Help decide which AP is better

Hi gang, really respect everyone's opinions and experience on this board so thought I'd post a dilemma I'm currently facing...

My local casino recently started offering a promo on certain weeknights which results in a total slot club bonus of .934%

There are two games offered on certain "all-star" type machines that are candidates as advantage plays. They are as follows:

Option #1) $1 denomination - Double Super Times Pay - 3 Play - 10/6 Double Bonus Poker which I believe returns 99.39% for a total payback of 100.324%

I know that the single line version of this DSTP game has a variance listed at 69.144124 but I'm unsure how that scales up for the 3 play game and what that means in actual dollars of standard deviation for a 21 credit max bet.

Option #2) $1 denomination - Ultimate X - 3 Play - 7/5 Bonus Poker which I believe returns 99.28% for a total payback of 100.214%

I know that the single line version of this Ultimate X game has a variance listed at 35.512649 which is almost half of option #1, but I'm also unsure how that scales for the 3 play game and what that means in actual dollars of standard deviation for a 30 credit max bet.

Which of these would you choose and why? I'm looking for answers that include something about bankroll requirement, variance, standard deviation, volatility, strategy difficulty, etc. I'm primarily concerned about enduring really big swings and running out of money before being able to realize the advantage play.

For reference, and to relate to these other games, up until now I've typically only played $1 - 5 Play - Deuces Wild 9/15 @ 98.91%, a slightly losing game but mainly just for fun and an easy way to earn tier credits without risking losing too much.

Thanks all for your time and consideration and appreciate any education on the math and logic that you can provide!

I would play option 1 because the payback is higher, the cost per game is lower, and I don't like the fact that I have to modify strategy depending on what ultimate X multipliers are next (if you want to play optimally). With super times pay, optimal play is the same as normal video poker.

Nothing is positive after a certain amount of time until you score a Royal. So how fast can you play 40K+ hands? You may not hit a Royal until 30K hands have gone by, or maybe just 30 hands. Bankrolls should be at least one Royal and likely more, maybe 5. You'll be looking for progressive meters over a certain amount.

In a practical sense, how long is this promotion expected to run? There's about 1.34% non-negligible amount of value in the royal. You're probably looking at around 1500hph, and if you go with the general rule of thumb of 1:40k, you're looking at over 25h per royal on average.

Yes, hands don't have memory, you might pull a royal on the first hand, and these are wild leaps of estimation, but the general point still stands: Do you have the time to ride variance?

Can you help me understand where the 1.34% comes from? My examination of the games using the wizard's video poker analyzer tool shows that 2.05% of the total return on DSTP is attributed to the royal, compared to 1.63% on the UX and for reference standard JOB is 1.98%.

The promotion currently has no end date. It runs 3 days a week, 7 hours each day. It would appear there's sufficient time to ride the waves. So the question still is: which of these two games would be easier on the stomach? Does the lower royal value on the UX game mean it should be less volatile?

Quote: trackmastergreg

Can you help me understand where the 1.34% comes from? My examination of the games using the wizard's video poker analyzer tool shows that 2.05% of the total return on DSTP is attributed to the royal, compared to 1.63% on the UX and for reference standard JOB is 1.98%.
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Sorry; you're right, the number's off. WoV's VP analyzer reset some of the other paytable values when I was checking the numbers. Amending my original post.

I'd stay away from Ultimate X. The doubled bet for the extra pay doesn't seem to be worth it, it just eats up your session money in the odd chance you get a big payout, like dealt quads.

Not only does option 1 have the slightly better payback %, it has slightly less $ variance as well. The $ variance is the variance per unit times bet amount squared. Super Times Pay is 69 x 21^2 = 30,400. Ultimate X is 35 x 30^2 = 31,500.

Yes, unless you know how to transition based on the multipliers you will not get to the 99.28%. The Wizard 10 play strategy knocks off 0.08% from theoretical and given this is five play will likely knock off 0.12% or more because you transition differently because there are fewer hands. DSTP, if it is really 10/6 DB and not 9/6 DB, seems like the better bet.