Beginner's Corner By Bob Dancer

A Beginner's Look at Doubling Down

Many video poker machines give you the option of doubling down after every winning hand. For example, let’s assume you are playing some sort of Jacks or Better game for dollars, and your hand ends up with two pair. You receive $10. If you were on a machine with the double down option activated, you would now get a 50-50 shot at either $20 or nothing. If you win, you get another 50-50 shot, this time for $40 or nothing.

Some people really like this. Some people don’t. I contend that for most players, doubling down is a sensible bet! Let’s look at when and where it makes sense.

Many of my readers know that I only play games where I have the advantage. Since I have no advantage at all on a 50-50 bet, why would I like it so much? The answer is that I don’t recommend it for me, but I do recommend it for most players.

Why the distinction? Why would I tell you to do something that I wouldn’t do myself? Sounds like I must have an ulterior motive.

The reason I recommend it for most players is that most players are long-term losers at video poker. Maybe 10% of my readers actually study and practice enough so that they can be winners. Most don’t. Most of my readers use the information I present to take them from being a 97% player to being a 99% player. They now get to play three times as long on the same money and they’re happy.

But being a 99% player is still losing in the long run. So if they can double down (which returns 100%), they find that they are spending 2/3 of their time on a 99% game and 1/3 of their time on a 100% game. So for the same four hours of gambling, they lose less. They now can play for six hours for the same money they used to play for four hours on. This is good!

But even with a 50-50 bet, it’s still gambling. It’s fun when the 1-in-32 event of five wins in a row comes in. But there is also a 1-in-32 chance of losing the next five double down bets in a row. Over the next several thousand double down bets you make, you’re going to win very close to exactly half of them. But what’s going to happen today? Who knows? You might win. You might lose. Winning players generally avoid the double down feature. (I’m not referring to whether they are winning today. I am referring to whether they have reason to expect to be ahead over the next 500 hours of play.) It slows the game down and lowers their dollars-per-hour win rate. But I did meet one good player who actually liked this. You’re not likely to be in the same position as he is, but his reasoning was interesting.

He was playing $5 9/6 Jacks or Better Triple Play at a casino with a slot club generous enough that he had a small advantage. On these machines, the double down feature would only activate when there was a hand pay! That is, if he were dealt four of a kind, he would hold the cards, and earn $1,875 on the hand. Since this is above the $1,200 tax form threshold, it becomes a hand pay. These are the hands that George would double! Sometimes once. Sometimes twice. Receiving a jackpot this size is very exciting to most players. No way would they want to risk giving it up. But George does. Since I didn’t understand it either, I had to ask him why.

“It’s easy logic,” he claims. “Every time they pay me money for one of these jackpots, I toke them $5. If I double down twice, then three fourths of the time I end up with zero and one fourth of the time I end up with a jackpot four times as big. I end up with the same jackpot money in the long run, but I cut my tokes by 75 percent!” Makes a lot of sense to me, if you can deal with the swings. When George loses five of these double downs in a row, he knows he’s thrown away around $8,000 or so. Trust me. When this happens, he goes around talking to himself.

What if the casino you play at doesn’t offer the double down feature? Go ahead and ask. On most machines there is an on/off toggle and casinos will turn it on for you if you like. Conversely, if it’s on and you wish it off, make that request too. Not every casino will accede to your wishes, but many will. After all, it’s a 50-50 bet, and if that will keep a customer happy, why not?

A related point is that if it is sensible to double down once, how about doing it two, three or however many times? My contention is that once or twice is fine, but more than that is not. It doesn’t matter mathematically, of course, but doubling does add to the volatility of a game and the bankroll required. Doubling 10 times in a row means you will lose this bet 1,023 out of 1,024 times. Most of us aren’t ready for this kind of downhill slide.

Another point is that I would not double myself into a W2g. If I had a $600 win, I would take it. Why get the government involved needlessly? But for amounts under $600 or at least $1,200, go ahead if you like. l