Always bet max coins

Every video poker machine asks how many coins you want to bet — usually 1 through 5. The payouts scale linearly for every hand except one: the Royal Flush. A Royal pays 250-for-1 at one coin and 800-for-1 at five coins. Five coins should pay 250 × 5 = 1,250 if it were linear. Instead it pays 4,000 — a 3,200-coin bonus for committing the fifth coin. That bonus is built into the paytable to reward max-coin play. With one coin you get back about 96-97% of the 99.54% full-pay JoB return — the 2-3% bonus from the max-coin Royal is gone. With five coins you get the full 99.54%. The math: - One coin × 0.000025 Royal probability × 250 payout = 0.625% of EV from Royals - Five coins × 0.000025 × 800 = 2.0% of EV from Royals - The 1.4 percentage points lost on lower coin bets shows up directly in the long-run return If you can't afford max coins on the denomination you're playing, drop down to a smaller denomination before reducing coins. A $0.25 machine at max coins ($1.25) returns more than a $1 machine at one coin ($1).