Jackpot Aces - heard of it?

[Minn. Fatz]

Mrs. Minn. and I just got back from a trip to Montana where we found an interesting, apparently new, multi-progressive game called Jackpot Aces. Its virtue is it offers the only 800-1 RF payout in the state off of a reservation; its drawback is its minimum expected return, as near as I can figure, is somewhere around 98.6 percent. Also, the max bet is 50 cents as opposed to $2 on other games. Anyone else ever see this one?
It's played with a 53-card deck, one Joker. The pay table we found was (per coin in):
natural RF, 800
5 Aces (progressive), 1200+
5OAK, 250
wild RF, 200
SF, 100
natural 4 Aces (progressive), 300+
4OAK, 25
natural Aces full (progressive), 24+
FH, 9
FL, 5
ST, 4
3OAK or 2P, 1
< 2P, 0
 
Neither VIPoker or WinPoker6 can calculate the effect of the Aces full progressive and I haven't really tried to. Without the Aces full VIPoker gives a min expected return of about 98.6 percent. Obviously with the progressives the sky's the (theoretical) limit, but I'd have to say the return, while not always over 100 percent, is superior to the standard 8-5 JB with 400-1 for the RF at about 96 percent.
 
Any info on this one appreciated, thanks.
 
(Edited 7/12/09, forgot to include the ST on the paytable for the initial calculation )

[New2vp]

Never heard of this, but I don't get around much.  I think the natural aces full house of 24 payoff per coin over the regular full house of 9, might add at least 1.12% in a quick estimation, but I didn't use the same method or get the same answer as you did for the EV at the reset values in a quick bleary-eyed estimation.Using Wolf Poker, I determined the strategy with 5tree = 1250, natural full house = 120, natural quad aces = 1200), then modifying the 5tree results so the average payoff was (12 x 1250 + 6000)/13 = 1615.385, and modifying the natural full house results so the average payoff was (12 x 45 + 120)/13 = 50.76923, I ended up with 96.94%, which includes the natural aces full premium (at reset).Now, we can expect more than 1/13 of the quints to be aces and more than 1/13 of the natural full houses to be aces full with optimal strategy changes, so this method underestimates the true EV.  I'd be surprised if the effects were enough to raise the reset EV to 98.6% if my Wolf calculation is reasonably close, but I don't have much experience with how accurate Wolf is with these natural additions to the pay schedule, nor did I try to see what ViPoker gave me.   Edit:  I did see one problem that Wolf had but I haven't been able to extrapolate this to anything that would make the calculations off by 1.6% yet.It does sound like an interesting game that you have to work at somewhat to come up with the best strategy even without considering the progressive meters.

[BOOPSAHOY]

I think the taj in ac has this game with the special payout for the 5 aces.

[JIMDUECE`SWILD]

I think the Taj has this game also. It`s in the center of the casino floor next to the 25¢ DDB Progressive.

[Minn. Fatz]

It does sound like an interesting game that you have to work at somewhat to come up with the best strategy even without considering the progressive meters.



With only one wild card but with the higher payout for ST, FL and SF the game I'm somewhat familiar with that most resembles this is OEJ full pay. Hold a  lot of two-card, and sometimes one-card, SF draws; hold most if not all 3-card FL draws and some 3-card ST draws; hold almost all 4-card ST draws, without a pair, wild or A showing of course.