SHARE THIS: DECEPTIVE GAME IS NOT +EV

I thought I found the holy grail of video poker: a 105+% return paytable that I could bet $8.25/hand for $500/hour. I would include pics but I don't know how to attach them here.

Specs:
IGT class 3
Ultimate x wheel
3 handed $.25 denom (35 credits per deal)
Base paytable is 105%
Deuces Wild
4000
1000
125
75
50
25
20
15
10
5

I asked Richard Munchkin to help analyze and create a strategy for the game. He referred me his friend who only identified himself as Big Red. I am quoting his conclusion at the end of this post. He is completely right about other games on the console having deceptive paytables as well.

Looking back there were several red flags.
- Betting 4 credits or less had a completely different paytable with 97% return. Why would the game force you to play with the wheel to get the paytable?
6 of the 8 games had 100+% paytables. How likely is it a paytable mistake was made 6 times?
I simply could not win over any length of play over an hour. Is it within expectation to play 30,000 hands and lose $12,000?

Big Red:

With the full picture of the pay table I'm almost certain that this is the DW game listed on the UX Wheel Poker page: Deuces Wild 25-16-13-4-3-2 97.637%, it's just listed by the single-credit payouts instead of showing the "better" payouts you get by playing max & enabling the feature. The feature is not guaranteed to increase the return. A recent example of this is *newer* Dream Card games. Original Dream Card had uniform pay tables and (for JoB/DW) the feature was triggered around 50% of the time. Now the new Dream Card has a very attractive pay table on max bet (which would be over 100% if a regular single line game) but the feature is triggered under 20% of the time, making the overall return below 100% and, in most cases, worse than most original Dream Card variants. You can't play short-coin and get the "good" pay table, which also is likely the case here.

Most machines usually have games set to relatively similar returns, so I would guess that most games, including the other DW Bonus game all return under 98%. Look at the single-credit payouts for that and compare it to what's listed on WoO. Sometimes a machine has an abnormally high returning game, but my prediction is that the DW Bonus game you have found will pay 12-4-3-2 for single-credit, and I would be very shocked if it wasn't one of the three pay tables listed on WoO.

I'm confused as to why you thought this was +ev. You were paying 7 coins to get a 5 coin paytable plus occasional wheel spins.

I was paying 35 coins for 3 hands.
5 per hand for the base paytable
5 per hand for the multipliers
5 per game for the wheel

I thought it was +ev because the base paytable is very +ev and in every example on the WoO analysis page shows the multiplier and wheel bet have a very small (and usually positive) influence on the ev. /games/video-poker/tables/ultimate-x-wheel-poker/

How do you know the value of the wheel feature?

I greatly admire the work you have done for the gambling community and myself personally over the years.

I used your 40x estimation as well as the formula to create a paytable I could put in the strategy maker.

Here are my wheel spin results:

14x 54 times
15x 29 times
16x 11 times
17x no times
18x 3 times
19x 1 time
20x 83 times
250 credits 1 time
500 credits 4 times
1000 credits 2 time
2000 credits 4 times

Quote: RoyallyYours

I greatly admire the work you have done for the gambling community and myself personally over the years.

I used your 40x estimation as well as the formula to create a paytable I could put in the strategy maker. https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/tables/ultimate-x-wheel-poker/

Here are my wheel spin results:

14x 54 times
15x 29 times
16x 11 times
17x no times
18x 3 times
19x 1 time
20x 83 times
250 credits 1 time
500 credits 4 times
1000 credits 2 time
2000 credits 4 times

Welcome to the forum, Royally yours. Big kudos to you for coming in here with numbers on all of this!

When you say 30000 hands, do you mean 10000 spins 3-play, or 30000 spins 3-play for 90000 hands? I'm guessing the former, but please clarify.

It was a little over 30,000 hands overall. No royals unfortunately so I did even worse than 97% return.

The extra bets have a small positive influence over the 5 coin ev. The five coin ev was sub 98%. I have no idea why you feel this game was remotely deceptive.

Put the base paytable into a paytable analyzer/calculator. It will show a return of over 105%. Now you tell me why you think the base paytable is less than 100%.

Quote: RoyallyYours

Put the base paytable into a paytable analyzer/calculator. It will show a return of over 105%. Now you tell me why you think the base paytable is less than 100%.

You can't take that on its own without considering the impact of the wheel

I agree. The wizard analysis of the game showed the impact of the wheel is small and usual positive. I assumed it would be the same on my game. To my surprise it takes about 10% off the return.

/games/video-poker/tables/ultimate-x-wheel-poker/

Quote: RoyallyYours

I greatly admire the work you have done for the gambling community and myself personally over the years.

Thank you.

Quote:

I used your 40x estimation as well as the formula to create a paytable I could put in the strategy maker.

To be honest, I'm not familiar with or misunderstand the game you're referring to. If you PM me links to the images you want to post, I'll post them myself. That will give us a better foundation to discuss the topic.

I have a feeling what is at issue is a wheel with a different average win.

Unfortunately, IGT has been very bad about this lately. I wouldn't call it deceptive, but poor form at least. Their bonus feature on several games in the past few years (including this one) never seem to have the value needed to make up for the amount of money you are paying for it. To make up for this, they'll juice up the base paytable when you're playing the bonus feature. I hate when they do this because flushes often become 35 or more in non-wild games. I know the casual player doesn't hold three to a flush!

Quote: Wizard

Thank you.



To be honest, I'm not familiar with or misunderstand the game you're referring to. If you PM me links to the images you want to post, I'll post them myself. That will give us a better foundation to discuss the topic.

I have a feeling what is at issue is a wheel with a different average win.

He's talking about Ultimate X wheel poker.

He made the poor assumption that the wheel was worth about the same as the max bet base paytable. The max bet base paytable would be >100% if you were allowed to only bet 5 per hand for it (you aren't).

https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/tables/ultimate-x-wheel-poker/

You wrote in that page to use a rough estimate of a 40X multiplier for a full house to create a strategy.

But an average 40X multiplier for a full house is still not enough to make up for paying 5 extra coins for the wheel.