Reader asks: Hold the flush, or chase the royal?

Q. I was recently playing a 25-cent Bonus Poker machine. I bet the maximum number of coins and up came the 7, 10, Jack, Queen and King of clubs. Without thinking, I held all five clubs for a flush and a payout of 25 coins. As soon as I did this, I was kicking myself for not going for the straight flush or royal flush for a payout of 250 coins or 4,000 coins.

 I also had six other cards to make my flush and six to make a straight.

 I believe I should have thrown the 7 of clubs away and drawn one card. What is the correct play and what are the percentages?

A. The correct play in that situation is to discard the 7 of clubs and give yourself a chance at a royal.
Once you have seen your initial five cards, there are 47 possible one-card draws. One, the Ace of clubs, would give you a royal flush worth 4,000 coins, and another, the 9 of clubs, would give you a straight flush for 250 coins. Any of six cards - the 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 8 of clubs - gives you a flush worth 25 coins. Any of six others - the 9s and Aces of hearts, spades and diamonds - gives you a straight worth 20 coins.

In addition, any of nine cards - the Jacks, Queens and Kings of hearts, spades or diamonds - gives you a high pair worth a five-coin return.

That's 23 cards that complete a winning hand; any of the other 24 would leave you with a loser. Per 47 times you make this play, your expected return is one royal flush for 4,000 coins, one straight flush for 250, six flushes for 150, six straights for 120 and nine high pairs for 45. That's a total of 4,565 coins per 47 plays, an average of 97 per hand.

If you stand pat on the flush, per 47 plays your return is 1,175 coins, or 25 per play. You're nearly four times better off taking the chance with a one-card draw.

The only time to stand pat on a hand that includes four cards to a royal flush is when it includes a pat straight flush.

Slots never due, so don't chase losses

Those who have read me for very long know that one of my running themes is that a slot machine is never "due." to hit. From time to time, I send out a warning to slot players that they shouldn't expect a slot that has been cold for hours to suddenly start paying out the big bucks.

Some things apparently can't be repeated often enough.

I once received a phone call from a woman who'd had a bad day at the reel-spinning slots. Actually, "bad" doesn't begin to describe it. Awful, horrendous, disastrous is more like it.

Normally a table games player - she likes roulette - she recently decided to play a $5 three-reel slot machine. The machine took two coins at a time, so she was betting $10 on each pull.

And cold? Better she'd just given her money to the cashier and left the casino. Because after she lost what she had brought with her, she started drawing money against her credit cards. That's expensive money, with a hefty charge off the top being added to any credit card interest.

Before it was over, she'd lost . . . well, her initial message said $4,000, but when I spoke with her
later, the amount had grown to about $7,000.

"This machine was paying out nothing," she said. "I kept playing because I figured it was due. It had to give me something back. I played that machine for hours," she said, "and it didn't pay out anything like 95 percent."

And when it didn't give her anything back, she thought something was wrong with the machine. She complained to the casino, and she complained to the gaming board . When both told her there was nothing wrong with the machine, that it's normal for a machine to stay cold for long stretches, she complained to me.

Then it was my turn to tell her there probably was nothing wrong with the machine, and that it's normal for a slot machine to stay cold for long stretches, especially on three-reel games with low hit frequencies. Those frequent payoffs for less than our bets do tend to stretch out play, and bonuses on video games help soften the losing streaks.

Our player, unfortunately, was operating under a couple of misconceptions that, coupled with some poor money management, made for a day of casino hell. Here's where she went wrong:

**Cold machines can stay cold: In today's microprocessor, random number generator-controlled slots, your last pull, or your last 10, or last 100, have no effect on your next pull. If the top jackpot is programmed to come up an average of once per 10,000 pulls, then the odds of hitting it on the next pull are 1 in 10,000. That's true even if you've been playing all day and have counted 10,000 pulls without a jackpot, and it's still true if you've hit the jackpot on the last pull. The odds of hitting any particular combination are the same on any given pull, regardless of whether that combination was last hit one pull ago or 100,000 pulls ago.

There is nothing in the programming that would tell a machine to suddenly start hitting if it's been cold for hours. If a machine has paid out little all day, the most you can say about it is that it's been paying out little all day. There is no way to tell if it's going to stay cold or turn hot over the next few hours.

**Payouts vary wildly in the short term: In a period as short as the 10 or 12 hours this woman said she gambled, a machine can pay out 50 percent or less. That would lead to big, fast losses for a day, but the machine still could easily pay out 95 percent for the month, which is about normal for a  $5 three-reel game. A machine that pays out 50 percent for 10,000 pulls would have to pay out only 96.55 percent for the next 290,000 pulls to average 95 percent for 300,000 trials.

Our gambler, if she played 10 hours, was losing about $700 an hour. It's pretty easy to play 500 pulls an hour - really dedicated slot fanatics play faster. So let's say at two coins at a time for 500 pulls, she was risking $5,000 an hour. Her $700 hourly loss represents 14 percent of her wagers.

Far from having to sink as low as 50 percent, a machine could gobble up the funds that fast while paying 86 percent.


**Money goes faster on slots than on tables: Borrowing money to gamble is a bad idea no matter what your game. And slot players must remember that their game is the fastest in the casino, far faster than even craps.

With $1,000 in your pocket, it might be tempting to try the $5 machines. But if the losses mount early, it's far better to switch to $1 slots or even quarters than to dig for more money.

If she were playing roulette, her favorite table game, at 45 or 50 spins an hour, our player would have had to bet $100 per spin to risk as much per hour as she risked on the $5 slots. A $5 slot player is every bit as much a high-roller as a $100 blackjack player; in fact, the $5 slot player's expected average losses are higher.


Early in the day, our player was offered a complimentary dinner in the casino's high-end restaurant. It's the least they could do.

Good service makes for happy customers

On any given day, most people who play in casinos are going to lose money. Casino operators know that, and players know it too.

The trick for the operators is to make the players feel good about their day out. Little customer service touches go a long way toward keeping us happy, or close. Check out a few readers’ stories of times the casinos got it right:

Mae: I was in a casino that was practically empty. That seems to happen a lot lately. Crowds seem smaller than they used to be.

Anyway, I practically had my choice of slot machines. There were probably a few hundred people scattered around the casino, but in any one area there were only a few, and I could play what I want. I started looking for a machine, and a slot attendant caught my eye. “You should start with that one over there,” she said. “It still has money on it.”

I smiled and thanked her, and went to check it out. It was an older quarter three-reel game, and I usually don’t play those very much. But sure enough, there were 31 credits on the game. I guess the player must have left, because there was no club card in the machine and the attendant wouldn’t have told me to play if there was still someone there.

So I played the 31 credits. To be honest, I felt a little funny about it, and I put in $10 of my own, too, so I started with 71 credits. I wish I could tell you I won a big jackpot or something, but nothing like that happened. I hit the single bars a few times, and a few cherries, and played for a while, but in the end I lost the 71 credits. Then I went and played the video slots I usually play.

Still, it was really a nice, unexpected bonus to start with “their” money. I’d never had that happen before, and I’ve never had it happen since. I always figured the casino just kept the money when someone left credits.

Margie: This was pretty cool. My husband and I drove a couple of hours to a casino I’d never played in before. He’d been there a few times, but I hadn’t. When we got there, I spotted a sign that said they were giving a free case of soda to new club members after some minimum amount of play. It was a kind I liked, so I asked my husband about how much I’d have to play. It would be a nice bonus, since I buy it anyway.

He said I probably wasn’t eligible, that he thought I already was a member of the club. There’s another casino we go to that’s owned by the same company, and he said they have the same club.

I didn’t think to bring my card from the other club. He did. He had his card in his wallet. So I went to the booth to get a new card, and I asked them about the soda. They said yes, I was already a member, but that I’d never redeemed a new member bonus, so if I played, I could get the soda.

It only took me about a half an hour, and I was playing penny slots. We played a couple of hours more than that, had a nice time, went to the steak house for a nice dinner. Then on the way out I picked up my soda. I teased my husband that he should have left his card at home. Maybe we could have gotten two cases. They were so nice about it.

Eleanor: I once did a really dumb thing in a casino. I went to cash out, and pushed the button to print out a ticket. While it was printing, I changed glasses. I wear bifocals for normal wear, but looking at the screen for a long time gives me headaches. So I change to a pair of reading glasses while I play, then change back when it’s time to walk around.

So I put my reading glasses into their case in my purse and put on my regular glasses, and started to walk away. A slot attendant saw what was happening, and shouted after me, “Wait, honey! You’ve forgotten something,” and she stood by my machine.

I’d forgotten something all right – ticket with $283 on it. “It’s a good thing I caught you,” she said. “If we don’t notice, there’s always somebody ready to pick off those tickets.”

I thanked her, and thanked her again, and slipped her a $10 tip. It was worth it.

New video on YouTube

At the beginning of October, when I was in Las Vegas for the Global Gaming Expo, I got together with American Casino Guide publisher Steve Bourie and his son Matt. I write a couple of articles each year for the Guide, an annual publication I highly recommend. It's chock full of articles about the games people play along with listings of every casino in the United States, their phone numbers, games offered, and amenities. In the back, there are coupons for travel, meal and gambling deals. It's a resource I turn to several times during the year.

While were together, we recorded material for two videos. The first, on the five best bets in the casino, is now up on YouTube. We're talking games only on the main casino floor that you're likely to encounter in any casino market. That excludes live poker, horse racing and sports betting, leaving a mix of blackjack, craps, video poker and baccarat.

If you want to check out the video, it's at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0oGLwWugFo

One of the best beginners' luck stories I've heard. I received a phone call from a father who took his son to a casino for the son's 21st birthday. They were playing from a common bankroll, alternating hands. On the first hand the son ever played in a casino, he drew a royal flush. Father and son collected $500 apiece. Later, playing on his own, he drew another one, good for his own $1,000. Level head on his shoulders, he put about $1,400 of it in the bank.

I'll be expanding on this in my regular columns. Watch for the Chicago Sun-Times, Casino City Times, and others.

Pik-It Poker from DigiDeal

One of the pioneers in multiplayer electronic table games, DigiDeal is promoting a new game called Pik-It Poker. It's two-tiered game with both play against the dealer and a 3-Card Bonus bet. Antes plus bonus bets start play, and the bonus is resolved first. Cards are dealt face down, and players touch the screen to pick which three will be turned up to make a three-card poker hand. Winners are paid according to a pay table --- just as in Pair Plus in Three Card Poker, they don’t have to beat the dealer --- then the other two cards are turned up, and those who wagered on the bonus get an additional payoff if their five-card hand includes two pairs or better.

Then it’s time for play against the dealer. You check out your hand to see if it’s a stronger play to bet on a three-card hand or the full five cards, then touch the screen to choose which to play. Taking advantage of the electronic format, Pik-It has a “suggested: play” feature to tell the player the optimal choice.

DigiDeal has carved out a niche with traditional table games such as blackjack in an electronic format. Its first games used electronic cards dealt by a random number generator, but real chips for wagering. That format remains available for casinos that like to use a dealer-host to interact with players and settle bets, but game with touch-screens for wagering also are available. One advantage of the touch screens is that DigiDeal can offer multiple side bets on the same game without slowing it down, and without mistakes in payoffs.

Bally goes for "Grease"

At the 2011 Global Gaming Expo, the casino industry’s annual Las Vegas showcase, the sounds of “You’re the One that I Want” rang through Bally’s booth with the introduction of the new "Grease video slots."

“We were really looking to increase our brand portfolio,” said Jean Venneman, Bally’s vice president of product marketing and licensing. “It’s not an area we had really been in in the past. We wanted to make sure we picked a couple of strategic brands that really hit the [slot-playing] demographic and we could create a lot of interesting games out of. We felt that Grease hit the mark on that.”

Grease, based on the hit movie musical, is a wide-area progressive, meaning that in states where it is legal, machines in different casinos can be linked to the same jackpot. There are two playing fields on the screen --- two sets of five reels --- in a penny game with a 60-cent minimum wager. Reel symbols are chock full of movie imagery, and there’s music and video featuring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.

There are an number of bonuses, but the event everyone wanted to see was the “You’re the One that I Want” free games. The stars wooed each other in the “Grease” showpiece video in the top box, a scaled down video played atop the spinning reels on the main screen, and speakers in the back of the game’s special chair contributed to a surround-sound effect.

“This one has been fun to watch people play,” Venneman said. “They seem to be more focused on the video than on the actual game. And everybody has fond memories of the first time they saw the movie, or that they thought that Olivia Newton John was amazing, or John Travolta.”