25 cards, 5 pat hands

I was watching an old 'Maverick', black and white even, and as part of the plot, M pulled out a proposition bet: deal out 25 cards from a shuffled and cut deck and M would make 5 five card pat hands out of it. M would not touch the deck, and the other guy could shuffle and cut all he liked. 


A pat hand was defined as a straight or better. What wasn't said was M could rearrange the cards over and over again. 


Now my gut told me two conflicting things: it didn't seem like you would be able to make 5 pat hands, but my gut also told me "never try to beat a guy at his own game" and this won out for my expectations, especially since that guy was Maverick. Ha! 


It played out and in particular flushes were very obvious. Maverick said afterwards it works to make 5 pats almost every time. I checked it out for myself once and yeah, it was remarkably easy, no 4 oak though or straight flush but 'just missed' on both. I put away the cards, once was enough. 


Now I'm just trotting this out as an easy proposition bet to win. On an even money bet, surely betting you could make 6 pat hands would put you in a position to win considerably more often than losing. Maybe betting you could make 7 pat hands would be +EV on an even money bet.

Odious,
I happen to catch the same show this morning. I like Maverick. I tried several times with the 25 random cards and was able to complete the 5 pat hands each time. No problem.

I think once I only made 4 pat hands.

I am often shocked by how many full houses are in the mix.

I'm a huge fan of Maverick and that's one of my favorite episodes.

The television western Alias Smith and Jones also had an enjoyable scene with this same exact proposition bet. The episode is titled "The McCreedy Bust" and stars Burl Ives.

You can watch that episode in its entirety here: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x43c7t0

The scene occurs at about the 29:40 mark.

That Maverick episode first aired in January of 1958. The Alias Smith and Jones episode first aired 13 years later, in January of 1971.

Over the years, there have been many, many other forums and websites that talk about this proposition. I believe the success rate is slightly better than 98%.

Finally, here's a YouTube video which illustrates the process. A few of the comments to the video are mine, from three years ago!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shme1MPxxLU

If you were on the other end of the bet, with what you know now, for even money you'd want the guy to try to make maybe 8 pat hands? that would have to be studied

you also wouldn't want him to do something like "I have an Ace high hearts flush and also a Queen high hearts flush" ... it'd have to be one flush per suit

Quote: odiousgambit

If you were on the other end of the bet, with what you know now, for even money you'd want the guy to try to make maybe 8 pat hands? that would have to be studied

you also wouldn't want him to do something like "I have an Ace high hearts flush and also a Queen high hearts flush" ... it'd have to be one flush per suit
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Without any calculations or attempts with a deck, it seems to me that more pat hands (using more cards) would be easier, and that fewer hands (using fewer cards) would be tougher. It would be interesting to see the odds for 2 through 10 hands, each using the exact number of cards required. (I didn’t include 1 hand using 5 cards, as we already have that information!)