January 2012
50-cent machines, Playing two spots, Progressives
by John Grochowski
Q. I would like your comments on the
following I’ve seen recently. I play video poker and my wife pays for our
rooms and food by playing the penny slots.
There are a bunch of new machines that have 50 lines and you must play all of
them. You only get to choose your coin denomination, whether you play 1 cent
per line or more. The minimum bet is 50 cents. To me these are 50 cent
machines and no longer 1 cent. I assume, and would love to know if you think
differently, that the payback percentages on these new machines are like other
1 cent, pretty low, under 90 percent.
I think people are crazy to risk this kind of money without the payback that
50 cent or higher machines give. Of course they are more fun than 50 cent or
$1 reel machines.
A. Your last sentence sums up the reason that video slots now command a
majority of the floor space in casinos. They’re fun to play, and customers are
willing to settle for a lower payback percentage than on a three-reel slot
with no bells, whistles or big bonus events.
I agree that it’s difficult to think of a slot machine as a penny game when
there’s a minimum wager of 50 cents. And I was recently in a Midwest casino
that took things a step farther. There were no penny slots, and many of the
2-cent games had 50-line forced bets for a minimum wager of a dollar. That’s
more money per spin than a three-reel player would bet making the traditional
three-coin maximum wager on a quarter game. And yes, the games with the high
minimum bets usually pay at the same 90 percent or less as other penny and
2-cent games.
There is a mitigating factor. Bonus events take time to play, and when you’re
playing a bonus event, you’re not making extra wagers. Let’s take your
comparison of a penny game with a 50-cent minimum bet and a three-reel 50-cent
game, betting one coin at a time. Now let’s say I’m playing the penny game and
you’re playing the 50-cent game, and we’re both playing at a steady pace that
would lead to 500 spins an hour if not interrupted by bonus events. That is
not an especially rapid pace. Fast play will approach 800 spins an hour, and
tournament players have been clocked at over 1,000 spins an hour.
In an hour on the three-reel game, you make $250 worth of wagers. But if I
spend 10 percent of my time playing bonus events, I make only 450 wagers
instead of 500, and risk $225. I wager $25 less than you, even though we’re
betting the same amount per spin.
Still, you have a better chance at a larger jackpot on the three-reel game.
And despite your betting more money per hour on the 50-cent game, my average
losses per hour would be higher on the penny game. In the situation described
above, a 93 percent return on the 50-cent game would yield an average loss per
hour of $17.50, while the average hourly loss on a penny game returning 88
percent would be $27.
Over the last decade and a half, an increasing percentage of players has
decided the entertainment value of low-denomination video bonus slots is worth
accepting the lower payback percentage. Now we’ll see whether that trend
extends to accepting a minimum bet of 50 cents or a dollar a pop.
Q. If a player betting two spots must double the minimum bet at
blackjack, does that mean playing two spots instead of one is an advantage to
the player? Since my wife and I always gamble together (and there’s no her
money/his money, it’s all our money) should we always play two spots by
sitting next to each other, without being forced into doubling bets, instead o
me standing behind her with advice? ( won’t comment o the value o
the advice.)
A. The house edge when you play two spots is the same as when you play
one. It smooths out the volatility a little, but the odds of the game are the
same. The reason the house requires a double-minimum bet to play two spots is
that it doesn’t want to tie up multiple spots with minimum bets. They’d rather
take the chance that another player will come along and bet several times
minimum. They’ve done their research, and know they make more money that way.
Q. I think I understand pay tables and the random number generator on
video poker. I play a lot of 9/6 Jacks, but have always wondered whether
progressive machines pay off smaller amounts less frequently in order to pay
for the progressive. I believe this is true in slots and it certainly seems to
be in video poker.
A. No, the programming in video poker doesn’t allow for a lower
frequency of small-paying hands to pay for the progressive. Progressive or
not, the deck is electronically shuffled, results are random and the odds are
the same as if you were using a well-shuffled deck of real cards.
A casino that wants its base game to pay less on a progressive game will
change the pay tables, just as they do on their regular video poker games. The
same casino might have 9-6 Jacks or Better non-progressives and 8-5
progressives. If they have 9-6 progressives, they’re giving the player
something extra above the 9-6 pay table.
Slot machines are different both in programming and in regulatory
requirements. Casinos can and do have lower-paying base games with lower
frequency of small paybacks on progressive machines. But in video poker, any
change in the game is out there for the world to see in the form of the lower
pay table.
— John Grochowski is the author of The Casino
Answer Book, The Slot Machine Answer Book, The Video Poker Answer Book and the
Craps Answer Book, available online at:
www.casinoanswerman.com.