This column is a continuation of last week’s, and originally ran in 1999. Although the games mentioned are no longer found, the principles remain.
There are occasionally opportunities for winning players to intelligently use the double up feature. In 1996 there was an "invited guest" promotion at a major Las Vegas Strip property. At the end of the weekend, the casino was giving out $100,000 to the players. To get your share of this booty, you had to earn tickets by playing on the machines. You got one ticket for each $7500 you ran through the machines, or for each hand-paid jackpot of $500 or more. It was estimated that about 5,000 tickets would be earned over the weekend, so each one was worth twenty bucks on average.
At this casino, 9-6 jacks was the best machine offered. Although this is a house advantage game, returning only 99.54%, the casino offered .67% cash back, which made the game slightly positive. The $2 games and higher did not offer the double up feature, but the $1 games did. Which is the one to play?
On the $2 machine, the straight flush didn't qualify for a ticket. It was worth $500, but it was not a hand-pay. So you only got tickets for a royal, and for dollars run through the machine. Since you could play about $6,000 per hour through the machine, you got about $16 per hour worth of tickets per hour (because it takes $7,500 to get one ticket worth $20).
On the $1 machine, you only got $8 per hour from coin in, but now the double up feature can be used. Four of a kinds are paid $125 on this game. If you won two double-ups in a row (a 1 in 4 chance), you would win $500. These machines were set to make this a hand pay, worth an additional $20. A 1-in-4 chance to win an extra $20 means each quad is worth an extra $5. Since you get about 1½ quads per hour, this technique added $7.50 per hour to your expected win. Also doubling straight flushes added another 67¢ per hour. Straight flushes are a once-every-15-hours event and since you only had to win one double up, they were worth an extra $10 on average.
This made the $1 machine as lucrative as the $2 machine, with about half the risk. This was a good deal. Some players also doubled up on full houses, originally worth $45. This took four successful wins to pay off (a 1 in 16 chance), so it was worth $1.25 each time you did it. But this took a bigger bankroll. Fifteen out of sixteen times you turned your $45 into zip, and one out of 16 times you won the $720.
The players doing this were very knowledgeable. They knew that if they got enough repetitions, the results would be very predictable. Over the course of the weekend, they might well get twenty quads. They were "supposed" to be successful on the "double up twice" gambit exactly five times. Some players did indeed connect five times. Others of them connected only three or four times, while others connected six or seven times.
Now the difference between connecting three times and seven times on this $500 jackpot is $2000. Plus four $20 tickets. Being on the high side is more fun than being on the low side, but either is equally likely. If swings like this bother you, don't be doubling up. Knowledgeable players are not particularly concerned about these swings. They know that they will average out over time.
Let me tell you a true story about when you shouldn't double. At least I think it's true. I wasn't there, and I might have some of the details wrong, but somebody I trust related it to me. A young Chinese-American couple came to Vegas to get married. Everybody on both sides of the family came. Including Grannie Wong.
Grannie Wong is 70-something and barely speaks English and reads not at all. She finds herself in the Mirage and decides to play video poker. She drops her five $1 tokens in and is dealt a royal flush! Fantastic! $4,000!! However, nobody who speaks English is around and lights aren't flashing. Grannie Wong thinks she has a good hand and can't understand why she didn't win. But on her screen is a question: "Do You Wish To Double Up?" Granny doesn't know what this says, but she can read the "Yes" and "No". She calls out for her family, but they are all busy playing. She figures the machine is asking her if she wants to be paid, so she pushes the "Yes" button.
She wins! But she doesn't know it. The machine now says she has won $8,000. "Do You Wish To Double Up?" She again calls to her family. Again her family is too busy. She presses "Yes" again! And wins again! By this time the family is running over and shouting the Chinese equivalent of "Don't touch that dial!" By the time everything got sorted out, Grannie Wong was paid $16,000 and the family had a story they would never forget!
Even though she won, I would call this a very silly bet. If you are going to double up, do so on relatively frequent hands. A royal is a once-every-40,000 hands events. Nobody gets enough of these so that doubling up makes sense.
Even quads (a 1 in 400 hands occurrence) are too infrequent for this bet to be sensible. I would recommend doubling only full houses and less, and then only when you are an underdog in the game.
Also, few people double up when they win jackpots in the $600 thru $1199 range. Jackpots of $1200 gets a tax form attached at no extra charge, and most people consider a tax form a negative thing, so double the money isn't worth twice as much.
Bob Dancer is America's best-known video poker writer and teacher. He has a variety of "how to play better video poker" products, including the software "Video Poker for Winners," Winner's Guides, strategy cards, his autobiography Million Dollar Video Poker, and his two novels, including Sex, Lies, and Video Poker. Dancer's products may be ordered at www.bobdancer.com or by telephone at 1-800-244-2224 M-F 9-5 Pacific Time.
