There is no positive expectation for just playing a video poker game correctly, without winning a jackpot. Without a jackpot win, no one can expect the losses incurred in playing the machine in between jackpots to be fully compensated by the smaller payoffs from the other winning hands.

The first stark reality of video poker machines is that money can only be made in the long run by hitting the highest hand, the jackpot prize. This is the royal flush (a straight of Ace through ten, all of one suit). Most people just refer to it as “a royal.”

There is no positive expectation for just playing a video poker game correctly, without winning a jackpot. Without a jackpot win, no one can expect the losses incurred in playing the machine in between jackpots to be fully compensated by the smaller payoffs from the other winning hands.

On a flat top, the jackpot might be 1000 times the bet, or $250 playing with single quarters and $1,250 when playing with 5 quarters per play. The odds on any play of having a royal are well below three one-thousandths of one percent (The real number is about 0.0028%). The casino usually sets up the machine so that no one wins on a flat top in the long run, except the casino. (In other words, the payoff, compared with the amount of the bet and the physical expectation, creates a negative edge.) Some flattops can still be located that will have a positive edge for perfect play, though it will be small when compared to most other gaming options with positive expectations.

On progressive machines, the jackpot starts out at some minimum, and grows. There is some “break even” point (depending on the terms offered by the machine) at which the jackpot is high enough so that when it is won, it will pay back all the money that was lost in the effort to win it. When the jackpot exceeds this point, then the edge becomes positive for the player.

Professionals and serious amateurs play the progressive machines, starting from the breakeven point, and they continue to play as the jackpot rises. If they are playing in an alcove of the casino with several machines linked together, and someone else wins the jackpot, they immediately stop playing, as the starting jackpot will not be high enough to give a positive edge.

In every case, however, even playing with a positive edge, there is no way to win at video poker in the long run unless and until the gamer hits the jackpot with a royal.

High Number of Plays

The second stark reality of video poker is that it will take (on average) a large number of plays to reach the all-important royal flush. Experts estimate that with a rational playing strategy (and few or no mistakes), it will take between 30,000 and 50,000 plays to score a royal. The standard deviation of the probability distribution is relatively large, meaning that the number could be considerably smaller than 30,000, but also it could easily be much larger than 50,000.

It is essential, also, to remind oneself of the principle of independence of plays: the odds of hitting a given hand are the same for every play made. Thus, a machine can not be said to be “on the verge” of a jackpot. On the next play of any machine, the chance of hitting is exactly the same as on the last play, or the play before that, or the play before that.

A player might ask himself, “How can I make so many plays?” Professionals can make over 700 plays per hour, and even more when the machine is ticket-in-ticket-out (no coins to fool with). That is about one play every 5.2 seconds without stopping. The average (capable) amateur can expect to make 500 plays in an hour (about 7.2 seconds each). As a result, the pro video poker player does not expect a payday any more frequently than about once in 40 to 60 hours of play, or one whole work week. Dry spells of much longer duration are also to be expected, as well as the occasional “quick win.”

Note that this expectation does not require that the player feed the same machine this whole time. This is the (rough) estimate of time for the type of machine in question, over time. Sometimes a specific jackpot for a set of machines grows very large, and people do try to play that precise jackpot non-stop because the value of their play (in terms of the expectation) is higher than normal. In such circumstances, people might even “tag team” a machine, or play two or more in the same cluster at a time, or just hang in there at the expense of all other natural requirements like food, sleep and bathrooms. But there is no need to do this under normal circumstances. The same calculation of hours to a royal would equally hold for a person who plays 1,000 plays a year over 30 or 50 years. He (or she) would have a rational expectation of hitting a royal once in that time – but with no guarantees, of course. The reason the pros and serious amateurs always seem to be in some sort of hurry is that they are trying to make the best (most profitable) use of their time. So the more quickly they play the statistically-expected number of plays, the more money they can plan on making per unit of time (hour, month or year) in the long run.

Peaks and Valleys

Once it is clear that one can not expect a payday more than about once in a normal work week when playing video poker machines non-stop, another grim implication becomes obvious. The rest of the time, the player is losing. Put this together with the possibility that there could be a drought between royals of many more than the 40-60 hours (on average) posited above. The result is clear: playing video poker for a living is not for the lily-livered. Playing the most common quarter progressive machine in Las Vegas will result in an hourly loss rate of about $35 per hour (playing 5 coins per play). After 60 hours, that comes to $2,100. The minimum bankroll required to come out ahead, therefore, would have to be around $2,100 if everything went according to plan. Most experts agree that, due to the possibilities of long dry spells, a bankroll a little over 4 times that size is a comfortable amount, or around $10,000.

Money management, of course, requires that if the bankroll is $10,000, it needs to be put to work. So the next conclusion is that there will be little room in life for anything besides video poker when the serious gamer is trying to “make her (or his) numbers.”