Random Rewards Pay Table

[BillyJoe]

Alright all you math wizards out there. How do you calculate the expected return on Random Rewards?

[Webman]

For starters, you could try plugging the return values on this site into a program like VPW for a given deal, then repeat a few times and see if the return is consistent each deal or if it varies much from hand to hand. That might give you a clue to how much the returns vary from the base pay table.

[New2vp]

You can estimate a lower bound for the EV, by using the average payoff on each line.  Your estimate of this lower bound will depend on how close your sample average is to the machine's true average.I say "lower bound" because you can do better by using different strategies based on the particular values that you have per hand.  Although it's not practical to devise a new strategy for each hand, for example, you could have different strategies for lower flush values than for higher flush values.  It's up to you how many different strategies you can reasonably (or would want to) play or how many different pay lines you want to incorporate in your strategies.  And you really don't need to know the EV to determine what strategies you are going to use.I think the multi-hand games yield in excess of 99%, with the possible exception of Bonus Poker.  My observations of the payoffs were lower on BP than the other games, but it might be just a chance difference in the number of 2000-coin bonuses that I observed with this game as compared to what the game's probabilities are set at.I saw 3 times as many of these big-bonuses playing Jacks or Better (where there are 4 random rewards per hand) as when I was playing Bonus Poker (where there are 6 random pay lines per hand).What is the probability of a 2000-coin bonus on each game?Is it the same or different on the various pay lines in each game?  If different what are the various probabilities?What is the maximum bonus on each line that is less than 2000?I don't know if anyone has the answer to these questions and is willing to share.  Unless you know these, the best you can do is to estimate based on observed samples.
In order to get a better fix on the overall EV, it would help to know
the answers to the questions I posed above, but knowing that these are in excess of 99% is probably good enough for most.  If Webman or anyone else
can get them, I could produce more precise EVs to the different games if that really mattered.I have seen the  2000-coin bonus on all the different lines on all the games (on multi-hand) except quad aces and quad 2-4 on Bonus Poker, so I presume that it is possible to get them on every line.It looks to me like the
probability of the max-2000 bonuses is different on the different games, but I may have just
seen a relatively unlikely sample.The limits of the lower payoffs per line are also not clear.  I guessed that there were inside lower limits on the various lines, with the flush limit being smaller than the full house limit, which in turn is smaller than the limits for quads and  straight flushes.  I've seen 1600 coin-bonuses a couple times on the straight flush and once I saw a 1475-coin bonus on Aces with Kicker in DDB.   During the contest that featured Random Rewards, I saw one Double Bonus hand with a 400-coin bonus on the flush.  I had never seen any flush bonuses greater than 126 coins (except of the 2000 variety) in around 10,000 hands on all the games before that time.  And I've never seen a full house bonus nearly that high either.Maybe there are no inside limits (lower than 2000) per line, but the probabilities for the higher numbers are so small that one will almost never see them.  From an EV perspective if the probabilities are sufficiently small, they will have insignificant impact on the EV.  Knowing the answer to the inside limits question is less important than knowing the answer to the other 2 questions above.The single-hand game on this site for DDB is a bit different than the multi-hand game; on the multi-hand games there are 8 random rewards per hand, while single line has only 4.  And Triple Double Bonus, with 4 random rewards per hand, is only available as an option on single hand.I haven't played the single line much, so I don't know if the rewards are substantially similar to those on the multi-hand or not.  If they are, the EV for DDB multi-line would be greater than for single line because of the 4 extra rewards on various quad handsThat's all the random thoughts I have on random rewards.  Best of luck.Eduardo would probably tell you all this stuff about EVs is for weenies.  Just make sure that you hit quads when the random rewards are high and the EV won't matter.

[BillyJoe]

Thanks for the feedback, folks. I like your thoughts about just hitting quads and forget the rest. The last time I played RR in Vegas, I hit a RF, which paid me the same 4000 credits that I would have received no matter what game I was playing. It just seemed to me, in general, that the extra credit per line you invest seemed to yield a pretty good return on flush through quad hits. I may play it again in Vegas this week while I am there.  

[Eduardo]

Eduardo would probably tell you all this stuff about EVs is for weenies.  Just make sure that you hit quads when the random rewards are high and the EV won't matter.



 
EV is for weenies. I especially like a weenie with mustard, onions and EV spread all over the top on a toasted bun with chili and cheese!

[EDC1977]

That almost sounds Chicago-ish!