Video Poker – The Skill Debate
August 10, 2009 by admin
Filed under Online Gambling
David Walker asked:
You will find some die-hard video poker players in any brick and mortar casino or in any online casino who have done their homework on the game. These players have read every book imaginable on the subject and are often convinced that the only beatable game in the casino is indeed video poker. The players have studied every variation of the game and are convinced it can be beaten regularly for profit. These people will never believe that their game of video poker is anything less than a game determined by skill and they are right.
Just as in online Texas Hold’em games, video poker games are supposed to deal random hands and give the player the opportunity to use what they know to make the most out of the hand they are dealt. These random hands are valid poker hands and then give the player the opportunity to control the outcome of their game.
Critics of video poker will argue that the game is on a RNG (random number generator just like slot machines) and therefore the machine is set, just as slot machines are to payout a certain amount within a certain time. These same critics would like for you to believe that while you play video poker online, you will be given the illusion of being in total control over your hand when in fact, you are not.
These claims are rubbish if you think about it. The reason is clear. Video poker machines are set to pay back a percentage based on “perfect play” or near perfect play. You will of course have a more favourable outcome if you learn how to play the hands you are dealt with properly so you have a chance of beating the machine. This is true of any card game and just like in the online version of Texas Hold’em, you will increase your chances for a favourable outcome if you play like you are supposed to play.
The RNG can play a significant role in your starting hands of course but the same RNG factor plays a role in the new cards you receive when you discard several that you won’t need to make a winning hand. This is one of those games which can be debated all day long as being a game of chance, but ultimately there have been enough books written on the subject to prove it is indeed a game of skill.
You will find some die-hard video poker players in any brick and mortar casino or in any online casino who have done their homework on the game. These players have read every book imaginable on the subject and are often convinced that the only beatable game in the casino is indeed video poker. The players have studied every variation of the game and are convinced it can be beaten regularly for profit. These people will never believe that their game of video poker is anything less than a game determined by skill and they are right.
Just as in online Texas Hold’em games, video poker games are supposed to deal random hands and give the player the opportunity to use what they know to make the most out of the hand they are dealt. These random hands are valid poker hands and then give the player the opportunity to control the outcome of their game.
Critics of video poker will argue that the game is on a RNG (random number generator just like slot machines) and therefore the machine is set, just as slot machines are to payout a certain amount within a certain time. These same critics would like for you to believe that while you play video poker online, you will be given the illusion of being in total control over your hand when in fact, you are not.
These claims are rubbish if you think about it. The reason is clear. Video poker machines are set to pay back a percentage based on “perfect play” or near perfect play. You will of course have a more favourable outcome if you learn how to play the hands you are dealt with properly so you have a chance of beating the machine. This is true of any card game and just like in the online version of Texas Hold’em, you will increase your chances for a favourable outcome if you play like you are supposed to play.
The RNG can play a significant role in your starting hands of course but the same RNG factor plays a role in the new cards you receive when you discard several that you won’t need to make a winning hand. This is one of those games which can be debated all day long as being a game of chance, but ultimately there have been enough books written on the subject to prove it is indeed a game of skill.
Kill the Skill Game Argument
June 22, 2009 by admin
Filed under Online Gambling
roger asked:
Though on the surface it may appear as though the online poker world in the USA is doing the rest of the iGambling world a major favor by leading the fight to have the ban on online gambling lifted, I beg to differ.
First of all, to suggest that winning at poker requires more skill than most other betting games – like speculating on those “too-good-to-be-glue” horses – is not only missing the point altogether, but it also bound to adversely affect the pro-online gambling lobby in the long run, specifically the hundreds upon hundreds of the online casinos and other gaming sites proliferating in cyberspace. (Another dozen or so will have sprung up by the time you finish reading this article.)
The real debate in America, after all, is not whether one game requires skill in order to improve one’s chances of winning, while other games like blackjack, roulette and craps etc. are all about luck and therefore deemed unsafe for Americans. If that were indeed the case, aside from poker, all wagering games like bingo, video poker, keno, sports betting, and lotteries would be banished from the US of A.
Morals, My Assets
Though the American Right would have us believe the argument revolves around ethics, in reality (where most of us live) nothing could be further from the truth, or more hypocritical. American citizens are totally free to enter any licensed land-based casino right now and gamble away everything they bought (on credit) on games based on pure luck like slot machines and video poker. Thus the debate is political in nature – pure and simple – and fueled on by protectionists bent on safeguarding their land-based casino assets, the horse racing industry, and state lottery monopolies.
At the end of the day America will wind up reversing its ban on online gambling. But only after it realizes just how much mega-money it is losing by NOT legalizing, taxing and regulating the online gaming industry, compounded by the insane cost of trying to enforce its futile and blatantly discriminating war on (some) gamblers in order to protect the Caesars, Trumps and other land casinos from good old healthy competition. With the UK and increasingly more EU countries embracing online gambling and inching closer to regulating the industry, Old Europe’s is now showing the Americans a few card tricks they’ve never seen before. When the US finally does wake up and smell the coffers, much will have been long lost to those more enlightened united states across the pond.
Don’t Thank the Banks
The true culprits are the banks and credit card companies whose very business depends on lending out money to ‘customers’ with the hopes (and good luck) that these same ‘customers’ will fall into even deeper debt and subsequently need to borrow more money to purchase more lottery tickets, more cigarettes, more alcohol, and more over and under the counter drugs.
The first step towards building a safer, regulated online gambling industry is not by differentiating between skill and luck-based wagering games, but rather by better regulating the banks. If the banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions would just stop lending people more money than they should – not to mention at exorbitant interest rates – perhaps we’d be getting somewhere.
Though on the surface it may appear as though the online poker world in the USA is doing the rest of the iGambling world a major favor by leading the fight to have the ban on online gambling lifted, I beg to differ.
First of all, to suggest that winning at poker requires more skill than most other betting games – like speculating on those “too-good-to-be-glue” horses – is not only missing the point altogether, but it also bound to adversely affect the pro-online gambling lobby in the long run, specifically the hundreds upon hundreds of the online casinos and other gaming sites proliferating in cyberspace. (Another dozen or so will have sprung up by the time you finish reading this article.)
The real debate in America, after all, is not whether one game requires skill in order to improve one’s chances of winning, while other games like blackjack, roulette and craps etc. are all about luck and therefore deemed unsafe for Americans. If that were indeed the case, aside from poker, all wagering games like bingo, video poker, keno, sports betting, and lotteries would be banished from the US of A.
Morals, My Assets
Though the American Right would have us believe the argument revolves around ethics, in reality (where most of us live) nothing could be further from the truth, or more hypocritical. American citizens are totally free to enter any licensed land-based casino right now and gamble away everything they bought (on credit) on games based on pure luck like slot machines and video poker. Thus the debate is political in nature – pure and simple – and fueled on by protectionists bent on safeguarding their land-based casino assets, the horse racing industry, and state lottery monopolies.
At the end of the day America will wind up reversing its ban on online gambling. But only after it realizes just how much mega-money it is losing by NOT legalizing, taxing and regulating the online gaming industry, compounded by the insane cost of trying to enforce its futile and blatantly discriminating war on (some) gamblers in order to protect the Caesars, Trumps and other land casinos from good old healthy competition. With the UK and increasingly more EU countries embracing online gambling and inching closer to regulating the industry, Old Europe’s is now showing the Americans a few card tricks they’ve never seen before. When the US finally does wake up and smell the coffers, much will have been long lost to those more enlightened united states across the pond.
Don’t Thank the Banks
The true culprits are the banks and credit card companies whose very business depends on lending out money to ‘customers’ with the hopes (and good luck) that these same ‘customers’ will fall into even deeper debt and subsequently need to borrow more money to purchase more lottery tickets, more cigarettes, more alcohol, and more over and under the counter drugs.
The first step towards building a safer, regulated online gambling industry is not by differentiating between skill and luck-based wagering games, but rather by better regulating the banks. If the banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions would just stop lending people more money than they should – not to mention at exorbitant interest rates – perhaps we’d be getting somewhere.
