Video poker machines are a con
pay a little attention to video poker machines lurking in the corner of land-based casinos where the local gambling ordinances permit them. They are there to take the hard-earned dollars from suckers. They play to the greed, the get-rich-quick in the poor saps who can’t resist them. . . Sore losers. . . Everyday you hear them sobbing about lost money and still see them coming back to the machines. There’s only one thing you can say about these people. They have worked out the one important feature of the machines. Casino always win. No matter where you go in the casino world, whether its to some swanky place or online, the paytables are set in a way that gives the House a mathematical advantage. Then those streaks will go cold. That’s just the way statistics work their way to the one mathematical certainty. The House will win in the end. So don’t understand those poor people wrong. There’s no need for the House to rig the machines. The casino operators are going to win in the long term without having to cheat. There’s no way they will spoil a sure thing by risking detection as a fraud by regulators.