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Video Poker Odds Royal Flush

Written March 8, 2008 by Jack Jones

Doesn’t it seem that every time you are dealt one card short of the royal flush, when you draw you never get the card that you need? It can lead you to believe that the casino controls who and when someone hits the jackpot and takes home the cash. However, casino expert Mark Pilarski is here to deal with this nasty rumor and set you down the right path:

I could bore you to tears by trying to explain how the pseudo-random number generator determines the cards you will get, but instead, I’ll simply describe the difficulties you’re up against when fate blesses you with four of the five cards needed for a royal flush.
Because there are 2,598,960 possible poker hands using a 52-card deck, you’re going to feel pretty good when your hand is one card shy of gaming ecstasy. But although the big jackpot appears to be only one card away, your video poker odds are really only one in 47 or just over two percent. Another way to visualize its difficulty is taking a thousand video poker players lucky enough to start with your proposed hand. A ten of spades, jack of spades, king of spades, ace of spades and a three of hearts. Naturally, all in my controlled group will discard the three of hearts, leaving only 21 mathematically hitting the royal flush, then 150 flushes, 128 straights, 191 high pair hands and 510 who think, like you, the big fix is on.