal probability of appearing at any time. Since a tie is a push, the odds on the double up are 50/50.
Now I realize that a government mandate is not a 100% guarantee of honesty, but the slot manufacturers and casinos have a lot to lose if they knowingly violate gaming regulations. We have been successful for 15 years at winning on video poker. We do that by following a strategy developed on computers, and to analyze the games the computer programs must assume that the games do conform to the mandate of equal probability of each unseen card.
As a reference, I point to MegaBucks. If each reel has 10 symbols and
10 spaces your chances of lining up a jackpot would be 20 x 20 x20,
or one in 8,000. However, RNG produce millions of possible
combinations. These same RNG can easily be used to give the house any
pre-programed edge. Let us not assume it is a 50/50 chance.
That's true, but MegaBucks does not represent any game other than itself or other reel slots. While the regulations require that each stop or symbol have a fixed probability, there is no requirement that those probabilities be equal. It is the very small (but constant and non-zero) probability of the jackpot symbol that makes the huge jackpots (and huge casino profits) possible on such games.
After my last post, which Vegas Dealer snipped above, I had vowed not to write any more on the double up, but this was a different question.
Dan
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Dan Paymar, author of "Video Poker - Optimum Play"
Editor and publisher of "Video Poker Times" newsletter
Visit my web site at www.OptimumPlay.com
"Chance favors the prepared mind"
- Louis Pasteur