Station Casinos Guaranteed Play Video Poker

[bicyclecardplayer]

Being a Stations Casino Dealer I had training on a brand new, revolutionary version of video poker.
 
We are introducing what is called Guaranteed Play, which is where you actually BUY the number of hands you wanna play for a price.  This is currently pegged on the quarter and dollar denominations.  For $20 you get 75 hands and; depending on the game you are playing, free bonus hands.
 
So for example, you buy a session for $20 and you start with 0 credits.  You bet 5 credits every hand, no more no less.  If you go into the negatives, you will not owe money because you purchased the hands.  After your session is over, you cash out.
 
If you end a session early, you will forfeit the rest of your hands.
 
So they put this machine in our break room and I tested it out.  I realized when you start a session, you are already down the session cost.  So if you end the session with 0 credits (not in the negatives) you still lose your buy in.  Hence you will need the number of credits to be the same amount as your buy in to break even.
 
Ripoff if you ask me?
 
Look for the blue balloons on August 14th, and you will find these machines!

[shadowman]

I suppose it depends on your VP skills. A typical unskilled VP player loses their investment quite often and while gettiing far fewer than 75 hands. For a skilled player I suspect the paytables will be poor and the game will be uninteresting.
 
What type of paytables did they have? If the game was high variance with a good paytable then it could be a good play since you get more hands for each bill. What was the denom for a $20 buy-in? Quarters?

[MikeA]

Man, I had a real "debunk" statement compiled in reply and then went back and re-read your post closer Bicyclecardplayer.  I've got to think about this one a little more.So, you are tossing $20 into a quarter machine and getting 75 hands?  That would be like 16 hands for $20 on a "normal" quarter machine or the same as plugging a quarter machine with $93.75 except it only costs you $20?It's too early in the morning to twist my brain.  Maybe later after a few more cups of coffee.

[shadowman]

MikeA, the key is you start with 0 credits. If you end up with 0 you get nothing. On a regular VP machine it would be break even and you'd get back your $20.

[MikeA]

So you start out with zero.  I gather that if you start out losing that the credit counter would actually go negative?  You would then have to win back to zero with good hands and then try to accumulate up to $20 in credits on the positive side before breaking even.  You would have a finite number of hands in which to do this.  I guess if you were wanting to play a higher denomination than you usually played, but were strictly limiting yourself to a low buyin, you might be better off playing with a guaranteed number of hands that is MORE  hands than you would be buying in  a worse case scenario of lose every hand on a normal machine.It really doesn't sound like that good a proposition to me.  But, I'll bet that it goes over pretty good in the casinos!

[shadowman]

You can usually assume that "gimmick" games like this are NOT good. The reason I said a high variance game "might" be OK is that you lose credits much faster and getting 75 plays instead of 20-30 plays (without some good luck) "may" provide some advantage assuming a reasonable paytable.
For example, playing OEJs I have lost an entire $20 playing quarters without a single winner. It's not unusual to only see 4-5 money back results in a $20. I'd have to think about how to figure out exactly how the payback would be impacted by this technique (I need more coffee).
 

[MikeA]

(I need more coffee).
 Me Too!Webman, might this be something that could be slapped together for testing here on the site?  Or is there some legality in mimicking that game?

[nypianotech]

Whats the paytable like for this game ?

[bicyclecardplayer]

The buy in is $20 for 75 hands and $40 for 200 hands on the Quarter Level.  On the Dollar Level, I think it is 200 hands for $100.
 
The paytables are the same as a standard VP machine.  Be aware however you can not adjust the number of credits bet, it will always be a max bet.

[shadowman]

The paytables are the same as a standard VP machine. 
 
Unfortunately, the paytables vary significantly on "standard" VP machines so this doesn't help much.