Payout cap for Mississippi Stud

ASK THE WIZARD

Caesars seems to have placed a payout cap on its Mississippi Stud Tables of $50,000.

At a $5 or $10 ante this is a non-issue as even if you go against optimum strategy and raise to 3x on all rounds, you've put $100 on the table and the 500:1 Royal payout doesn't cross the $50K threshold.

However, at a $15 ante (and I have seen this as the table minimum) any Royal Flush should be played at Ante-1X-3X-3X or $120 at risk. The $50K cap would then cost the player $10K in payout.

Two questions: 1) (How) Does this affect the optimum strategy? and 2) how much worse does this make the house edge?

If you assume that you play rounds 1 and 2 the same and limit your round 3 bet with a Royal Draw to $25 (the felt does say "1x TO 3x" not "1x or 3x") you've avoided the cap, but you're then missing our on the extra $20 base when you hit a non-royal flush (costing you $120 in winnings), a straight ($80), or a high pair ($20).

Brut forcing that through below yields the following returns when you have 4 to a royal flush draw in any suit (I'll use spades and X is the rank that is missing in the draw):

2h: saved $20
2d: saved $20
2c: saved $20
2s: lost $120
3h: saved $20
3d: saved $20
3c: saved $20
3s: lost $120

This repeats through the 8's rank

9h: saved $20
9d: saved $20
9c: saved $20
9s: lost $2000 the 1 in 5 times the Royal Draw is 10,J,Q,K and $120 the other 4 in 5 times =$2000*.2 + $120*.8 = $496

Xh: Lost $80
Xd: Lost $80
Xc: Lost $80
Xs: zero as this payout is capped at the $20 reduced 3rd Street bet

10h: break even 80% of the time, the other 20% cover by the Xh, above $0
10d: break even 80% of the time, the other 20% cover by the Xd, above $0
10c: break even 80% of the time, the other 20% cover by the Xc, above $0
10s (already in hand 80% of time and cover by the Xs above the other 20%) = $0

Jh: lost $20 80% of the time = $16
Jd: lost $20 80% of the time = $16
Jc: lost $20 80% of the time = $16
Js: (already in hand 80% of time and cover by the Xs above the other 20%) = $0

Repeats for Queens, Kings and Aces ranks.

So over the course of the 48 cards dealt when one has a royal flush draw, reducing your bet on 3rd street to avoid the payout cap yields the following returns:
2-8 ranks (20+20+20-120) x 7 = -$420
9s rank (20+20+20-496) = -$436
10s rank no change -0-
J-A ranks (-16-16-16) x 4 = -$192

= an expected loss of $1048/48 or $21.83 per hand by reducing your bet on third street to avoid the royal payout cap.

Does anyone care to critique my math or method? Also, it seems that this would stay consistent until the straight flush hits the cap which would be a $62.50 ante at optimum strategy (50,000/100 (payout of the SF) /8 (antes at 1x-3x-3x)).

As for the effect on house edge, and assuming that my analysis above is correct and that the cap has no effect on optimum strategy, the return for the royal drops from .006156 to 5/6 of that at $15 (100/120) or .005130 and increases the house edge from 4.9149% to 5.0175% (and this change worsens as the ante increases above $15).

Anyone care to take a stab and the impact of trying to modify the 2nd street bet to avoid the cap instead?

First of all, welcome to the forum! That's a very impressive post for a newcomer.

I'm not surprised at your major conclusions.

I have a Miss Stud calculation system on Excel. Specifically, I believe I can cap the payout for Royal Flushes and then analyze a starting hand of QJs and examine whether any changes in the 2nd street bet size are warranted. I have a lot of projects in my life right now, but I'll try to find time to take a look at it.

And maybe, one of the other math wizards may weigh in on this before I get to it.

Excellent post!

This is a concept that is typically referred to as, "Maximum Aggregate Payout," and is often applied to the base payouts (as opposed to side bets with Progressives) for many Table Games.

Question 1: How Does this impact Optimal Strategy?

Answer: Don't let it. Simply don't bet such that you would go over the Maximum Aggregate Payout. If the Table Minimum is such that the winnings would otherwise be over the Maximum Aggregate Payout, don't play. If the casinos don't want to pay the paytable, then they should not accept the bet.

Question 2: How much worse does this make the House Edge?

Answer: The question is complicated. By necessity, the more you are betting, the worse the House Edge is because that's a greater proportion of the applicable payouts that you are NOT being paid, and thereby, are essentially playing against a reduced paytable. Secondly, if you were absolutely determined to bet such that the MAP could come into play, then there might perhaps be deviations from (otherwise Optimal) strategy which could themselves differ based on how much is being bet.

The easiest way to figure it out without changing strategy is just to look at the applicable wins according to the probabilities on Wizard of Odds, then adjust accordingly for the modified payouts. You'd only have to do this for one bet level as it would also tell you how much you are losing per each dollar bet over what the maximum would otherwise be.

As non Royal Flush payouts get added, then you would have to account for those as well.

Either way, the best thing to do is for everyone to simply NOT bet more than what the casino is willing to pay the paytable on. If they can't afford to pay the paytable, then they shouldn't allow you to bet that much.

Quote: seabarrister

ASK THE WIZARD

Caesars seems to have placed a payout cap on its Mississippi Stud Tables of $50,000.
[ ... ]
Does anyone care to critique my math or method?

I just have one note about the $50K max payout cap. Several years ago, I surveyed Biloxi casinos. All casinos that had payout caps told me that the max payout was per hand for the entire table, and not for each individual player's hand.

For example, you could have a Royal Flush where your payout did not exceed $50K. However, If I had the 8-9-10-J-Q straight flush, then neither of us would get a full payout. I wondered whether or not your analysis assumed you were the only gambler playing at the time. My apologies if I'm the one confused.

Let me also say, good post.

Forgive me if I don't get into the math. My advice is to never bet more than the maximum payout divided by the maximum odds.

Example:

Let's say the maximum payout is $50,000
A royal flush pays 500 to 1 in Mississippi Stud.
$50,000/500 = $100.
So, $100 should be my maximum FINAL bet.
The final bet can be 7x the initial ante, so I divide $100 by 7, to get a maximum ante of $14.28. However, I'd just round that down to $10.

A decent question is how much expected value is lost with a $15 bet?

If that is too little to make it fun for me, I won't play.

Quote: LuckyPhow

Quote: seabarrister

ASK THE WIZARD

Caesars seems to have placed a payout cap on its Mississippi Stud Tables of $50,000.
[ ... ]
Does anyone care to critique my math or method?

I just have one note about the $50K max payout cap. Several years ago, I surveyed Biloxi casinos. All casinos that had payout caps told me that the max payout was per hand for the entire table, and not for each individual player's hand.

For example, you could have a Royal Flush where your payout did not exceed $50K. However, If I had the 8-9-10-J-Q straight flush, then neither of us would get a full payout. I wondered whether or not your analysis assumed you were the only gambler playing at the time. My apologies if I'm the one confused.

link to original post

Correct, there was a case recently where the pit boss forgot to put the sign on the table for the maximum payout. The Gaming Regulator rightly sided with the player and made the casino pay him the full odds.

Thanks for the reply! And please don't take this as a lack of gratitude, but I was really looking forward to the math lesson :)

Two points/questions:

First, as the optimum strategy for any non-paired hand on 1st street is Fold or 1x (only JQ suited even comes close to supporting a 3x bet), the final bet for a Royal should never be more than 8x antes, so the math would be $100/8 or $12.50 (though I don't know that they'll let you play the pink chips at the Miss Stud Table)

As to your (and Mission 146's) point about not betting enough for it to matter, I'm actually beginning to see with more and more frequency a $15 table minimum. The crowd I gamble with love them some Mississippi Stud, so I occasionally buck the 4.915% house edge to be social. I'm just trying to see how much worse this house edge is at the $15 min tables. After all, if we're playing Mississippi Stud over Blackjack, we've accepted a good deal of cost (in terms of house edge) for the video game/slot machine nature of carnival games. If it's an increase of a few tenths of a percentage point, that's one thing.. if it's 1/2 a percent or more, I may have to teach them craps and let them make all the inside bets they want.

Quote: seabarrister

Thanks for the reply! And please don't take this as a lack of gratitude, but I was really looking forward to the math lesson :)

That is great to hear. Most new posters want nothing to do with the math because it will disprove their method.

"That math makes no sense, my friend does it this way and he wins every time".

Quote: gordonm888

First of all, welcome to the forum! That's a very impressive post for a newcomer.

I'm not surprised at your major conclusions.

I have a Miss Stud calculation system on Excel. Specifically, I believe I can cap the payout for Royal Flushes and then analyze a starting hand of QJs and examine whether any changes in the 2nd street bet size are warranted. I have a lot of projects in my life right now, but I'll try to find time to take a look at it.

And maybe, one of the other math wizards may weigh in on this before I get to it.

link to original post

Thanks for the reply! Any chance you would share your spreadsheet?

Quote: seabarrister

Thanks for the reply! And please don't take this as a lack of gratitude, but I was really looking forward to the math lesson :)

Two points/questions:

First, as the optimum strategy for any non-paired hand on 1st street is Fold or 1x (only JQ suited even comes close to supporting a 3x bet), the final bet for a Royal should never be more than 8x antes, so the math would be $100/8 or $12.50 (though I don't know that they'll let you play the pink chips at the Miss Stud Table)

As to your (and Mission 146's) point about not betting enough for it to matter, I'm actually beginning to see with more and more frequency a $15 table minimum. The crowd I gamble with love them some Mississippi Stud, so I occasionally buck the 4.915% house edge to be social. I'm just trying to see how much worse this house edge is at the $15 min tables. After all, if we're playing Mississippi Stud over Blackjack, we've accepted a good deal of cost (in terms of house edge) for the video game/slot machine nature of carnival games. If it's an increase of a few tenths of a percentage point, that's one thing.. if it's 1/2 a percent or more, I may have to teach them craps and let them make all the inside bets they want.

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Lack of gratitude? I take it as a compliment! I’ll knock it out in the morning when I’m back on the computer.

Quote: LuckyPhow

Quote: seabarrister

ASK THE WIZARD

Caesars seems to have placed a payout cap on its Mississippi Stud Tables of $50,000.
[ ... ]
Does anyone care to critique my math or method?

I just have one note about the $50K max payout cap. Several years ago, I surveyed Biloxi casinos. All casinos that had payout caps told me that the max payout was per hand for the entire table, and not for each individual player's hand.

For example, you could have a Royal Flush where your payout did not exceed $50K. However, If I had the 8-9-10-J-Q straight flush, then neither of us would get a full payout. I wondered whether or not your analysis assumed you were the only gambler playing at the time. My apologies if I'm the one confused.

link to original post

This brings up many questions, but first a point... I only see this having a meaningful impact when you hold exactly AK-suited. as any other royal draw eliminates all of the other straight flushes.

The questions are how would the mechanics of an aggregate limitation work? If I hit the Royal with $100 bet for the 'max' payout of $50K and there are two plyers with flushes 1 with a straight and and two three of a kinds... do they take the time to do the math to determine the percentages to reduce each payout? That seems unlikely? Do they payout from first base to third base and when they run out of the $50K they tell everyone else tough luck (remind me to always sit first base, or at least never third base)? Do they take all of the other payout from the guy who hit the royal? (if so, when that other payout is a straight flush you're now talking about enough money to actually be worth filing a lawsuit... also - remind me to only play alone)

Except for when two players hold AK and 89 when 10JQA comes, this seems to potentially be a awful lot of goodwill for the casino to lose over an exceedingly rare event for a paltry savings in the grand scheme of things. You have people willing to play a 5% house edge game, why actively discourage playing the game above $10 a hand?

Isn't that 5% HA based on playing Ante only and it goes down when you play WOO strategy, down to 1% or so? I should be asking how much you get ripped off when you don't win $250,000 on a $50,000 max payout table; I'd guess it'd be $200,000.

You bring up interesting takes on who gets paid: seat 1, seat 2, seat 3; or everybody gets a discount for how much the entire table payout exceeds the maximum payout (everybody gets paid 83% of what they're owed like it was a bank failure, hey, you broke the bank!); or people get paid 100% until they don't. I'm guessing it will vary casino to casino, and table to table, and shift to shift. They just make up rules when confronted with a situation.

Other casinos have a $25,000 maximum payout and should have table limits of $1-$6, but they don't.

Quote: seabarrister

Quote: gordonm888

First of all, welcome to the forum! That's a very impressive post for a newcomer.

I'm not surprised at your major conclusions.

I have a Miss Stud calculation system on Excel. Specifically, I believe I can cap the payout for Royal Flushes and then analyze a starting hand of QJs and examine whether any changes in the 2nd street bet size are warranted. I have a lot of projects in my life right now, but I'll try to find time to take a look at it.

And maybe, one of the other math wizards may weigh in on this before I get to it.

link to original post

Thanks for the reply! Any chance you would share your spreadsheet?

link to original post

Sorry, no.

So here is the language from the information card published by the Harrah's in Philly (it's the only one I've found online so far)
/content/dam/ccr/Gaming/tableGames/Mississippi%20Stud_Rack_Card.pdf



$50,000 maximum aggregate payout per player, per hand
(applies to base wager only)

Quote: seabarrister

So here is the language from the information card published by the Harrah's in Philly (it's the only one I've found online so far)
/content/dam/ccr/Gaming/tableGames/Mississippi%20Stud_Rack_Card.pdf



$50,000 maximum aggregate payout per player, per hand
(applies to base wager only)

link to original post

and now I see there's been a prior discussion of just this:

/forum/gambling/tables/30701-payout-changes-to-mississippi-stud/

(I can't post links, yet)

Quote: seabarrister

Thanks for the reply! And please don't take this as a lack of gratitude, but I was really looking forward to the math lesson :)

Two points/questions:

First, as the optimum strategy for any non-paired hand on 1st street is Fold or 1x (only JQ suited even comes close to supporting a 3x bet), the final bet for a Royal should never be more than 8x antes, so the math would be $100/8 or $12.50 (though I don't know that they'll let you play the pink chips at the Miss Stud Table)

As to your (and Mission 146's) point about not betting enough for it to matter, I'm actually beginning to see with more and more frequency a $15 table minimum. The crowd I gamble with love them some Mississippi Stud, so I occasionally buck the 4.915% house edge to be social. I'm just trying to see how much worse this house edge is at the $15 min tables. After all, if we're playing Mississippi Stud over Blackjack, we've accepted a good deal of cost (in terms of house edge) for the video game/slot machine nature of carnival games. If it's an increase of a few tenths of a percentage point, that's one thing.. if it's 1/2 a percent or more, I may have to teach them craps and let them make all the inside bets they want.

link to original post

Okay, here we go with doing it for the Royal Flush:

https://wizardofodds.com/games/mississippi-stud/

The first thing that we stipulate is that only one Royal Flush is normally possible and happens in the 1-3-3 betting configuration.

We will use a more precise probability than is available on the site because it becomes relevant when we are talking about the Maximum aggregate payout.

0.00000153907

Obviously, .000002 is not an acceptable roundup for the purposes of this specific question.

Okay, so this would have us betting a total of eight units. The Royal Flush pays 500-to-1, and we do not want payouts to exceed $50,000, in total, on the Royal Flush. With that, we have to look at 50000/8 = $6,250, which is the amount that we do not want to exceed in payout relative to unit bet.

6250/500 = $12.50, which tells us that $12.50, if the casino would even allow pinks, is the highest base amount we would want to bet.

For the purposes of a test case, we will use the base bet amounts of $15, $20 and $25 for proof of concept. Even at $25, we don't run into any Straight Flush problems, so this is fine.

If we take the probability of each event for $15, $20 and $25, then we have to determine what the new return would be and can compare it to the old return to see how much we are losing. 8 * 500 will always stay at $4,000, so let's see how much the bet pays normally and multiply that by the probability:

(4000 * 0.00000153907) = 0.00615628 (Agrees with Wizard)

Now, what we have to do is index this to the actual return multiplier for the various bet amounts. The way that we are going to do that is to take $50,000 (max cash return) and divide it by the amount being bet, so:

50000/(8*12.50) = 500

50000/(8*15) = 416.66667

50000/(8*20) = 312.5

50000/(8*25) = 250

This represents the actual amount that you are getting paid for each of these bets on a per unit basis.

Okay, so the next thing that we have to do is essentially see how this per unit return impacts the overall return:

(416.6667*8) * 0.00000153907 = 0.00513023374 ($15 bet)

(312.5*8) * 0.00000153907 = 0.003847675 ($20 bet)

(250*8) * 0.00000153907 = 0.00307814 ($25 bet)

Contrary to what I thought, it doesn't go down a fixed amount per additional dollar bet. I think the reason for that is that it is more important the percentage between the amount that you are betting and the maximum amount that you could bet that insures the full payout.

CHANGE IN RETURN PERCENTAGE PER BET AMOUNT:

0.00615628 - 0.00513023374 = 0.00102604626

0.00615628 - 0.003847675 = 0.002308605

0.00615628 - 0.00307814 = 0.00307814

At that point, you can express the change in return as a negative and subtract it from what would normally be the return of the game. We will do this for the $15 bet:

-0.049149 - 0.00102604626 = -0.05017504626

As we can see, the House Edge increases to a little more than 5%.

The second question is: At what point would you only bet 7 credits, instead of eight, on the Royal Flush? This would be by making the 1x bet the second bet around...not the third. Remember, you're only doing the 3x bet on 2nd Street BECAUSE OF THE ROYAL DRAW; you would not do this for just a three-flush, nor would you for almost half of converted 3SF draws.

The first thing that we want to determine is what the return would be if we were only betting seven credits in the first place, that's easy:

(3500 * 0.00000153907) = 0.005386745

Now, let's look at the difference in return:

0.00615628 - 0.005386745 = 0.000769535

Right, so we can see that we are already losing less than if we bet $15 (x8) with the $50,000 total payout cap. We know $12.50 is where it is exactly the maximum return, as far as bet amount goes, if they would let us bet that. With that, we will try $13:

50000/(8*13) = 480.769230769

(480.769230769*8) * 0.00000153907 = 0.0059195

Okay, so we see that this is more of a return than we would get from betting seven credits. Not included is the fact that we would also lose a few 1-3-3 straight flushes and flushes otherwise. Of course, we were never doing this for the flushes, anyway, though we sometimes do for the straight flush. In other words, Three-Flush without a 3SF or 3RF would be negative value anyway on its own and even is with some 3SF.

50000/(8*14) = 446.428571429 ($14 per unit)

(446.428571429*8) * 0.00000153907 = 0.00549667857

At $14 per unit, we appear to be slightly better off to still make the 3x raise. In fact, I'm going to say that you're probably going to be better off because there are also going to be some single and double gap straight flush draws that would normally be satisfied by these conditions. The only hand that would make a straight flush impossible is any hand that has an Ace in it. Even then, if 100x is good with conditions that would make a royal flush impossible, then it must be good if a Royal Flush is possible.

For that reason, some other raises are probably still going to be 3x raises, even if you're losing some value on the Royal.

Essentially, you can't look at the Royal in isolation when deciding the new 3x raise point, but everything that can possibly come from the 1-3-3 betting. We know that flushes don't matter, because you don't bet just three-to-a-flush, so the flush being there does not actually add any value.

We know the potential for High Cards, Trips and Two Pair do not add any value on their own because you would not raise something like J-Q-K, unless suited, which actually has the most potential for an unsuited hand of royal cards.

At a minimum, we know that we do not make the 3x bet if the Royal would represent a lower return than it would on a seven-unit return that pays 500 credits per unit. After that, it becomes about the return that you are getting from the straight flush potential, which as we know, often asks for a 3x bet on its own even with a Royal being impossible.

Thus, we would not make the 3x on 2nd if the Royal draw has an ace and the Royal returns less on its own than with seven credits bet. After that, it would depend on the bet amount and the particular 3RF draw in question.

Which, I'm obviously not going to do because it depends on the bet amount.

If you wanted to select a particular bet amount, then it would be easy to do for that specific bet amount:

1.) Determine the probability of hitting the Royal and multiply it by the eight-credit bet return.

2.) Determine the probability of hitting the Straight Flush (or, Straight Flushes) and multiply it by the eight-credit return.

3.) Add #'s 1 & 2

4.) Determine the probability of hitting the Royal and multiply by the seven-credit bet return.

5.) Determine the probability of hitting the Straight Flush (or, Straight Flushes) and multiply it by the seven-credit return.

6.) Add #'s 4 & 5

7.) Compare #3 with #6, choose the decision with the better of the two returns.

At some point, you'd have to consider the value of all possibilities because, as we know, the other possibilities all represent negative value on their own. But, it's like...if you're playing bet levels above payouts that the MAP will allow...you've done enough at this point.

At least, I have. It was fun, though.

MUSIC CREDITS FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT:

"Machinehead"-Bush
"This is Shangri-La"-Mother Love Bone
"Space Lord"-Monster Magnet
"Monsters"-Matchbook Romance
"Cocaine"-Eric Clapton
"Wagon Wheel"-Darius Rucker

If the payout return on 1-3-3 RF's is 0.006156, then the reciprocal of that is 162.44, multiply that by a $40K payout (because you only bet 8x ante total on a $10 bet) and it means out of $6,7497,725.80 potential winnings ($6.75 million), you should have won 240 RF's at $40K for $9.6 million, so you'll be down $2.85 million just from being underpaid on the Royals, or -29.6875%. Maybe the RF's should pay 635 to 1 instead of 500 to 1 to get that down to a 2% HA.

This might be an innumerate post.

Not that this was what was being asked, but here are some expected value figures by bet level and maximum payout, assuming optimal strategy based on no cap.

Bet	$50,000	$80,000	$100,000
15	-0.050175	-0.049149	-0.049149
20	-0.051457	-0.049149	-0.049149
25	-0.052227	-0.050380	-0.049149
50	-0.053766	-0.052842	-0.052227
75	-0.054894	-0.053663	-0.053253
100	-0.056351	-0.054074	-0.053766

Quote: Wizard

Not that this was what was being asked, but here are some expected value figures by bet level and maximum payout, assuming optimal strategy based on no cap.

Bet	$50,000	$80,000	$100,000
15	-0.050175	-0.049149	-0.049149
20	-0.051457	-0.049149	-0.049149
25	-0.052227	-0.050380	-0.049149
50	-0.053766	-0.052842	-0.052227
75	-0.054894	-0.053663	-0.053253
100	-0.056351	-0.054074	-0.053766

link to original post

Boom!!! What I did is verified! Thanks!

Quote: Mission146

Quote: Wizard

Not that this was what was being asked, but here are some expected value figures by bet level and maximum payout, assuming optimal strategy based on no cap.

Bet	$50,000	$80,000	$100,000
15	-0.050175	-0.049149	-0.049149
20	-0.051457	-0.049149	-0.049149
25	-0.052227	-0.050380	-0.049149
50	-0.053766	-0.052842	-0.052227
75	-0.054894	-0.053663	-0.053253
100	-0.056351	-0.054074	-0.053766

link to original post

Boom!!! What I did is verified! Thanks!

link to original post

Quote: seabarrister

ASK THE WIZARD



As for the effect on house edge, and assuming that my analysis above is correct and that the cap has no effect on optimum strategy, the return for the royal drops from .006156 to 5/6 of that at $15 (100/120) or .005130 and increases the house edge from 4.9149% to 5.0175% (and this change worsens as the ante increases above $15).

link to original post

as is this from post 1... but many thanks for fleshing it out with the additional ante amounts and payout caps!

Also, the work on the 2nd street bets was helpful as well... though we may have to talk about your music selection at some point ;)

Quote: seabarrister

as is this from post 1... but many thanks for fleshing it out with the additional ante amounts and payout caps!

Also, the work on the 2nd street bets was helpful as well... though we may have to talk about your music selection at some point ;)

link to original post

You're quite correct with the way you determined the increase to House Edge, but I couldn't verify it without verifying it...and I'm not going to verify it without typing it since I would have to type it anyway.

Also, others can use the step-by-step method that I used to determine the impacts of Maximum Aggregate Payouts as they may relate to other fixed odds games. Suppose someone has a question about Let it Ride, or maybe Pai-Gow Poker Bonus (side bet) paytable with a Maximum Aggregate Payout on it...I can just go back to this post myself and say, "Oh, that's the method I used, it will work here, too."

My taste in music is beyond reproach. Everyone knows that. :)

The thing that caught my eye in the OP: Does it really happen where the table minimum gets shorted by the aggregate?

As Wizard said, the largest ending bet is 10x the ante. You would think that the aggregate would never be less than (table-min)×(10)×(500). In fact, I believe that is illegal in WA state. I don't know what the legal restrictions are on aggregates in Nevada.

If you want a $50,000 aggregate, your table min should never be more than $10. If you want a $15 min, your aggregate should be no less than $75,000.

The game is severely crippled. They need to add an extra "0" or two to the aggregates. The low payouts are likely illegal but if you just bet 4X your ante in total you'd make a $25 maximum bet to payout $50K.

Quote: Deucekies

The thing that caught my eye in the OP: Does it really happen where the table minimum gets shorted by the aggregate?

As Wizard said, the largest ending bet is 10x the ante. You would think that the aggregate would never be less than (table-min)×(10)×(500). In fact, I believe that is illegal in WA state. I don't know what the legal restrictions are on aggregates in Nevada.

If you want a $50,000 aggregate, your table min should never be more than $10. If you want a $15 min, your aggregate should be no less than $75,000.

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If I were their lawyer, and I am not, my argument would be that the minimum bet is e minimum amount to play, which is 4x Antes, not 10x. As the plain meaning of ‘minimum’ the the least amount you are REQUIRED to bet to play the game… yes you CAN bet more (and must to achieve maximum return) the player is only required to bet 4x to play to the end. This argument supports an aggregate limit of 2000 antes (or 30,000) at $15. That doesn’t make this the right argument or the right policy for the casino, but it’s available to them if they want it.

It isn’t often that the casino gives the players worse odds for risking more money, but that’s absolutely what they’re doing here.

I just look at it as petty. As we see, the change in House Edge on an already high(ish) edge carnival game doesn’t even go up by that much, so it’s a straight cash out at once decision.

You look at it with Optimal strategy, $15 bets, should pay $60,000. Does ten grand mean more to the player or the casino?

I’ve witnessed people raise this game across in the dark, that 10k is a rounding error to them.

It’s really simple to me: If you can’t pay the paytable, don’t accept the bet.

Is MS Stud in the high limit room with higher bets and payouts? Do they have a $100 minimum with a $500,000 maximum payout? At least that would be fair, for $100 or $125 bets. But it 100% thwarts my progressions.

Been playing at the Wiz's site for hours. Starting bankroll is $50,000
I tried playing $10 antes and got quads. I was only down $525 before I hit it.


I raised my bets to $100 antes and kept losing more than I was winning. I was down $33,615 before I hit a Full House.


I raised my ante to $500, lost, reloaded the page, and lost again. But here's the message I get when I only have 7X the ante available to bet.