Video Poker Variance

[Quincel]

Video Poker is a massively swings and roundabouts game, it's part of why we love it. But it can also mean you crash and burn all too fast. If I wanted to reduce the variance and make for a 'safer' game would I be best off to play one hand or 100 (or whatever the maximum is), what about if I had to bet more on each hand for 100 hand?

I'm sure this has been asked, but I'm useless with the search function I'm afraid.

Cheers,
Quincel

[Balky]

Depending on the type of VP you can lower the variance playing multihand with small bets, trying to make a profit by doubling up cautiously (2-3 doubling hits)

Cheers Balky

[aka23]

Video Poker is a massively swings and roundabouts game, it's part of why we love it. But it can also mean you crash and burn all too fast. If I wanted to reduce the variance and make for a 'safer' game would I be best off to play one hand or 100 (or whatever the maximum is), what about if I had to bet more on each hand for 100 hand?

I'm sure this has been asked, but I'm useless with the search function I'm afraid.

Cheers,
Quincel

It depends how your bet size changes by playing more hands. Generally more hands decreases variance, if you decrease bet size per line as increasing number of hands and/or maintain a constant total bet size summed across all lines. And more hands has increases variance, if you maintain a constant bet size per line as increasing number of hands. For example, $1 bets on 1-hand JoB has a similar variance to:

0.75x4 = $3 total bets on 4-hand JoB
0.5x10 = $5 total bets on 10-hand JoB
0.3x25 = $7.5 total bets on 25-hand JoB
0.09x100 = $9 total bets on 100-hand JoB

You can get numbers for other bet sizes using the R&V calc/simulator on my site.

[Quincel]

That's great, thanks a lot everyone.