Harefam's Blog
Odds question
A few years back, my 2 sons and I had an interesting experience at the Venetian in Las Vegas. We all sat down at a bank with 3 video poker machines and each inserted $200. Collectively, we would split any wins. We all played 3 hands (Triple Play) of $1 Triple Double Bonus Poker (9/6). After a few minutes of playing, my son at the far right machine hit a Royal Flush on one hand for ($4000). After 30 seconds of “high-fiving” I and my other son resumed play. Within 1-2 minutes my son at the center machine also hit a Royal Flush for $4000. More high-fiving and (since they were waiting for a casino attendant to show up to unlock their machines) they stood behind me and cheered me on. They had me switch to 5 Play of the same game. Unbelievably, within minutes, I also hit a Royal Flush for $4000. We were all standing now waiting for the casino attendant to arrive. Truth be told, we were just in awe trying to absorb what just happened. The odds of getting 3 successive Royal Flushes in a matter of minutes HAD to be astronomical !!My question is:
Any way to guesstimate an odds to this situation ??
Comments
I just passed 30K hands played on the home game and haven't hit a Royal yet. So it seems totally rigged by the backroom to hit 3 Royals like that. Of course, maybe one of you is emitting some lucky aura and setting off the machines.
Yes, since we all knew the odds of this happening didn’t seem remotely possible, it did beg the question of whether the machines could be controlled or set by the casino to “allow” this to happen?
About 1 in 400,000.
I assumed 10 minutes of play at 600 hands/hour per machine. 3 hands per game times 3 machines running simultaneously implies 900 hands were played. Since you switched to five hands towards the end, let's make that 1,000 hands.
The probability of winning a royal flush 3 times in 1,000 hands is 1 in 395,000.
If it was only one or two minutes of play on the first machine and two or three minutes of play on the second machine, then the odds are longer. But it's also possible you three were playing longer than that. Time can fly by much faster than you think it is while gambling.
In any event, I doubt the casino is "allowing" you to win like that. What would be the purpose of illegally giving away money? You were very lucky. It happens.