Video Poker - How Is This Fair? - I'm Kinda New To It

[X-Raided]

I just started really dibble-dabbling with video poker and noticed
a trend that online casinos do when doubling up.

At 3Dice for example, when playing the Lucky Nugget regular style
video poker machine, when I double, the dealer usually shows high cards
and numerous aces, which I'm fine with. My only problem is, if the dealer
shows a king and you have 4 choices to select an equal or higher card, why
the hell doesn't the game show at least ONE equal or greater value card?
Sometimes it does but I've been noticing on numerous occasions that
THERE IS NO EQUAL OR HIGHER CARD TO SELECT FROM! (see picture Below)



I know that in video poker the cards are "random" but when selecting
to double up, the game should set-up at least ONE card with equal or
higher value for the player to have a smidgen of a chance to win.

Imagine a magician at a street game offering you $20 if you can
guess where the ball is under 4 cups. You select the cup and find
out that the magician never put the ball under any of the cups. Bullshit.

[zap987]

It is fair exactly because it's random. If they made sure to always give you one card higher or equal to the dealer then the whole doubling part would have to be rigged to keep the chance of winning at 50%.

Would you really be happier if they always gave the dealer a 3 and always gave you 3 aces and a 2 but it would also always flip over a 2 50% of the time no matter which card you choose?

[spiderlegz]

The outcome is decided the moment you press Double Up. The cards are just eyecandy and it doesnt matter what card you choose. If the K would have been a 3 you would have "chosen" 2 etc.

[lots0]

The outcome is decided the moment you press Double Up. The cards are just eyecandy and it doesnt matter what card you choose. If the K would have been a 3 you would have "chosen" 2 etc.

Exactly.

And if the casino were to 'manipulate' the cards for (or against you)... well that wouldn't be fair now would it?

[H1_Roller]

See my last 2 posts on the "do you double up in video poker" thread at the top of this forum.

I found that overall I had about a 50% chance of winning when hitting EVERY single double up gamble, whilst playing VP @ Ladbrokes.

[X-Raided]

The outcome is decided the moment you press Double Up. The cards are just eyecandy and it doesnt matter what card you choose. If the K would have been a 3 you would have "chosen" 2 etc.

So then, where's the randomness?

[cerdikola]

So then, where's the randomness?

At the moment when you press "Double up".

[KasinoKing]

The outcome is decided the moment you press Double Up. The cards are just eyecandy and it doesnt matter what card you choose. If the K would have been a 3 you would have "chosen" 2 etc.

Personally, I don't believe that.
I think the double up is truly random.
This would still produce an exact 50% chance over the long-term.
Just my opinion - I have no proof either way!

KK

[3Dice]

The outcome is decided the moment you press Double Up. The cards are just eyecandy and it doesnt matter what card you choose. If the K would have been a 3 you would have "chosen" 2 etc.

Hi Spiderlegz, guys,

The cards are very far from being eyecandy. In fact they are 5 randomly drawn cards from a single shuffled deck. To implement the double-up game the server does exactly what one would expect. It selects 5 random cards from a freshly shuffled deck, from those 5 it selects one random card as the dealer card and the user selects another random card. Those two are compared to determine the outcome.

The double up game is in fact one of the easiest games to verify, log enough rounds and you will see that not only will you win 50% of the time, but every card will eventually occur the same amount of times .. (i.e. after 52 games, you should've seen each single card about 5 times).

These are the default rules for the doubleup game and they do imply that sometimes the dealer picks the highest card from the 5 cards and the player can't win - in fact it happens exactly the same amount of times as the dealer picking the lowest card - in that case - the player always wins.

Cheers,

Enzo

[H1_Roller]

These are the default rules for the doubleup game and they do imply that sometimes the dealer picks the highest card from the 5 cards and the player can't win - in fact it happens exactly the same amount of times as the dealer picking the lowest card - in that case - the player always wins.

Cheers,

Enzo

Or draws in the event of a push

I firmly believe that 'double up' in VP is fair, and have experimented recently, finding almost 50/50 win/loss results (ignoring ties).

A simple way for anyone to prove it to themselves is to get a real deck of cards and mimic what they see in casino VP; lay out 5 cards face-down, turn over the 1st card (the dealers), and then try and 'beat it' by picking a higher card from the remaining 4.

You'll be surprised how often you lose...