Quote: Originally Posted by jadehatesjazz
I dont know of any game I can play for an hour on $20 besides slots, OR any game where you can turn $20 into $3500 besides slots.
Jade
Either you are lucky or you have a selective memory of your wins and forget your losses. You have a better chance of being able to play for an hour with a bankroll of $20 at almost any other game, e.g., blackjack, baccarat, ideo poker, assuming that you bet the same amounts. If you play slots, you are ery likely to go bust in 10 minutes unless you hit a big payout early on. If you like the chance of a big win with a small house edge, then play ideo poker.
Here is some more rigorous analysis. Looking at the PWC reports, MG slots seem to have a house edge of about 4%, so you expect to get $500 action from your $20. This is just an average, if you hit, say, a $100 payout, then your expectation goes up by $2500, but with high probability you will lose ery quickly. Blackjack typically has a house edge of around 0.5%, as has full pay Jacks or Better ideo poker which can be found in many casinos (including MG), so your expected action with a bankroll of $20 is about $4000.
I used a guest account at a MG Viper casino for some experiments. I played 20 sessions on a slot machine wagering 2x50c on each spin for 500 spins or until I lost $20. Here is the list of results, the number of spins it took to lose $20 or the profit at the end of the session:
84, 43, 70, 34, $133 profit, 57, 128, 28(!), 51, 40, 135, $61 profit, 157, 43, 138, 62, 200, 120, 49, 127. Total amount bet: $2566, loss: $166, or 6.47%. The two profitable sessions both included a $100 payout, but otherwise I lost my money ery quickly.
I also did 10 sessions of Jacks or Better Video Poker, wagering 5x25c on each hand. The unit is $1.25, I set autoplay to play 500 hand or until it lost 20 units=$25. Here are the results, the length of the session until going bust or the profit/loss, 89 units profit, 50, 284, 119, 66, 45 units profit, 285, 16 units loss, 55, 15 units profit. Total hands played: 2859, profit 13 units or 0.45%. These were session were quite lucky as the net win shows, somehow I don't seem to do this well when playing for real money. :-)
I have not done any experiments with blackjack or baccarat, but you would certainly have a decent chance (60-70% as a rough guess) of being able to play for an hour with $1 bets.
These numbers are nowhere near statistically significant, but they certainly illustrate my point that you are likely to be able to play longer with the same bankroll if you play something other than slots.
I have nothing against you playing slots if you like them, but there are ery few mathematical reasons for playing them.
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