Closed for maintenance?

[spxChrome]

Same thing happened to my old Indian Casino. They had 2 casinos and closed one back in 2010 but left the hotel and high limit room with 6 old style machines. They were great they played like the good old days. I could always get 1 or 2 800s out of a session at the least. Then I talked to a friend who played them as much as I did and he said they changed the chips in them while he was there one afternoon. After that all you could get is 250s or a 400 on rare occasions... never got another handpay unless it was dealt. Paytables didn't change just the chips where changed and now the machines are dead. I still try them every now but its just dead hand after dead hand. I am 100% convinced that post deal these machines and the newer machines are no longer random. Preflop yes after that it is pretty much on a slot machine payout %

[notes1]

KK, my question about positive/negative results was not intended to make any point. we get lots of posts about good/bad sessions and i enjoy reading them. but, we do not get lots of posts that elaborate on their net results. i am not expecting actual numbers, simply a + or -, and whether these numbers are within reasonable expectations. i appreciate all those who post such details.  i find your info interesting, so forget about whether it is long winded or not. i get requests from young clients, who are looking for answers to complex questions and expect those answers to be a 140 characters or less. not possible in some cases.  your post below indicates that you believe the long term results represent those advertised by the paytables. yet, i believe you have also made posts that the machines are different and your experience in some casinos, the results fall far behind advertised expectations.   

[DrawingDead]

I live in Vegas and I am curious if they do the same "maintenance" on VP machines on the strip and the local casinos. I am aware of smaller places doing it, Mohegan Sun and other establishments. I do not think the Indian casinos or other places have the regulations in place like Vegas does. I am guessing they can do whatever they please with the VP machines?

[edog743]

The NATIVE AMERICAN casino is probably regulated as much if not more than Las Vegas. They have a gaming compact with the state,they also have federal regulations they have to abide by. They further are not only subject to inspections by their state they also are inspected by the feds.

[olds442jetaway]

KK, funny, my percentage since 2010 is right around 95%. Luckily, I still like and use my old Saturn with 306k on it. I guess I could have bought a couple of new M Benz and a small vacation home with that difference between 95% and 99%. Oh well, life is all about choices and at least until now, I chose vp and the wife and I have had some nice times up at Mohegan Sun and not just with the gaming.

[notes1]

The NATIVE AMERICAN casino is probably regulated as much if not more than Las Vegas. They have a gaming compact with the state,they also have federal regulations they have to abide by. They further are not only subject to inspections by their state they also are inspected by the feds.
  i find this statement interesting. i do not know if it is accurate, but the poster seems pretty confident. i am pretty sure that states have limited authority over indian soverign territory. it always seemed to me that the only thing the states were concerned about was how much their cut would be. wasn't it an online casino site, run on indian land, in canada, that was the source of the biggest fraud in the poker world? 

[ko king]

KK, funny, my percentage since 2010 is right around 95%. Luckily, I still like and use my old Saturn with 306k on it. I guess I could have bought a couple of new M Benz and a small vacation home with that difference between 95% and 99%. Oh well, life is all about choices and at least until now, I chose vp and the wife and I have had some nice times up at Mohegan Sun and not just with the gaming.

I kept my results for 2 years worth of play at one casino, the advertised pay back percentage was 98.98%. The years I played there were back to back full years and I played $2 denomination single line DDB always at max play. I won't go into the exact amount of hands played and the amount of money I lost because it's not something I'm proud of. Now in "random" video poker we all expect our results to vary over periods of time, seeing as how it's random any pattern should be hard to identify. Both of the years were like twins, it was odd to actually look at it on paper. The first year I finished the year at 95.4% payback and since I played $2 denomination DDB the quality hands were easy to identify as they garnered a W-2G. I could easily see how much real money I lost playing that first year there but I took the time to log which quality hands I was shorted on that led to my losses. Taking the poker statistics available on this site and doing the math for the amount of hands played that year I could see I was short on X amount of Aces w/kicker, X amount of quad aces, X amount of 2,3 & 4's w/kicker, these were all hands that required a hand pay/W-2G, not hard to see what was missing with these hands when I looked at my casino statement for that year which clearly stated the amount of hands played. In my little pocket notebook I always kept up with quad 2,3 & 4's along with standard quads. I was pretty upset that my results were so poor that year which was my first year to play there but I was also a little mad, not only at myself but at the casino to a certain extent, I had never done that bad at any other casino and I had been playing for over 20 years. Now the smart thing to do would have been to walk away and never play at that casino again but like I said I was a little mad and confused, I also had a point I felt I needed to make even if it only meant satisfying my belief that something was indeed missing at this casino. So I started another year of play at that casino, playing the same game at the same denomination. When the year ended once again my losses were almost the same exact amount. My payback percentage was just slightly higher at 95.45%. The missing hands that led to the losses were close to identical as the previous year. So armed with all this information and paperwork showing all the facts and figures I set up a meeting with a casino rep who seemed very concerned and interested, not sure what I expected to gain from any of this but I was going to see it thru. After a while I received what seemed like a very sincere apology and was told they were going to test every machine they had and they would get back to me two weeks. Two weeks went by, then three weeks, after a month I went back to see the person at the casino. Along with him came another fellow straight out of the movie Goodfellows, he didn't say a word while the casino rep explained that they had tested all the machines and they operating within the acceptable curve. I had never heard that term before "acceptable curve" so I inquired as to what that meant. I was told that the acceptable curve was a line of sorts that moved up and down on a number range. Okay I got that, now what number does "acceptable" represent I ask. He said it was a minimal number and a maximum number that told them if the machine or machines were operating within regulations and all the machines they tested were within the "acceptable curve" except for a couple of the lower denomination machines I didn't seem concerned about. Once again I tried to ask the question more plainly and direct from a fellow that was obviously getting a little agitated with me, "What is the actual minimal number and the actual maximum number?". This time the guys smile was completely gone and I tell he was tired of dealing with me, once again he replied "we tested the machines and they are operating within the "accepted curve", there's nothing else we can do for you, sorry for your bad luck, the other guy still hadn't said a word and was kind of making a little uncomfortable, surely this guy won't shoot me in front of all these folks, would he. Ready to die for the cause if it was completely necessary I somewhat demanded to know the high and low number, Finally the guy said the low number was 84 and the high number was 99.99. I thanked him for the info and asked how many of the machine were operating closer to the lower end of the curve and if he could provide any type of explanation as to why my 2 years results were so poor. All of the sudden the other spoke and he made it perfectly clear the conversation was over and it was time for me to leave, he did offer some sound advice though, if ya don't like it here go somewhere else and it would be in my best interest to just drop it and move along.

[notes1]

KK, your stories keep getting better. you said a lot that was of interest. as i do not keep track of percentages, it was good reading that your returns were in line with 'olds' and much less than expected. no one can state that maybe you had faulty memory, as you kept actual stats.  of course, the acceptible curve was also of interest. i am confident that the casinos test their machines to make sure the actual take from a machine closely matches the 'hold', they have programmed ito the machine. i am also confident that they do this on a constant basis. they do not want a machine on the floor, that is not bringing in results less than expected. if a machine were producing less than expected, over the long term, i am sure it would be re-programmed or replaced. but, what happens, when a machine produces more than expected. are they as quick to check out that machine or just look the other way.  

[alpax]

I ran the bankroll simulator for a few hours on Video Poker for Winners on 500,000 hands of 9/6 DDB (98.9808% with optimal play). The bell curve rounds out evenly and is spread very wide due to the high variance game.

This is without taking comps or casino card cash back rates.

20% chance your return will at least be 100%, meaning you are a winner over 500k max bet hands.

30% chance your return will be 98.98% to 99.99%, meaning you are doing better than the expected return but still losing against the casino without considering comps/cashback factored in

30% chance your return will be 98.00% to 98.9799%, meaning you are doing worse than the expected return and your losses will be signifcant

20% chance your return will be below 98%. meaning you are losing twice the expected return of the game, serious loss will be shown and you will need to ride out another 500k hands to 1 million hands in hopes to get closer to theoretical return.

So 4 percent chance you will be down more than 2% overall return after playing 1 million hands losing at least $25,000 for max bet quarter denomination.

[notes1]

if i understand correctly, there is 4% chance of results being worse than 96%.  if one believes in the math, believes the machines are all playing as they should, then it seems to go against the math, that 2 posters, who have played for many years, put a lot of money thru the machines, keep accurate records, would both be stating that their results are outside even the worst expected results.  they must both be very unlucky.