Poker Short Term Bankroll
The Short Term–Jacks or Better
This and the following sections will show how to determine your approximate chances of hitting a jackpot with a given starting bankroll. For now, we’ll deal with short-term expectations, beginning with Jacks-or-Better. To begin the necessary calculations, let’s start with $100 and play a common 25¢ 8/5 Jacks-or-Better machine. We’ll call the lasting power of this bankroll the "short term." You’ll soon see why $10 is considered only a poker short-term bankroll.
We always play five coins, so our wager will be $1.25 (playing fewer coins wouldn’t affect these short-term payback calculations but it would reduce the long-term payback because it doesn’t qualify for the jackpot). Dividing $100 by $1.25, we find that we have, I enough for 80 plays. At odds of 40,000 to one we would seem to aver only about one chance in five hundred of a jackpot, but this, ignores the many small payoffs collected along the way.
Chance of Hitting a Royal Flush
Excluding the relatively infrequent hands of four-of-a-kind and b the 8/5 game yields about 88.8% payback, so at the end 0f those eighty plays the small payoffs (on average) should be sufficient for another 80 x .888 = 71 more plays. After those 71 plays, we should have about 88.8% of 71, or enough for 63 more plays, and so on. But wait! Since four-of-a-kind should occur an average of once in every 424 plays, we can reasonably expect to hit quads once or twice in 715 plays, so it should not have been excluded. So our small bankroll gives us better than one chance in six of hitting a straight flush for $62.50, and about one chance in 26 of a royal flush.
With a limited bankroll, the chance of hitting a royal flush on a full pay (9/6) Jacks-or-Better is nearly 75% better than on a similar 8/5 machine! Isn’t it worthwhile going out of your way to find and play only the full-pay machines? However, if you’re stuck in a town with no full-pay games and intent on playing the machines, you’re still better off on a 8/5 Jacks-or-Better than on most reel slots, but at least try to find a progressive with a high jackpot.
The Short Term-Deuces Wild |
