I spoke with Owen Walsh in the audit section of the Department of
Special Revenue. He is sending me the latest report. These are the
actual (not theoretical) payback percentages from 07/01/04 to
9/30/04. Again, video poker is mixed in with slots; they do not
differentiate.
$ Foxwoods% Mohegan Sun%
.01 86.69 88.62
.05 89.19 88.17
.25 91.10 90.46
.50 91.25 90.95
1 92.60 92.43
5 94.43 95.38
10 94.90 97.77
25 96.10 96.27
100 95.73 94.99
500* none 76.67
*The handle on Mohegan Sun's $500 machine was just over $100,000 and
is regarded as an unreliable statistic since one jackpot would
greatly alter this percentage. State law mandates a theoretical
minimum of 80% in CT; in NV it's 85%.
So as it turns out MS probably does differentiate between slots and
vp theos since the overall on a $1 machine is around 7.5-8%. But now
lets look at your average $1 VP machine. It's an IGT GameMaker with
10-12 games. The best one will be a 5/9 JoB. If you don't put 5
credits in, the optimal return is 97.2%; and that's assuming you've
scoured to find the strategy variation when you have an inferior
flush and RF draw. More likely, you'll find a game like 4/10/12/20
Deuces Wild which will pay 96.4% with numerous strategy changes. And
then there's Keno and Caveman Keno where a 90% paytable would be
considered gracious.
I use to play the 3 rows of $1 slant-tops on the right of the Wolf
Den stage when they had 6/9 JoB until they gradually downgraded them
to 5/9. For a while, one row was 6/9 and the other 2 were 5/9 and
I'd often see the majority of people on the 5/9 side unaware of the
better game just 3 feet away. When they would sit next to me I would
ask them if they ever used a strategy chart and the overwhelming said
no. Now think back to when you first played WinPoker JoB and had a
strategy chart and what your error % was. Most peoples casino
preparation consists of watching a cable channel program where some
old lady comes out ahead a few stuffed animals by playing Deuces, but
they don't want to do their homework and learn how to or what to
play. It's just like people who started flocking to the blackjack
tables when it was learned that card counters were making lots of
money, yet those same people would not read a single chapter on how
to count. When we play, we run into each other in the old poker room
seeing everyone playing 5 credit PE, but this is not likely to happen
in those other low-paying areas.