Sticky Bonuses and video poker

[Boopotts]

Hi all,

Has anyone crunched any numbers on whether or not it's profitable to play full pay video poker (e.g., 9/6 Jacks or Better) online when collecting a sticky bonus? The bonus isn't cashable, which means at first glance it looks like a bust, but I can't help but wonder.

Example: You deposit $100, and get a $200 sticky bonus. This gives you $300 to play with. The idea would be to either hit a royal or go broke trying. So, with $300, and a payback of around 97.5%, you'll be expecting to lose on average about 4 cents on every hand in which you don't hit a royal. This means you'll get to play about 7500 hands before you go broke.

If you could play 7500 hands for $100, it would appear as though you'll hit the royal often enough to make this venture profitable. If the royal pops up every 45000 hands or so, you should hit it about 1 in every six trials. Since it's worth $1000 bucks it appears to be a no brainer. But then there are so many variables that I can't be sure what the EV would be-- or even if it really is +EV.

Any help from you math whizzes would be much appreiciaed.

Thanks,
Guy

[Reef]

check wizardofodds.com

[Boopotts]

That's the first place I checked, but I couldn't find anything. And they're not accepting new questions [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

[BradleyT]

97.5%? Aren't 9/6 machines like 99.54?

[Boopotts]

97.5 when you don't hit a royal-- 99.5 overall.

[Reef]

[ QUOTE ]
check wizardofodds.com

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know what I was smoking in that post.. I would just whore out the BJ bonuses. Only go with the video poker when all other options are exhausted.

[Piers]

If you are playing at a Playtech site where double ups count towords playthrough, then its probably the best way.