I confess error in my original report, when I said that discarding a
high pair on these VLT machines can cause you to lose money that you
otherwise would win.
Today, I made a second visit to Muckleshoot Casino and played for
about an hour. I could not duplicate the hand results that I
reported previously. The ultimate payoff of each hand does appear to
be predetermined. No matter how you play the hand, you will end up
with the predetermined payout. I now assume that, on the two hands
during my previous visit when I thought I'd "successfully" gotten rid
of a high pair, I must have unknowingly recouped my one-coin
investment by winning a "Match Card Bonus" of one coin and failing to
notice that event because I was expecting the machine to deal me a
different high pair, which it didn't do on those hands.
These machines really are Bizarro World VP. If you are predestined
to get a certain payoff, you WILL get that payoff no matter what you
do. The most common situation is discarding a high pair and, on the
draw, winning the Match Card Bonus to win your break even amount.
That indicates that you would not have improved the original high
pair.
It gets more complicated if your predetermined outcome is better than
a high pair. Until today, I didn't know that the Match Card Bonus
could be any amount. I previously thought that it always equaled
whatever amount you bet. In fact, it varies so that, in combination
with your final hand, the hand payoff + the Match Card Bonus = the
payoff for whatever final hand you were supposed to end up with. The
exact combination of final hand and MCB varies in ways that I
couldn't figure out in an hour.
These examples from today's play all assume a one-coin bet. EXAMPLE
#1: Dealt a pair Queens, I discarded them and drew a pair of Jacks
plus a MCB of one coin. That means that I would have made two pair
if I'd held the Queens. EXAMPLE #2: Dealt two pair (7's and 5's) I
discarded one from each pair and then drew two more 7's (trips) plus
a MCB = 2. That means that I would have made a full house if I'd
held the dealt two pair. EXAMPLE #3: Dealt three Queens, I
discarded everything and redrew quad 4's. Thus, I would have drawn
the fourth Queen if I'd played the hand correctly. OTHER EXAMPLES: I
twice discarded dealt flushes, and once a dealt straight. Each time,
the combination of final hand payoff + MCB = the pat hand I'd been
dealt.
Bottom Line: If you play "video poker" in a Washington tribal
casino, you're not really playing VP as you now know it.
The Good News: After maybe a total of two hours fiddling around with
these machines while betting either one quarter or one nickel, I
finished ahead overall by more than a dollar. Thus, whatever the
Muckleshoot "hold" is set at, it APPEARS -- based on that admittedly
very short trial -- that the hold may be somewhere near the 8-5 JOB
[or 8-5 JOB w/ multi-way progressives] that is displayed on the
glass. Buyer beware! And be aware that, although the "glass"
displays are identical, each tribal casino here can decide what the
hold percentage will be.
All the machines that I checked today were manufactured by "Sierra
Design Gaming."
BTW: "Max Coin" on these machines = 20, and you must play max coin to
get the progressive jackpots. But you get 800/coin on the Royal at
either 5 or 20 coins. CAUTION: When I wanted to see how the Match
Card Bonus would work at 20 coins, I hit "Bet One" five times and
found that I'd bet 20 coins because the progression of bets runs
1,2,3,5,20. I actually profited from that one mistaken Max Coin bet
because I made trips on the hand and thus a sudden profit of 40 coins
after I'd been playing one coin for the session until then.
Sorry that my original post caused some confusion. "This whole thing
has sure been a lesson to me."
The GMan