Earlier this year, I was dealt a royal on a dollar Triple Pay machine. Great! $12,000 instantly. While I was gloating to my friends “if you are a skillful player the machine knows how to reward you” (it’s a lot more fun being a bad winner than it is to be a good loser!) they were insisting that this was sheer luck. Three weeks later I was playing a $5 machine where I had a significant advantage and lost $8,000 about three hours. Bad luck.

There is considerable skill in video poker. There is also considerable luck. What do you think? Is it closer to 80% skill, or 80% luck?

In my opinion, either number could be correct, depending upon what time frame we are talking about. Assuming we are talking about playing a particular machine at a particular casino, our results over the next two hours is at least 80% luck. Some days we are dealt more than one four of a kind. We are going to win that day. Some days none of our four-flush draws fill in. We are going to lose that day. To be sure, playing appropriately makes some difference, but over a short session, luck is predominant.

If, however, we direct our attention to our results over five hundred hours (which is a year’s play for a 10-hour-a-week player), now I estimate skill is responsible for over 80% of how much we are up or down. We will have several good days in there. We will have even more bad ones. When we play that many times, we will get very close to the 19.1% success rate we should have when we draw to a four-flush. (Actually it’s 9 wins out of 47 tries.) You’re going to get dealt the quad aces every 54,000 hands or so. You’re about 50-50 to being dealt a royal, which actually occurs every 650,000 hands or so. You will have enough repetition for most types of hands that you’ll end up getting very close to what you deserve.

Let’s assume that these 500 hours were broken down into 2½-hour sessions on each of 200 separate days. My results for this scenario would show plus scores for about 60-70 of those days and minus scores for the other 130-140 days. Truly. I make a nice profit on an annual basis playing these games, but I lose two days out of three. On average, my winning scores are almost three times as big as my losing scores, which makes up for the fact that there are a lot more of the losing scores. My conclusion is that today’s score doesn’t matter. Going into big “celebration binges” on the winning days or getting greatly upset on the losing days is not a technique that will lead to a long, happy gambling career.

A healthy way to consider your gambling score is that each session’s score is simply added onto the previous session’s score. The fact that two or three of these sessions added up to a “day” or a “trip” is essentially irrelevant. If your score is minus after a large number of such sessions, then maybe you need to change what you are doing. But a negative score for a few sessions in a row? Not a big deal at all.

So what’s the biggest area where players regular demonstrate their skill, or, more often, their lack thereof? It’s in the area of machine selection. Skillful players know that right on the front of every machine is the pay schedule (i.e. the machine pays 10 for a full house, 7 for a flush, 5 for a straight, etc.) and have learned which schedules can lead to good results and which ones cannot. Playing approximately correctly on machines with generous schedules is much superior to playing perfectly on machines with tight schedules. Skillful players never play on machines where they do not have advantage. Learning the beatable schedules is crucial --- but fortunately it is relatively easy. This information is presented in the first five minutes of a class or in the first few pages of any competent book. If you’re starting from scratch, several inexpensive computer programs can analyze most any game in a few minutes. A lot of good players have one of these programs on a laptop which they have close at hand whenever they are near a casino.

The second most important element of skill will surprise many of you. This comes from knowing the benefits given by the casino. This includes the slot club, any current promotions, how easy it is to earn a free meal, etc. Jeffrey Compton’s The Las Vegas Advisor Guide to Slot Clubs and Jean Scott’s Frugal Gambler offer good information on this subject.

In Nevada, casinos fall over themselves offering new promotions. On any given day, almost every casino in town will be offering about five promotions each. Some of these are month long (in July get an extra 200 coins for four 8s), some are weekly (every Tuesday and Thursday get double points), some are hourly (every day from 5-7 pm get your meal at xxxx for half the normal number of points), and some are a once in a blue moon occurrence (on Valentine’s Day get double pay for a royal flush in hearts). Absolutely nobody can keep these all straight without making information-collection a full-time job. Locals have a big advantage in this gathering of news. Visitors will be well-advised to spend the first few hours of their trip reading the local newspaper and the freebie magazines. And everybody should look around in each casino they visit. Casinos spend a lot of money putting up signs to let you know how to take their money. The least you can do is to read them.

The third most important element of skill comes from the play of the hands. There are 2.6 million different starting hands for each game, and each one has a unique best play. Learning to play correctly is necessary for success, but not as important as choosing the right machine and choosing the right casino.

How do you learn to play correctly? Watching experts play is one way, if you can figure out who knows what they are doing. Reading and taking classes are also excellent ways.

But by far the best way to learn how to play the hands is to use a computer. Next month I’ll go into a lot more detail about the value of using a computer, but for now consider it the best way to get correction without an attitude. If you’re playing 10-7 double bonus and are dealt A♥ A♣ 4♥ 4♠ 3♦, and you play AA, the computer will tell you that you have made a minor error. Spouses have been known to begin the lesson thusly: “Look, dummy, we’ve been over this before.” For some strange reason, many people are so sensitive that they find it difficult to enjoy the learning process under these conditions.

Since I’m a guy who sells how-to-do-it reports, teaches classes, and has a computer program for sale, it can’t be a big surprise that I think all of these are valuable learning devices. But think about it. How else are you going to learn how to play this hand: Q♦ J♠ T♦ 5♣ 3♥? Do you think that it is obvious whether QT, QJ, or QJT is the best play? Actually, each of these plays is correct for the best schedule for deuces wild, jacks or better, or double bonus respectively. I suggest that this can’t be obvious to anybody. A lot of folks play the hand identically no matter which game they are playing. Casinos like folks like this.

That’s it for now. Until next time, go out and hit a royal flush.

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.