Video Poker Class II Machines

We’ve spent a lot of time in the past few days talking about the differences in Class II (Bingo type) and Class III (Vegas type) slot machines. But slots aren’t the only gaming devices people play in the casinos. There are also video poker (VP) machines, and these VP machines are also either Class II or Class III games under IGRA. The odds, the playing strategy, the outcomes are different for these two types of machines. I won’t repeat the prior information about Class II slots. You can take a look at Parts 1 - 4 of the series on Tribal Casinos if you haven’t already done so or if you want a review. Today we only play Poker, video poker. 

I always try to throw in a little history when I write so you can learn a little something in what you read. Today’s history lesson, class, is a review of the origins of video poker. Some of you might have read some of this when I originally wrote about video poker in May.

In the mid-70s, in the infancy of personal computers, a gaming distributor for Bally’s named Si Redd had an idea for a new game. The game he pitched to company executives in Chicago was video poker. Bally’s rejected his idea of an electronic version of draw poker. They decided they did not want to take a chance and branch out from slots to a whole new untested game. Si Redd had confidence the electronic version of the popular card game would be a success. He convinced Bally to let him take the patent on video poker, probably one of the biggest mistakes Bally Gaming ever made, and as they say, the rest is history.

Within months, Si had made a deal with Fortune Coin Company in Reno to form a new company known as Sircoma (Si Redds Coin Machines) and to mass produce the new video poker machines for him. By 1981 the new game was the most popular new addition to casinos everywhere. Just a year later, Sircoma went public with a name change instantly recognizable to casino players everywhere - IGT, International Game Technology. Soon after, IGT introduced video slot machines following the video poker machine’s success. 

Myriad variations of the popular VP games are found today on casino floors everywhere. Your machine may even let you play many, many games with the same spin. Video poker games are popular with players for two reasons. First, your money usually lasts longer playing video poker than it does playing slots. Second, and more importantly, players can actually beat the machine if they know the odds and make wise decisions about which machine to choose and about which cards to keep and which cards to throw away. 

What machine should you choose when you sit down to play video poker? If you don’t want to play Class II VP, make sure you don’t choose one with a tiny bingo card anywhere on the machine’s display! If you see a bingo card on your display, your odds of winning will not come from the odds of randomly drawing cards from a 52 card deck. They will be the odds of filling a certain pattern on a bingo card.

If you’ve picked a Class III - Vegas style VP game, take a look at the payable for the machine. You can determine the expected return (ER) of your machine from the figures there. There are 2,598,960 hands of 5 cards that can be produced with a 52-card deck. The random number generator in Class III video poker machines is set to simulate the probabilities of drawing any one of these hands. Because this is a fixed probability, the house gets its edge by adjusting the payable of the machines. By comparing payables you can choose the one with the best return. My thanks to slot fanatic Random $$ Slots who taught me how to do this. 

The key to the Jacks or Better game is in the payout for the Full House and for the Flush. The very best machine to play will be one that pays 9 for a Full House and 6 for a Flush, a 9/6 machine. This machine, according to blogger Bill Burton, has an expected return of 99.5%.

Casinos lower the payout and increase their hold by reducing the coins paid for the Full House and Flush. The average machine will pay an 8/5 return - 8 for a Full House and 5 for a Flush. When they do this, the expected return drops to 97.3%

When the payout for a full house and a flush are lowered to 6/5, the expected return will drop to 95%.  A quick rule of thumb is that the payout will be reduced by 1.1% for each 1 coin reduction from either hand. 

You will have no idea what the expected return for a Class II video poker machine is. The results are predetermined based on the bingo game. Mathematicians at IGT are able to calculate the odds for millions of different bingo patterns on a bingo card. Theoretically they can choose a bingo pattern that mimics the odds of getting any winning hand from a RNG in a Class III machine. But keep in mind when playing Class II video poker machines that Native American tribes are sovereign nations. Their casinos are not subject to state regulation or to public reporting of their machines’ return percentages. They could set their payouts to anything they want as long as they could stay competitive.

What should be your strategy playing these games? With a Class III machine, the skill of the player can determine the outcome of the game. The more you know, the better your choices, and the more you can win. You strategy is to learn as much as you can about the odds of achieving various results. There are a lot of sites on the internet that will help you do this. One good one is The Wizard of Odds written by Michael Schakelford. He’s got a lot to share — odds, calculators, analyses, anything you want or need to master the game. 

As the Gambler says: “You got to know when to hold, ‘em, know when to fold ‘em. Know when to walk away, and know when to run…”  The more you know, the better you’ll do. on a Class III game.

However, skill has nothing to do with the outcome in Class II video poker. The result is determined by the results of a ball draw, not by a machine’s random number generator. Poker knowledge and playing skill means nothing because the result of your hand is already predetermined by the pattern of the winning bingo game. Therefore, deciding what cards to hold and what cards to draw does nothing to improve your chances of winning. 

In fact, if you make a mistake, intentionally or accidentally, and throw away the wrong cards, if your display can not bring up the cards required by the ball draw, a strange thing happens. A “magic genie” will appear on the screen and change your choice to the one required by the bingo-ball draw.  If the bingo game determines you win a certain prize, you will get it with this special feature, regardless of what you do.

I guess this might be good for the novice player. Correcting a playing mistake and showing the player the optimum strategy might help him become better at the game.  Who knows, it might even improve my poker game. Maybe I should look for a Class II VP machine and see.  :)

But if you are actually skilled in the game, avoid these Class II games like the plague and stick to the Class III poker games with the best full house/flush returns. If you are really good, you might want to forget them both and switch to table games instead.