The original video poker machines in Las Vegas got a lot play when they were first introduced but they stopped getting play very quickly. The first machines did not pay back on Jacks or better and the locals soon decided they were not worth playing. The manufacturers changed the pay schedule to return the bet on a pair of Jacks or better and the play took off. The payback on what is now known as “Full Pay Jacks or better” is 99.54% with optimal play.
You can still find some of the original machines around Vegas. Look for old style CRT displays. The original machines have a red plastic plaque glued on the front that says “Bet returned on pair of Jack or better.” Slightly newer but still CRT machines list the Jacks or better payout on the glass. Modern machines have all the payouts listed on the flat screen display.
In the early days of the game, there were people (like me) writing BASIC programs on our 8K Apple computers to analyze the game and determine the best strategies. The manufacturers were pretty much guessing at the proper payouts and they made some mistakes.
The machines now can all be adjusted to different payout schedules. Some of them are beatable right off the top, but you mostly only find machines with loose settings in places with a lot of competition. Where I live, in PA, the casinos are all around an hour drive apart … so they basically each have “the only game in town” and run most of their machines on the tightest setting. There are, however, Full Pay Jacks or better machines, but they don’t offer cash back bonuses, just comps, in which I am not interested.
There are a lot of variations of video poker. Not all are beatable, but many are. Some are much easier to beat than others. With a Full Pay Deuces Wild machine, any reasonably bright person can learn to play with maximum advantage with about 10 hours of study if they are starting from scratch on their own. If they have an experienced player to teach them, they can be playing with an advantage in 10 to 15 minutes.
Even if a machine is not set to be beatable by optimal play, they can often be beaten when casino promotions are included. Most casinos these days offer some sort of cash back or comps for slot play and in areas where they have competition those offers can be substantial.
A common deal is Vegas is to give slot players 0.5% cash back for their play – and promotions are frequently offered for double or even triple point days. Add the 99.54% payback for Jacks or better and 0.5% for the slot club and you are playing at 100.04% – on double or triple point days, add another 0.5% or 1%. Deuces Wild pays back 100.76% – add promotion bonuses to that and you can do quite well.
If playing Jacks or better at 100.54% on a double points day doesn’t sound tempting, let’s take a look at what that actually means. It’s often shocking to people when they first realize how much money they are pumping through a slot machine.
You insert $5 into a $1 machine on each play. Typical casual players will play maybe 500 to 600 hands per hour, pros will hit over 700 and maybe reach 1000 if the machine is set for fast play. We’ll use 700 as a sustainable speed. $5 times 700 hands per hour = $3500 per hour times 100.54% payback = $18.90 per hour profit. That’s substantially better than minimum wage and we are playing a game that has a negative expectation. There are also $5 machines and $25 machines and $100 machines and there are triple point days and there are machines that have a better payoff schedule. See where this might lead?
On top of the cash back bonuses, casinos also often send out coupons to regular players that can be turned into cash just by going to the casino. There was a place called The Reserve off the strip in Vegas (in Henderson, actually) that had a 50 cent Deuces Wild machine that would deal up to 1200 hands per hour. I couldn’t sustain that speed, but for the speed I played, triple point day was worth a little over $56 per hour (yes, it is possible to calculate your expectation very precisely in video poker) … and on top of that, every week they sent me a coupon that I cashed in for $120 … and on top of that, they had drawings for substantial amounts of cash to regular players … and on top of that, I got comps to their pretty decent restaurants … and I could have gotten a free room if I wanted it. And that was just for spending one day a week playing a 50 cent video poker machine.
So yeah, such machines exist, mostly in areas where the casinos have competition but opportunities can pop up anywhere there are games. Casinos make mistakes; personality and schmoozing ability are much more important factors in becoming a Casino Manager than actual deep knowledge of the games – and I don’t mean anything nasty by that – if I owned a casino, I would hire the schmoozer over the egghead geek (which I am) too.
RickJay, you are asking a lot of questions that can lead a bright person off the path of the clean cut 9 to 5 lifestyle and into the dark-of-night recesses that most people would do best to avoid. 
One more thing: Before the poker explosion brought on by the internet and TV there were around 200 people in Vegas who actually earned their living playing poker – there were many more than that who earned their living playing slot machines. To this day, most people, including most professional poker players aren’t aware of that.
