Atlassino Academy · Video poker · Lesson 8 of 8
Video poker myths
A count of hands since the last royal flush feels like a promise. Here is why the next hand is dealt from a fresh deck, and what a rate of once in so many hands does and does not say.
A count of hands since the last royal flush reads 50,000. Is a royal flush more likely on the next hand?
The short answer
No. On the 9/6 Jacks or Better table at five coins, with every hand held the way that is worth the most, a royal flush comes about once in 40,391 hands, and that is the chance on every hand: the first hand of the evening, the hand after a long wait, and the hand right after a royal flush. Each hand is dealt from a full deck shuffled for that hand, and the deck holds no record of the hands before.
A count of 50,000 hands since the last royal flush, and five face-down cards of the next deal. The chance of a royal flush on that next hand is about once in 40,391 hands, the same as on the first hand of the evening.
Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks
I hear it at the machines all the time: this one hasn’t paid a royal flush in ages, so the royal flush must be close. The feeling is easy to understand, and it costs money, because it keeps people in their seats for a promise nobody made.
Every hand starts from a full shuffled deck
At the start of each hand, the cards are drawn from a randomly shuffled deck, so any deal is as unpredictable as cards from a dealer.
- The hand endsEvery card leaves the screenHeld cards and drawn cards alike.
- Back to a full deckAll 52 cardsNothing from the last hand stays out of the deck.
- ShuffledFor the next hand aloneThe order of the deck is new.
- Five new cardsThe next dealDealt from that deck, and only from that deck.
The software is built to give the odds of a live deal: the chance that any particular card turns up is the same as in a live game.
No machine is due, hot or empty
A machine is never due. Each play is independent of the plays before and after it, and playing longer at one machine does not raise the odds of anything coming up. A long run without a royal flush is a fact about the past, and the past is not in the deck.
| Hands already played without a royal flush | Runs that got that far | After that point, a royal flush once in about … hands |
|---|---|---|
| 0, right after a royal flush | 10,000 | 40,167 |
| 20,000 | 6,056 | 40,353 |
| 40,000 | 3,695 | 40,189 |
| 80,000 | 1,362 | 40,539 |
| 120,000 | 511 | 40,650 |
The same 10,000 runs in every row. Fewer runs last that long, but the right-hand column stays close to once in 40,391.
A machine that has just paid a royal flush is neither empty nor hot: the first row of the table is that case, measured from the hand right after a royal flush.
What once in so many hands means
About once in 40,391 hands is the rate on the 9/6 Jacks or Better table at five coins, with every hand held the way that is worth the most; any other hold changes the rate.
Each bar is the chance of going that many hands without a single royal flush. The middle bar is exactly as many hands as the average gap between royal flushes, and that bar is far from empty.
A rate per hand is not a schedule. Nobody’s turn comes up after so many hands: a royal flush can come twice in one evening or not at all over a great many evenings, and the rate on each hand stays the same throughout.
The machine does not see your hold
When you press DRAW, the cards you did not hold are replaced. A machine does not have to wait for your hold to choose those cards: the B.C. standard allows the replacement cards to be drawn at the deal, provided they are used one after another, as they are needed. That is what the standard allows, not a description of every machine on every floor.
Five dealt cards, and behind them a line of five face-down replacement cards in a fixed order. Whatever you hold, the replacement cards come in from the front of the line.
| Cards you hold | Cards that come in from the line |
|---|---|
| None | All five, in the order of the line |
| Two | The first three in the line |
| Four | The first card in the line |
Wherever the replacement cards are drawn, the chance of any card turning up has to be the chance a live deal gives. A machine that changed the next card to suit a hold would be keeping odds of its own, and the odds of a live deal are the odds a machine has to keep.
Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks
A long wait for a royal flush is exactly where I see people raise the denomination or stay past the time they meant to leave.
Decide the money and the time before you sit down, and when either one runs out, stand up. A royal flush you have been chasing is not owed to you, and more hands only add more of the machine’s price.
If it stops being fun
If gambling stops being entertainment, help is available. 19+ in most of Canada; 18+ in Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec. More on responsible gaming.
Practice: hands since the last royal
A count of hands since the last royal flush stands above five face-down cards. Pick a forecast for the next hand and say how sure you are of the forecast; then the run behind the answer appears: many runs of hands played until a royal flush, and how often the royal flush came once the count had been reached.
Nothing is scored here, and nothing is bet.
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HANDS SINCE THE LAST ROYAL FLUSH
50,000
THE NEXT DEAL
The count of hands since the last royal flush reads 50,000. What is the chance of a royal flush on the next hand?
- Higher than on an ordinary hand 50,000 hands without a royal flush do not make one due. The next hand is dealt from a full deck shuffled for that hand, and the 50,000 hands before are not in that deck.
- The same as on any hand, and I am sure of it Every hand starts from a full shuffled deck, so the chance after 50,000 hands without a royal flush is the chance on any hand: about once in 40,391 hands, with every hand held the way that is worth the most.
- Lower than on an ordinary hand A long wait does not push the royal flush further away either. After 50,000 hands the deck for the next hand is the same full deck as on the first hand of the evening.
- The same as on any hand, but I am not sure The forecast is right, and the run below is the reason to drop the doubt: the hands played after 50,000 hands without a royal flush paid a royal flush about as often as hands in general did.
Out of 10,000 runs played until a royal flush, 3,000 went 50,000 hands or more without one. In the hands played after that point, a royal flush came once in about 40,373 hands; across every hand of the same runs, once in about 41,299. A count of hands since the last royal flush describes the past; the deck for the next hand knows nothing of the count.
Every count in the practice run is checked the same way: a run of hands played until a royal flush, repeated many times, and a look at how often the royal flush came after the count was reached.
How the practice run works
Where the runs come from. Each count has its own run of 10,000 repetitions, worked out when the page is built: the number of hands until a royal flush is drawn again and again at the chance our video poker engine gives for one hand, because the hands are independent. For each count, the run keeps the repetitions that got that far without a royal flush and counts how many hands it then took. The random draws use a fixed seed, so the same page always shows the same runs.
Two answers count. The forecast that the next hand has the same chance as any hand counts whether you are sure of it or not; the run is there to settle the doubt.
Your progress stays in this browser, and nothing is sent anywhere.
Check yourself
Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks
Five quick ones. Pick an answer, then check it. No timer, no points: just whether it stuck.
Back to the question we opened with. After 50,000 hands without a royal flush, the next hand is dealt from a full deck shuffled for that hand, and the chance of a royal flush on the next hand is the chance on any hand.
Further reading
19+ (18+ in AB, MB, QC) · Play responsibly · the helplines are further up this page
Further reading
- Video Poker: odds · OLG PlaySmartWhy the software has to deal like a live deck, and why no round is luckier than the last.
- Video Poker: strategies · OLG PlaySmartReading the game menu first, and why no machine is ever due.
- How to play slots · BCLCMachines in B.C. casinos: the rules on the machine and why every play is independent.
How it’s worked out
Rules, numbers, sources and hosts
Where this happens. Every machine on this page is a video poker machine standing in a room you can walk into, one hand at a time.
Rules. The rule that each play is independent and that no machine is due comes from pages about machines in general rather than about video poker alone: the rule printed for B.C. casinos speaks of machines, and one of the pages about myths speaks of games in general. The replacement cards drawn at the deal are what the B.C. standard allows, not a report of what any one machine does. That the order of the line does not depend on your hold is our reading of the standard’s words that the replacement cards are “sequentially used as needed”.
Numbers. The rate of a royal flush, once in about 40,391 hands, comes from our video poker engine counting every one of the 2,598,960 possible deals on the 9/6 Jacks or Better table at five coins, with every hand held the way that is worth the most, which is how the rate is defined: any other hold changes the rate. The chance of going a given number of hands without a royal flush follows from that same rate, hand after independent hand. The runs in the table and in the practice are repeated draws at the same rate with a fixed seed. The counts on this page use one 52-card deck shuffled for each hand. Every figure carries a machine-readable key and is recomputed from the engine on every build.
What is deliberately absent. How a hand of video poker runs, and the ladder of paying hands, are lesson 8.1. Pay tables and what they return are lesson 8.2. Coins, the denomination and the royal flush at fewer than five coins are lesson 8.3. Which cards to hold are lessons 8.4 and 8.5. Deuces Wild is lesson 8.6. What mistakes cost per 100 hands, and how fast the game goes, are lesson 8.7. There is no money amount on this page at all, and no figure per hour: no document we could read gives how many hands an hour people play video poker.
Sources. Every rule and every claim on this page carries a button with the sentence it rests on, the publisher who wrote that sentence and the date we read it.
Hosts. Maya and Leo are illustrated characters. Their backstories, a former floor supervisor and a former dealer, are written for the course: neither is a real person, and neither speaks for any casino. The rules and numbers on this page come from the sources it cites, not from their experience.
No promise. Video poker is played against the house. Knowing that no machine is due keeps a long wait from setting your bet or your time; nothing on this page changes the chance of any hand, and nothing here says how an evening at a machine would end.
No machine is due
Machines are never “due” for a win, so playing on a hunch, or continuing to play a particular machine until it pays out, isn’t a winning strategy.
Some players think if they play the same machine long enough they’ll eventually hit, but the odds of a win or loss are equal on every single round of play.
Each play on the machine is independent and unrelated to previous or future plays, so it’s impossible to predict what will happen the next time you push the button.
There are no hot or cold streaks, and playing longer at a machine doesn’t increase your odds of winning.
Certains jeux donnent des « indices » quand ils sont sur le point de payer.
C'est faux. Les jeux sont aléatoires : les résultats ne sont pas établis d’avance.
On se dit que le jeu est « dû » pour payer. En réalité, les probabilités sont les mêmes à chaque tour
Replacement cards drawn at the deal
At the start of each game and/or hand, the cards shall be drawn from a randomly-shuffled deck(s).
is acceptable to draw random numbers for replacement cards at the time of the first hand’s random number draw, provided that the replacement cards are sequentially used as needed
Section 4.7.2 Card Game Requirements, a)
The odds of a live deal
No matter which version of Video Poker you play, the software is designed to mimic the odds of a live deal.
As such, the chance that any particular card turns up from the deck is the same, whether you’re playing a live game or Video Poker.
the odds of drawing a specific card or cards in poker shall be the same as in the live game.
Section 4.6.4 Live Game Correlation
11.3.2 The probabilities of outcomes in Games which simulate live Games (e.g. virtual card Games, virtual roulette) must be the same as in the associated live Game, unless the differences are clearly set out in the rules of Play.
Section 11.3 Determination of Game Outcome, 11.3.2
AGCO · Casino Electronic Gaming Devices and Gaming Systems Minimum Technical Standards · read
Hints and machines that are due
Machines are never “due” for a win, so playing on a hunch, or continuing to play a particular machine until it pays out, isn’t a winning strategy.
Some players think if they play the same machine long enough they’ll eventually hit, but the odds of a win or loss are equal on every single round of play.
Each play on the machine is independent and unrelated to previous or future plays, so it’s impossible to predict what will happen the next time you push the button.
There are no hot or cold streaks, and playing longer at a machine doesn’t increase your odds of winning.
Certains jeux donnent des « indices » quand ils sont sur le point de payer.
C'est faux. Les jeux sont aléatoires : les résultats ne sont pas établis d’avance.
On se dit que le jeu est « dû » pour payer. En réalité, les probabilités sont les mêmes à chaque tour
A fresh deck each deal
At the start of each game and/or hand, the cards shall be drawn from a randomly-shuffled deck(s).
Section 4.7.2 Card Game Requirements, a)
The computers inside the terminals randomize the cards, making any deal as unpredictable as getting cards from a dealer.
Where they differ is in fact that in Video Poker, the distribution of those cards is handled by randomizing software, rather than a live dealer.
No machine is due
Machines are never “due” for a win, so playing on a hunch, or continuing to play a particular machine until it pays out, isn’t a winning strategy.
Some players think if they play the same machine long enough they’ll eventually hit, but the odds of a win or loss are equal on every single round of play.
Each play on the machine is independent and unrelated to previous or future plays, so it’s impossible to predict what will happen the next time you push the button.
There are no hot or cold streaks, and playing longer at a machine doesn’t increase your odds of winning.
Certains jeux donnent des « indices » quand ils sont sur le point de payer.
C'est faux. Les jeux sont aléatoires : les résultats ne sont pas établis d’avance.
On se dit que le jeu est « dû » pour payer. En réalité, les probabilités sont les mêmes à chaque tour
A fresh deck each deal
At the start of each game and/or hand, the cards shall be drawn from a randomly-shuffled deck(s).
Section 4.7.2 Card Game Requirements, a)
The computers inside the terminals randomize the cards, making any deal as unpredictable as getting cards from a dealer.
Where they differ is in fact that in Video Poker, the distribution of those cards is handled by randomizing software, rather than a live dealer.
The odds of a live deal
No matter which version of Video Poker you play, the software is designed to mimic the odds of a live deal.
As such, the chance that any particular card turns up from the deck is the same, whether you’re playing a live game or Video Poker.
the odds of drawing a specific card or cards in poker shall be the same as in the live game.
Section 4.6.4 Live Game Correlation
11.3.2 The probabilities of outcomes in Games which simulate live Games (e.g. virtual card Games, virtual roulette) must be the same as in the associated live Game, unless the differences are clearly set out in the rules of Play.
Section 11.3 Determination of Game Outcome, 11.3.2
AGCO · Casino Electronic Gaming Devices and Gaming Systems Minimum Technical Standards · read
No machine is due
Machines are never “due” for a win, so playing on a hunch, or continuing to play a particular machine until it pays out, isn’t a winning strategy.
Some players think if they play the same machine long enough they’ll eventually hit, but the odds of a win or loss are equal on every single round of play.
Each play on the machine is independent and unrelated to previous or future plays, so it’s impossible to predict what will happen the next time you push the button.
There are no hot or cold streaks, and playing longer at a machine doesn’t increase your odds of winning.
Certains jeux donnent des « indices » quand ils sont sur le point de payer.
C'est faux. Les jeux sont aléatoires : les résultats ne sont pas établis d’avance.
On se dit que le jeu est « dû » pour payer. En réalité, les probabilités sont les mêmes à chaque tour
Replacement cards drawn at the deal
At the start of each game and/or hand, the cards shall be drawn from a randomly-shuffled deck(s).
is acceptable to draw random numbers for replacement cards at the time of the first hand’s random number draw, provided that the replacement cards are sequentially used as needed
Section 4.7.2 Card Game Requirements, a)
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