“EV” stands for expected value, which is a type of weighted average. The exact definition I’ll leave to the probability and statistics textbooks. As cut and dried as the definition is in the math books, there’s plenty of wiggle room in the way it’s applied to video poker.
Before we discuss this wiggle room, let’s talk about how EV is most properly used. EV gives you a “best guess” of how a situation will turn out — on average — if you play it out zillions of times. It’s not a guarantee at all of how things will turn out this time. If you’re flipping a fair coin 100 times, the EV is for 50 heads to show up. But sometimes only 40 heads will appear, and equally often 60. In actuality, ending up with exactly 50 heads out of 100 trials is an underdog to happen. If you’re betting on heads, you may well be upset that the actual result this time didn’t match up with the EV.
The definition of EV is about “how many times something happens.” In video poker, we often turn this into a percentage. For example, 9/6 Jacks or Better has a well-known probability of returning 99.544% when played perfectly. That means if we play $100,000 through a 9/6 JoB machine, our average ending balance will be $99,544, meaning the casino keeps $456 from our play. This will be true whether we play for nickels, quarters, dollars, or larger stakes. This will be true whether we are playing single line, Triple Play . . . or Hundred Play.
It is common among video poker players, but not universal, to add the return on the game with the slot club return and call the result EV. That is, if you’re playing 9/6 JoB at the South Point on double point days, the EV is 99.544% +2(.300%) = 100.144%. Adding the slot club return is reasonably certain, as almost always you know what it’s going to be before you play.
Adding mailers is a bit iffier, if that’s a word. If you know you are going to get mailers worth $80 for $40,000 coin-in, you can go ahead and add another 0.20% to the EV. But we are rarely that certain — or rather, the ones who are certain are frequently mistaken. Slot clubs change their parameters for mailers all the time, and usually these parameters are unpublished. You can get a feel for what the rules are if you talk to enough players, but it’s normally the case that players don’t keep good enough records to be useful.
Someone can accurately tell you that their mailer is $25 a week. But if you want to know how much they won or lost each month over the last six months, including how much was played during promotions and on which machines, that information is tougher to come by. And, at some casinos, how many times did the player come into the casino? And what “discretionary” comps were issued to this player? Some or all of this information is used by at least some casinos to determine your mailer. And most casinos don’t publish the formula they use.
Still other players (including me) add an estimate for the value of the current promotion into the EV calculation. I wouldn’t be playing at all at any casinos if it wasn’t for their promotions. (Yes, I could play 100% games for low stakes in Las Vegas for less than $10 per hour. And there’s money to be made playing video poker progressives. If that’s your thing, welcome to it. For me, no thanks.)
I was playing $1 9/6 JoB Spin Poker on a recent double point day at the South Point, when there was another promotion going on as well. There are higher-EV games there, but only for lower stakes. With good enough promotions, playing $2 single line ($10 per hand) 99.728% NSU Deuces Wild sometimes just isn’t as good as the 99.544% ($45 per hand) game.
Another player was playing $1 9/5 White Hot Aces on the same Spin Poker machine. I asked him why he chose that game instead of JoB and he responded “Higher EV.” Really? Not in my book.
The WHA game returns 99.572% which is certainly a tad higher than the 99.544% you get from JoB. But every time you get dealt a quad, the Jacks or Better game returns “only” $1,125 which, importantly, is less than W2G range. Getting two or more quad 2s, 3s, or 4s, or even one set of aces, generates additional W2Gs.
For professional players who get LOTS of W2Gs, these are not particularly terrible things. We have learned how to “write off” a high percentage of them. Still, at this casino, on a double point day, it takes more than five minutes per W2G for a slot attendant to arrive and reset the machine. On a promotion that is worth, say, $36 an hour, not playing for five minutes costs you $3. Are you planning on tipping when you get paid for your W2G? If you typically tip $5, that’s $8 out of every W2G. That more than eliminates the difference in EV from the game itself.
You pretty much get the same number of royals in the two games, but you get more straight flushes in WHA. Why? Two reasons. First of all, you get paid $400 per straight flush rather than $250 so it only takes three to get a W2G rather than five. Also, the strategy calls for you to go for straight flushes more in WHA. For example, from a hand like 3♠ 4♥ 5♥ 6♥ 7♥, you hold five cards in JoB and only four in WHA. When you do catch a straight flush on the draw, usually you get three of them — and hence a W2G.
Instead of EV, I use a form of “expected dollars per hour,” which includes how many hands per hour I can play and at what stakes. Are my calculations different from those of other players? Maybe. Part of the calculation includes an estimate for the current promotion, and personal estimates differ. But for figuring out whether I should be playing at Casino A or B, I find the calculation very useful.
Interesting comment on “writing off” W2G’s. Could this be a future column to help everyone assuming this is all legal. As always another interesting helpful story.
Very very nicely done with leaving no stones unturned with regards to EV and video poker.
It was well worth waiting one extra day for the column.
Not much to it. A professional gambler filing as such via Schedule C would declare their winnings (including W2G) and subtract out their losses “above line.” Your net income gets reported as the income of the business.
For a recreational player, you declare your W2G or gambling income as Other Income and then subtract out your losses on Schedule A. This results in an inflated gross income which can harm a recreational player. If you have 6-7 figures worth of W2G in a year, you’ll find yourself “phased out” of many common deductions that a normal person would rely on with their taxes.
Unless your bankroll is massive, or the paytables are drastically different, the best game for a solid over 100% promo is almost always Jacks or BP, and taking that further, it is almost always better to play multiline over anything else. It has been a while since I have done the calculations but I believe one could play $1 ten play BP ($50 a spin) with the same bankroll as $2 single line DDB assuming the EV was the same (I realize BP pays more). I understand a lot of players get bored of playing Jacks all the time, but these same players complain about the swings of other games.
When I played serious VP I pretty much focused only on multiline jacks/BP plays along with a couple multiline deuces opportunities as these almost always had by far the best $ per hour after my bankroll situation was considered. Occasionally I would be passing up on higher EV from another game, but I figured the lower variance as well as making almost no mistakes due to being used to the games I was playing was worth it. If a truly special situation had come along I would have been willing to play another game, but almost every casino with high paying VP I came across had some variation of BP/JOB/NSU/Illinois Deuces.
The other thing to consider is longevity in a casino. I recall a LV casino with a single bank of 9/6 jacks machines for high stakes, which were almost always completely packed with serious/professional players. The players were there for a combination of particularly lucrative drawings and other promos making the play worth around 1.5% in total if played optimally. The next best game, available throughout the casino, was 8/5 BP, which with these promos was still a very good game compared to other LV games at high stakes. I never saw any pros playing these machines. Obviously, one would prefer to play the 9/6 machines, and I did when they were open, but over time I learned many of the 9/6 players were no longer welcome back, so I began sticking to the 8/5 machines even when 9/6 was an option. Finally the 9/6 machines were removed completely.
At this point most of the pros were gone and I was one of the few remaining serious players in the casino. However the strong promotions continued, with the other pros gone I won many more drawings, and I was able to play and win at this casino for an extended period of time.
I strongly disagree with your first sentence. JoB and BP are indeed the best games in some casinos — not others. Multi-Line games are not always available in the same pay schedule.
In the past five years, I have had major plays on the two games you mention plus a version of Deuces Wild, a version of Deuces Bonus Poker, a version of Deuces Double Bonus Poker, three versions of Ultimate X, three versions of Quick Quads, Bonus Poker Deluxe, Double Double Bonus. Super Aces Bonus, and a version of Multi Strike. I’m creating this list off the top of my head without checking my records. Perhaps I’ve skipped some.
Maybe half of my coin-in on the above games has been done on single-line versions of the game simply because multi-line versions were not available.
Some of these games required larger-than-average bankrolls. Many didn’t. Most of these were in greater Las Vegas. Some weren’t.
The sad fact is that no one who hasn’t established themselves as a Schedule C filer should EVER play ANY situation where a W2-G is possible. And you can’t just say, “Well, I’ll file a Schedule C this year.” The IRS wants you to “prove” that your VP play is indeed a business endeavor, and you have to do that for five years and show a profit in three of those five. Otherwise, they can and will treat your gambling winnings as miscellaneous income, which forces you to itemize and can destroy certain deductions.
The last year I had a fair number of W2-Gs, they disallowed my fairly detailed cumulative win-loss report (based on slot club summaries for the year) and instead, treated every W-2G as gross income!!!! It took five years of wrangling to straighten that out, and from then on, the most I will ever win on a single machine is $1,199. The IRS will shaft the recreational gambler. Why bother? Getting hassled by them is a price to pay that makes going for bigger wins not worth it.
Tax issues are even worse in states where you cannot deduct losses.
As a retired home owner in New York State, I feel the bite of the accumulative effect of my W2Gs every year on my school taxes. Even though I deduct my winnings on my 1040, the AGI still shows all my winnings as income and thus disqualifives me for the extended tax break on my school taxes. I have complained in the past about this unfair handling to no avail. I guess it is the cost of enjoying my video poker addiction.
Would you clarify that on a 1200 jackpot handpay you would tip on average $5?? Is this a personal or comon practice among professionals?
thanks
Tipping is very individual and I have nowhere near enough data to say what the average is. On a personal basis, I tend to tip at South Point because I teach there and they sponsor my podcast and the last thing I want is floor people complaining about me for anything. At other casinos, I often do not tip at all.
On a point multiplier day, when there are more jackpots than average and the staff is scurrying around trying to get to everybody, I ALWAYS tip so that they are more likely to get to me faster. If floor people have a choice between going to somebody with a history of tipping and somebody without such history, my guess is that they will go for the tipper.