Deal or No Deal In It to Win It

This machine has everything smart gamblers typically stay away from - a big giant community screen and a licensed title.

But believe it or not - there is actually a vulturable play on here.

They way the bonus works is there is a fixed amount of credits (2600) needed to bet to qualify for the bonus. Every 2600 credits bet gets you a 1x multiplier. Also, your multiplier can randomly increase after a bet with bigger bets being more likely to randomly increase you. Once you have qualified, you can just sit there waiting for the random bonus to trigger as long as you have at least the minimum bet sitting in the machine. If not I believe you have to touch the screen frequently to keep from forfeiting it to "The Vault"

Any time a player cashes out, whatever unused qualification progress they had goes into "The Vault" which starts at 400 credits and is separate for each machine on the bank.

One of the 5 bonus possibilities is to score "The Vault" times your multiplier.

So if "The Vault" is high enough when you sit at the machine, the machine actually becomes worth playing.

The bonuses are chosen from a wheel that has 11 stops. 3 "Briefcase" 2 "Cash Board" 2 "Free Spins" 2 "Take or Risk" and 2 "The Vault". I don't know if the stops are equally weighted.

Cash Board and Take or Risk seem to be pretty awful as their top prizes are lower than the 2600 it takes to qualify. Briefcase has a small potential to be good if you are lucky and double the top case amount. Free spins give you 8 free spins on each of the base game variants, the "Howie" version with "surrounding wilds" - all spaces around a wild symbol will become wild (appears to be less volatile?) and "The Ladies" with large stackes of "Ladies" symbols (seems more volatile), the free games include wilds more frequently than the base game. The one time I hit it it paid out decent. and "The Vault" pays out the amount in "The Vault".

So something to look for is to check "The Vault" on each terminal when you walk by this machine. Not sure what amount it would have to be to make the game +EV, would need to know what the actual frequency of hitting it as the bonus is (if it's not 2/11), plus the payback % of the base game and other bonuses.

Unfortunately, wheels are rarely equally weighted. You would need to sample the data.

Well, I've been having good results on this playing the "Howie" game, minimum betting the required 52 times to qualify at 1X and then sitting and waiting for the bonus, with a rule of only playing if "The Vault" is at least $78.00 (3 times the $26.00 required to qualify the bonus), the smaller bonus hits and base game hits tend to keep me alive long enough to hit that vault and make a decent profit from a starting bankroll of under $50.

You're going to need to take some notes if you want to be sure you have a good play. I would say around 20 Bonus Rounds (1040 spins) would give you a decent starting point at which to assume that you may be in good shape. Another thing that is important, though I would take a greater spin sample if it were me, is the potential to even figure out if you can drop that $78 a little bit, or alternatively, if it needs to go up.

From a sample of 35 bonus rounds: I went on a bad streak that included the vault hitting while I was still playing my briefcase bonus and thus not qualified, and then eventually hitting right after I decided to give up on an over $100 vault because my bankroll had dropped under 26 after putting 80 in the machine, although i started out good by getting a $125 vault on my first bonus when I first got there.

Vault: 3 (8.6%)
Briefcase: 9 (25.7%)
Free Spins: 11 (31.4%)
Take or Risk: 6 (17.1%)
Cash Board: 6 (17.1%)

So assuming the base game + bonus (other than the additional amount in the Vault from abandoned qualification)
has a return of 75%, and knowing that the base value of the vault is $4, it appears based on this sample that the Vault needs to be
at about 79.59 to be very slightly +EV, and at 79.58 it is very slightly -EV (taking the $4.00 base value of the vault as part of the base game payout and assuming 75% as Nevada minimum is likely to be the lowest the manufacturer will program the game to be settable at, and assuming the casino will set it the lowest possible)

26.00 X .75 = 19.50 base return, 6.50 is target needed, so .086(V-4) needs to be > 6.50, which results in a V somewhere between
79.58 and 79.59

I am probably missing something. But you said you gave up on a vault. I thought you can sit there until it triggers?

I mean after a long streak of crappy bonus rounds I decided not to put in more cash the second time my money in dropped below 26 :)

And vault hit the very next bonus round when I passed by it on my way out coming from the ticket redemption.

Quote: darthxaos

Vault: 3 (8.6%)
Briefcase: 9 (25.7%)
Free Spins: 11 (31.4%)
Take or Risk: 6 (17.1%)
Cash Board: 6 (17.1%)

Took another small sample, adding to previous sample gets:

Vault: 4/44 (9.1%)
BC: 12/44 (27.3%)
FS: 13/44 (29.5%)
TR: 7/44 (15.9%)
CB: 8/44 (18.1%)

At this point I'm getting $75.43 as the target number. Obviously this will fluctuate as I take more data.

Excellent work so far, though, your methodology is sound. Keep at it!

Quote: darthxaos

Took another small sample, adding to previous sample gets:

Vault: 4/44 (9.1%)
BC: 12/44 (27.3%)
FS: 13/44 (29.5%)
TR: 7/44 (15.9%)
CB: 8/44 (18.1%)

At this point I'm getting $75.43 as the target number. Obviously this will fluctuate as I take more data.

My latest total sample:

Vault: 6/62 (9.7%)
Free Spins: 16/62 (25.8%)
Briefcase: 18/62 (29.0%)
Take or Risk: 12/62 (19.3%)
Cash Board: 10/62 (16.1%)

On the version that requires $26.00 coin in for bonus eligibility this results in a target vault value of $71.17

I found another casino that has this game, and found that on this one, the coin in requirement is only $25.00 for bonus.
On that version, the target value would be $68.59

Optimal strategy for Take or Risk:

Take or Risk appears to have a simple optimal strategy. The first offer is always 1/2 the top value, and you have 2 picks, 2 values are lower than the initial offer, 2 are higher. If you choose the highest you dont get to repick (you wouldnt want to)

Possible outcomes:

You always want to take your first pick instead of the initial offer, and then keep it if it is one of the higher values. Following this strategy the possibilties are (with 1 as the low case and 4 as the high):

1,2 (bad)
1,3 (good)
1,4 (good)
2,1 (bad)
2,3 (good)
2,4 (good)
3,1 (bad but strategy says dont do)
3,2 (bad but strategy says dont do)
3,4 (good)
4 (good)

On the first pick knowing you have 1 more pick to go, you will improve 6/8 or 75% of the time assuming you plan on keeping the first pick if it is one of the 2 higher values. Even if you went with the strategy of throwing away the second highest, you would still improve 6/10 or 60% of the time.

The second pick is obvious if you have the lowest you have nowhere to go but up, if you are second lowest you have a 2/3 shot of improving, and if you are the second highest you only have a 1/3 shot of improving.

Locally this game requires 2700 credits to qualify. I checked yesterday and the vaults were all around $50-60 except for the machine that was being played. It had a $4.xx vault and the lady hit the bonus round with a 14X qualifier. Of course she got the vault for a piddly $60 total payout. I can only imagine what she put through the machine to get 14X.

Have you tracked how much of the 2600 is gone on average when you get to a bonus? I was thinking of getting 10 TITO's at $27 and using one to get to a bonus, track how many credits are left, use a new TITO slip for the next bonus, etc... I got a feeling the local indian joint I play at is going to have horrible base payouts on this game...

Do you think it's better to max bet to the 2600 or min bet?

You should always bet the minimum possible if you think you are at an advantage, unless it is something that would be ridiculously slow (like the rare must-hit machine where you can bet $0.01 at a time) and the reason why is because it reduces Variance. If the game is negative expectation, Variance is your friend, if not, Variance is your enemy.

There are obviously some bankroll-dependent exceptions, and that's where risk-of-ruin or the Kelly Criterion come in, but that's not relevant in this case as all you are doing is betting a fixed amount.

Don't waste your time with the TITO's, just use $50's and cash out after every completed play and put in a new $50.

There is a feature where you can get a random multiplier boost and it says that it's more frequent with higher bet sizing. I gave this 5 tries yesterday and got the boost 1 time betting max $2.50 on all spins - it's probably not worth it. Actually just did the math and while the game says it takes 11 spins to qualify at max bet, that's actually 2750 credits so it's costing even more than it needs to. And I think the boost multiplier only happens when you're on a spin that is going to increase your multiplier already so maybe I could try min-bet for 1-2450 credits and then max bet 250 on the last spin for a better shot at the bonus multiplier.

Got the free spin bonus 3/4 times and it was terrible. 60, 90, 60, 120 credits. Got the briefcases 1X and it was OK - took a deal at 1200 credits. The vaults weren't high enough ($50+) but I just wanted to try the game out.

Quote: darthxaos

This machine has everything smart gamblers typically stay away from - a big giant community screen and a licensed title.

But believe it or not - there is actually a vulturable play on here.

They way the bonus works is there is a fixed amount of credits (2600) needed to bet to qualify for the bonus. Every 2600 credits bet gets you a 1x multiplier. Also, your multiplier can randomly increase after a bet with bigger bets being more likely to randomly increase you. Once you have qualified, you can just sit there waiting for the random bonus to trigger as long as you have at least the minimum bet sitting in the machine. If not I believe you have to touch the screen frequently to keep from forfeiting it to "The Vault"

Any time a player cashes out, whatever unused qualification progress they had goes into "The Vault" which starts at 400 credits and is separate for each machine on the bank.

One of the 5 bonus possibilities is to score "The Vault" times your multiplier.

So if "The Vault" is high enough when you sit at the machine, the machine actually becomes worth playing.

The bonuses are chosen from a wheel that has 11 stops. 3 "Briefcase" 2 "Cash Board" 2 "Free Spins" 2 "Take or Risk" and 2 "The Vault". I don't know if the stops are equally weighted.

Cash Board and Take or Risk seem to be pretty awful as their top prizes are lower than the 2600 it takes to qualify. Briefcase has a small potential to be good if you are lucky and double the top case amount. Free spins give you 8 free spins on each of the base game variants, the "Howie" version with "surrounding wilds" - all spaces around a wild symbol will become wild (appears to be less volatile?) and "The Ladies" with large stackes of "Ladies" symbols (seems more volatile), the free games include wilds more frequently than the base game. The one time I hit it it paid out decent. and "The Vault" pays out the amount in "The Vault".

So something to look for is to check "The Vault" on each terminal when you walk by this machine. Not sure what amount it would have to be to make the game +EV, would need to know what the actual frequency of hitting it as the bonus is (if it's not 2/11), plus the payback % of the base game and other bonuses.

There are different versions of Deal or no Deal, one type is fairly rare. Most are set with a horrible hold of 14%, "Yikes". Assuming you did find a +EV system/situation, I suggest you spend as much time as you can playing because it wont last long now that you have gone public.*shakes head

Quote: AxelWolf

There are different versions of Deal or no Deal, one type is fairly rare. Most are set with a horrible hold of 14%, "Yikes". Assuming you did find a +EV system/situation, I suggest you spend as much time as you can playing because it wont last long now that you have gone public.*shakes head

Not too worried, I don't think this forum is too read in my local area, and I wanted to give back a little to the community since I've used plays I found on here profitably, including one that seems to be frequent here but is hard to find in Vegas due to overplay

Anyway:

Briefcase round strategy -

I'm not sure the best way to decide whether to take the deal or not in briefcase round. Part of it is the expected value, but part of it is also the likelihood of increasing the next offer.

Complicating things are the "bonus enhancers"

So we have 18 briefcases.

50
60
70
80
90
100
125
150
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
2000

Normally you choose 1, then open 5 cases, then get an offer, the 4, then another offer, then 3, offer, 2, offer, 2, offer, then if you reject the final offer you get whats in your case.

But there are also 5 "bonus enhancers" you can get any or all of.

Lowest Case Removed: The 50 cent case is eliminated before play begins
Sneak Peek: You randomly get a look at one of the lowest 9 cases (200 or less) which you can eliminate any time
Top Case Doubled: The 2000 case becomes 4000
2 Top cases: The 1000 case becomes 2000 (or 4000 if Top Case Doubled)
Pick 2 cases: You get to pick 2 cases and keep them both

Lowest removed or Pick 2 reduces the number of cases opened in the first round to 4
Both of those together will reduce the number of cases opened in the last round to 1

So knowing this, how do you decide to risk or stay, and when do you decide to use the Sneak Peek case?

Wednesday night I walk up and there's 3 good Vaults. $75, $105, $130. The bank is empty so I sit the $130. First bonus round - boom Vault. I go eat and check back 30 minutes later - both the other good ones are gone.

Thursday I walk up and see this one - kind of blurry but that says $216.61 - the highest I've ever seen since this thread started.



The machine next to it was at $140! I thought about playing both but didn't have 2 players cards on me. Plus I'd imagine "hogging" 2 machines and not playing them while you just sit there waiting for a bonus might make some people angry.

I sit down at 3PM and it only took until 9:15PM to hit. Yep, 34 bonus rounds before a vault, LOL. I would have gotten completely smoked if I had been playing both machines. I took a loss hitting the $216, mainly because I took the higher variance route of max betting some rounds. When other players were max betting and qualifying quickly I didn't want to chance them hitting a Vault while I'm still qualifying. The other day that happened to me when I was trying to get an $80 vault.


As for the briefcase bonus - I haven't crunched any numbers and don't plan to but I'd say take the first offer based on my observations. The offers are always correct based on the math. You have a 1 in 20 chance of choosing the big case so it's only 5% that you actually did choose it. That means you're almost always going to reveal it if you try to go to the end. Take the sneak peak + 3 others and do the deal IMO.

Sample updates:

After 194 bonus rounds I have

Vault - 14 (7.2%)
Free Spins - 64 (33.0%)
Briefcase - 44 (22.7%)
Take or Risk - 38 (19.6%)
Cash Board - 34 (17.5%)


Right now the magic number for 2600 credits appears to be $95,
for 2700 $98
for 2500 $91

Well they just took this one out locally. Checked the machines 4 days a week and made a little over $500 in profit (plus comp points, plus cashback, etc..) off this one in about 11 hours of play.

Thanks for posting it.