Video Poker Promotions – How a Card of the Day Bonus Works – BestUSCasinos.org

I read an account of how a card of the day promotion works in video poker. I dont know if this kind of promotion is still available at major casinos on a regular basis, but these kinds of marketing schemes tend to roll back around given some time.

Also, this card of the day promotion illustrates some gambling concepts that I think casino gamblers should be aware of. Keep reading below to learn more.

The way a card of the day promotion works is actually simple: Every four of a kind of a certain ranking on a specific day gets a double payout.

For example, on Sundays, a four of a kind made up of threes might pay double. The card of the day for Monday might be a four, and on Tuesday, a five, and so on. On those days, a four of a kind made up of fours and fives, respectively, would trigger the bonus payout.

If youre playing 9/6 Jacks or Better at a casino offering this promotion, doubling that four of a kind payout on that one hand adds 0.44% to the expected return for the game. Since 9/6 Jacks or Better normally offers a 99.54% expected return, assuming you play optimally with this promotion in effect, the game offers a 99.98% expected return.

Thats the same thing as a house edge of only 0.02%. Its almost as close to a breakeven game as youll ever find in a casino.

If youre trying to make a living playing real money video poker, you still cant do it with this game even with the card of the day promotion. But if youre just wanting to earn comps and enjoy a vacation without spending a lot of money, a 99.98% return is great.

As luck would have it, there are other video poker games where such a promotion might make a negative expectation game into a positive expectation game. For example, a 10/7 Double Bonus video poker game already has a positive expectation for the player with its 100.17% return.

Even a 9/7 Double Bonus game has a 99.11% return. And since youre getting a bigger payout for four of a kind already because youre playing Double Bonus Poker, you get to add 1.37% to your return instead of just 0.44%.

This would turn either version of Double Bonus Poker into a profitable opportunity. You might not get rich playing these games, but you could show a long-term profit.

What would this do to your expected win rate? Assume a quarter game and a max bet per hand, and youre wagering $1.25 per hand. An average video poker player probably gets in 600 hands per hour, so thats $750/hour in action. With an expected return of 101.54%, your hourly win rate is $11.55.

Now, suppose that the casino has both a quarter game with the 10/7 pay table along with a dollar game with the 9/7 pay table. Which one should you choose?

Assuming a dollar game and a max bet per hand, youre wagering $5 per hand. At 600 hands per hour, thats $3,000 per hour in action. With an expected return of 100.48%, your expected earnings per hour are $14.40.

Even though the expected return for the game with the worse pay table is significantly lower, the fact that you can play for higher stakes makes it more profitable.

You should be able to do this calculation for any game youre playing where you have an edge so that you can calculate your most profitable opportunities.

The formula is simple: Take the average bet size and multiply it by bets per hour and by the size of your edge, which equals expected win rate per hour.

Even with a generous promotion like this, you must know how to play the game with optimal strategy to have a hope of getting any kind of edge over the casino.

How much does playing with an incorrect strategy subtract from your expected return?

It depends on how often youre deviating from the correct strategy, but a safe estimate is that a novice video poker player ignoring correct strategy is giving between 2% and 4% back to the house. This is assuming that you know something about poker to begin with.

If youre a complete novice and have never played poker, you have a little studying and practicing to do before you ever try video poker.

Youll notice that even in the best-case scenarios Ive used in the above examples, the size of your edge was never more than 1.54%.

If youre losing 2% in expectation because of strategy mistakes, youre back to playing a game where the house has an edge. Thats okay if youre a recreational gambler, but Im convinced that if youre going to do something, you should learn how to do it as well as possible.

This applies to video poker as well as any other endeavor you pursue.

20 years ago, it was hard to find an optimal strategy for most video poker games. There were a handful of books offering some strategies for some games, but nothing comprehensive.

For years, though, you could buy a software package called Video Poker for Winners that would generate the correct strategy for any pay table you fed into it. That software is no longer available, but you can find online resources that will do the same thing for you.

My favorite resource for learning the correct strategy for video poker games is the series of books about video poker strategy from Bob Dancer. He has six of these books available:

You can buy these for around $20 a book on his website, but you can also buy the entire set. He also sells laminated video poker strategy cards, similar to the kinds of strategy cards you can get for blackjack with color-coding and everything.

Something I havent mentioned yet is that when youre playing in a game with a promotion like this, the optimal strategy for the game changes. For example, suppose you have a have with four cards to a flush, but you also have a pair that matches the card of the day.

Normally, drawing to the flush would be the correct play, but what happens when youre getting twice as much of a payout for the four of a kind? Is it worth it to go for the four of a kind when you have a pair in that situation?

These deviations are derived by looking at the probability of hitting the hand multiplied by the payout for the hand.

Lets assume the payout for a flush is 7 for 1. You have a 9/47 probability of getting your flush, so the expected return for that playignoring other results for simplicitys sakeis 9/47 x 7, or 1.34.

Assuming that the payout for the four of a kind is 160 for instead of 80 for 1 because of the promotion, youd need to calculate the probability of getting that payout.

You have to get both of the cards of that ranking, so the probability of that happening is 1/47 x 1/47, but thats offset somewhat by being able to get another try on that third card youre drawing to.

As it turns out, the odds of making your four of a kind are still too low for this to be a viable change in your playing strategy. But its something to consider, and thats not the only dilemma youre liable to face either.

And the strategy decisions also change when the card is a different rank. For example, if the card of the day is seven, that has a different set of strategy implications than if the card of the day is four.

When you have a card of the day promotion, youll sometimes want to break a made hand like a full house to draw to the four of a kind instead. Youll also often want to draw to a pair even if you have four cards to an open-ended straight.

You might find a casino that offers you a double payout for the four of a kind of that rank AND gives you a free $5 bet on the roulette wheel. How much is that free bet worth?

If you lose, its worth $0. But if you win, its worth the probability of winning multiplied by $5.

On a standard American Roulette wheel, the probability of winning an even money bet is 18/38, or 47.37%. This means that the free roulette spin is worth another $2.37.

This also adds to the expected return to the game.

Being a savvy gambler means learning how to spot good promotions like a card of the day promotion in video poker, but thats not enough. You also need to know how to analyze that promotion to see what it does to your expected return.

Sometimes, it will turn into a profitable opportunity, while other times, it might not be worth it. Either way, the better educated you are as a gambler, the better off you are. Good luck on your gambling!

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Video Poker Promotions - How a Card of the Day Bonus Works - BestUSCasinos.org