An introduction to video poker progressives

Bob Dancer, the leading video poker authority and an active player, recently wrote a column for the Las Vegas Advisor (www.lasvegasadvisor.com) about why he does not play video poker progressives. His reasons were mostly matters of personal preference. He did not say that advantage players or other smart players should not play progressives, and many of us do. As time permits, I plan to write several blog posts about video poker and other progressives.

What is a progressive? Simply put, it's a game in which a small part of the money bet by the players goes into one or more growing jackpots. Progressives can be found in slots, video poker, keno (live and video) and table games. The concept has virtually unlimited possible applications in the casino environment.

Why would casinos allow progressives, rather than keep the money going into the jackpot for themselves? First, progressives allow casinos to offer larger than normal prizes to players. A full-coin royal flush in most 25-cent video poker games is $1,000; the royal in a quarter progressive starts at $1,000 and goes up from there, possibly to $2,000, $3,000 or more. Second, progressives, many of which have signs showing the amount of the jackpot, create excitement and attract players as they see the amount they might win growing rapidly.

Sounds like a win-win. The casino offers players more, but with the players' own money feeding the pot. But in reality, casinos often aren't willing to divert even a small percentage money wagered without making up for it -- or more than making up for it. With video poker, progressives are often found on games with substandard pay tables.

For example, a casino might offer as its best non-progressive game 9/6 (full pay) jacks or better, with a long-term maximum payback to players of 99.54 percent. A progressive game might be found on 8/5 jacks or better, with a maximum payback at reset of 97.30 percent. A big progressive jackpot can make this a good play, even a better long-term play than the 9/6 jacks, but you have to know when and how to play it. More about that later.

First, let's talk about how you find video poker progressives. Often they are advertised by electronic signs. These may be simply show dollar amounts or contain other information, such as the donomination of the game. Often these signs apply to a group of machines feeding into a single progressive jackpot. Progressives are also found on idvidual machines, in which case the only way to tell there is a progressive is to look at the pay table. The web site VPFree2 lists and gives locations for the better progressives at many casinos.

Many casinos offer progressives at their bars. Often there is a sign above the bar, or two signs if there are progressives of different denominations (typically quarters and dollars). Individual machines must be checked to see which progressives are on them (often only one denomination per machine). On multi-game machines, sometimes only one game will have the progressive, sometimes more than one or all the games will. Usually the screen that appears after you push the "more games" button will show which games have the progressive, and sometimes the jackpot amount.

At many casinos progressives can be found on the casino floor. Often there are signs, some quite elaborate, above banks of machines with progressives games. But as at the bars, you have to look at the pay tables to find some progressives.

You can go into many casinos and find several video poker progressives at popular denomiations. How can you tell which ones -- if any -- are good plays? A huge jackpot alone does not make a progressive a good play.

First, you must know that there are several versions of most popular video poker games, and that changes in pay tables can have a big effect on the payback of the game. A big factor in finding good video poker progressives is find progressives with good pay tables.

But, as noted earlier, even progressives with relatively bad pay tables, such as 8/5 jacks, can be good plays. A big progressive jackpot can make up for lower return of the underlying game. For example, the break-even point of a 25-cent 9/6 progressive -- the amount of the royal flush that brings the long-term return of the game to 100 percent -- is $1,220. The break-even amount for 8/5 jacks is a whopping $2,166.

The break-even amounts, of most versions of most video poker games can be found in the Frugal Video Poker Scouting Guide by Jean Scott and Viktor Nacht (RGE Publishing, Ltd.), which also contains almost 200 pay schedules and the maximum return for each game. The return of different games, including progressives, can also be determined using the software Video Poker for Winners, which, like the Scouting Guide, should be used by every serious video poker player.

In the field, you can estimate the return of a progressive game by adding 0.5 percent to the payback of the base game for every 1,000 coins added to the amount of the royal flush. For example, let's say you find a progressive on a $1 15/9 "pseudo not-do-ugly" deuces game with the royal at $6,000. The return on the underlying game is about just over 98.9 percent. The 2,000 coins added to the royal adds about 1 percent to the return of the game, leaving it just short of break-even, not counting the value of points and/or other icentives the casino might provide. According to the Scouting Guide, the actual break-even amount for this game is $6,244.

It's important to keep in mind that the return of any progressive is a long-term theoretical concept. You will get or exceed that return only after hitting your share of royal flushes and other rare hands. This is not likely to happen in one or a few sessions or weeks or months playing progressives. In most video poker games, a royal flush occurs very roughly once every 40,000 hands. For a fast player, that's once every 50 hours. And that's the average. You can and will go multiples of that many hours between royals if you become a serious player.

In the real world, a 9/6 jacks progressive at break-even and an 8/5 jacks progressive of the same denomination at break-even are far from equal. You will lose a lot more money between royals playing the latter than the former. That means you will need more money to play the latter, to survive the deeper negative swings. If you normally play 9/6 jacks for dollars, you might want to consider 8/5 jacks progressives only for 50 cents or less.

Another consideration is that the optimum strategies for different versions of the same games are different. If you normally play 9/6 jacks and want to play an 8/5 jacks progressive, to get even the meager return of the base game, you'll have to learn some changes from 9/6 strategy. In either version of jacks, further strategy changes are needed as the progressive jackpot grows to maximize the return of the game. (The work required to learn these strategy changes is one reason Dancer does not play progressives. He does not usually feel comfortable playing any less than perfect strategy.)

For these reasons, I tend to be very selective about the progressives I monitor and play. I usually won't play for any length of time any progressive where the underlying game pays back much less than 99 percent. I also look for progressives on games with strategies similar to those of the non-progressive games I normally play. One of my main non-progressive games is 16/10 "not so ugly" deuces wild. I'm comfortable playing progressives on 15/9 "pseudo not so ugly" deuces, which has a similar strategy. The other progressives I play most are on 16/10 deuces, 9/6 jacks and 8/5 bonus poker (with a stategy similar to that for 9/6 jacks).

There are other factors in deciding which progressives to play, and even more in deciding when to start playing. I'll discuss those in future posts.

The joys of low volatility

Let’s say you’re a video poker player who normally plays moderately to highly volatile games, such double double bonus or “not so ugly” deuces at $1 or higher. Let’s assume further that you’ve run into a rough patch and are concerned about your dwindling bankroll. You know that if things continue to go south, you’re going to have to drop down in denomination, and you don’t want to do that.

That was the situation I was in a few months ago and I decided to take a different tack, which worked out well for me. I usually play NSU, “pseudo” NSU, double bonus deuces wild and loose deuce deuces wild at $1, sometimes on triple play machines.

As I wrote on this blog, a while ago I took the plunge and started playing what for me was a new game, jacks or better. The game has a lower long-term maximum payback than some of the other games I was playing, but it has the advantage of very low volatility. That means the fluctuations in amounts won and lost are relatively small. Unless you hit a royal flush, you’re generally not going to win much when you win, but compared with most other games you’re not going to lose much when you lose.

The downside to jacks is that the maximum long-term payback to the player is less than for the games I usually play (except for “pseudo,” but I play that mostly on progressives, when the jackpot adds significantly to the player’s return). But I found that because of the low volatility of jacks, I could comfortably play it at $2. My plan was to do just that, particularly when a good point multiplier would bring the return to about 100 percent. My hope was to hit a royal for $8,000, twice the amount I would get playing for $1, and solve my problem in one fell swoop.

Well, it worked! A few weeks, if that, into the “plan,” I hit for $8,000, bringing my bankroll most of the way back to where I wanted it to be. A few weeks later, I hit again, this time holding only two cards. Coincidentally, both of the big royals were in diamonds, my new favorite suit.

This was somewhat of a gamble, because you can lose quite a bit of money playing even jacks for $2. But it worked this time, and I have kept $2 jacks in my repertoire, playing it when point multipliers and/or other considerations make it a break-even play or better.

Another low volatility play I like: South Point has 50-play machines with NSU deuces in nickels in front of the oyster bar. (There are also 100-play machines with this game elsewhere in the casino). This is by far the best pay table I have seen anywhere on 50- or 100-plays; in fact, it’s the only playable pay table I’ve seen on these machines anywhere.

The bad news about this game is, if you hit the deuces, it’s $50. A royal flush without deuces is $200. The good news is that losses tend to be similarly small, especially considering the huge amount of money you’re putting through (which means you're earning lots of slot club points, particularly on point multiplier days). I can’t remember ever losing more than $500 in a session, and I usually play for at least an hour. On the other hand, you’re not likely to win a lot, unless you are dealt the deuces ($2,500) or a royal flush ($10,000). But if you’re more of a tortoise than a hare, this can be a very good game.

Learning a new video poker game

My wife and I both started gambling more or less seriously as blackjack players, but about four years ago, when we started coming to Las Vegas for vacations, she decided to start playing video poker. As a music teacher, she was going to approach this like learning a new instrument, which meant practicing until she could play well. But first she had to decide which video poker game to learn.

Many experts suggest learning jacks or better first. Full pay or 9/6 jacks is easy to learn. It is widely available in all popular denominations. Most important, it is the basis for many other popular games, including bonus poker, double bonus poker and double double bonus poker. The big drawback of jack is its payback -- 99.54 percent with optimum play.

She became interested in full pay deuces wild, mostly because of its strongly positive payback -- 100.76 percent. Full pay deuces is harder to learn than full pay jacks, but not extremely difficult. It’s also more volatile -- wider swings of wins and losses -- but not dangerously so. The game was available almost exclusively in quarters, but that is what she wanted to play. And it was more widely available then than it is now and the casinos were giving more points and other comps for those playing it.

She decided to learn full-pay deuces, and it served her well. When we moved to Vegas three years ago, I followed in her footsteps. We both later learned other deuces games, including loose deuce deuces wild and “not so ugly” (16/10) deuces, which allowed us to play at the dollar level.

Recently we decided to take another look at 9/6 jacks, mostly because it is now the best game available at some of the casinos we want to play at, including the M Resort. And we have discovered some good full pay jacks progressives.

I have started playing using the simple strategy found on Wizard of Odds Web site (I learned to play the full pay deuces using the Wizard’s simple strategy for that game). This strategy uses words, which I am more comfortable with than the symbols used in the more advanced strategies. There’s a trade-off in payback -- the simple strategy gets you 99.4 percent instead of the game’s full potential, 99.54 percent. But it’s a good stopgap until I can learn the advanced strategy.

As casinos change their video poker inventories and the rewards they offer for playing different games, it is necessary to learn new games to take advantage of new opportunities. Fortunately, learning jacks or better has been -- so far -- a lot easier than I had expected.