Yes my friends, today you’ll find out about something no other video poker writer or expert has ever had the nerve to report on. And you know what? Most of you who actually play the game will agree with every word I say, and you will recall multiple instances of exactly what I’m talking about. Why? Because it’s absolutely true, it happens all the time, and EVERYONE KNOWS it happens all the time. Starting right here and now, the subject is taboo no longer.

First off, why haven’t these patterns been exposed up until now, by ANYONE? Well, you certainly know if those who sell the math as a way of playing were to report on this or even suggest they agree with even a portion of it, that would be commercial suicide. Why? Because all the BS about long-term strategy and attaining tiny win percentages before stepping into the grave after years of flawless play, would by definition be rendered 100% useless. And since these famous names rely on the income they receive from the sales of that method in order to have the money to go out and gamble with, it would be similar to killing their own personal cash cows.

So why haven’t I brought this topic front & center until today? I have to apologize, but it’s only been because my strategies require I stop playing the game and denomination I’m on the moment I attain my win goal. Each game…indeed each pay table, has their own separate programs they run on within each machine. So unless I’m spending a lot of time on one particular game within one particular denomination, it’s been nearly impossible to spot developing patterns when playing within such a structured approach.

But they are there, and they can be identified fairly easy IF the player is determined enough to actually beat the game instead of just playing for the comps and the points – as we are so often misleadingly told to do by the other famous names. In fact, those who follow the guru method of playing on and on and on for hour after hour on the same machine in the same denomination, stand to benefit the most from this disclosure. But they won’t, only because the ones they worship will tell them patterns do not exist. Remember, preserving the ability to take other people’s money through the sales of their products greatly trumps teaching players how to win money from the machines.

Let’s begin with something rather easy to associate with. How many times have you been dealt four to an outside straight (I NEVER hold four to an inside straight in ANY game because it is a very poor play for those who want to walk away a winner), two pair, or four to a flush….and the draw card simply FLIPS OVER to the same number (value) that was discarded in a different suit? Well, right about now the math geeks are busy explaining it all away - as they usually do when anything challenges their make-believe 100% random world – by claiming it’s just “selective memory”. That’s their favorite fudge-factor explanation that they don’t think can be challenged even by the Pope on Easter Sunday.

Let me give you all an exercise and see how close you come to MY results. On my last trip to Las Vegas I sat at a penny machine in Sam’s Town playing one penny at a time for 5 hours total (about 3500 hands). The deals I described above occurred exactly 423 times, and the draw card came up a FLIP OVER 233 times – or about a 55% occurrence. Seeing that there’s 47 cards remaining in the deck with just 3 “FLIP OVERS” included among them, in random terms the FLIP OVER has a less than 6.5% probability of happening. Although this is not a pattern that can help you make money like I’ll be talking about in a moment, it’s a pattern nonetheless.

What kind? I consider it a very good telltale sign that the machines are indeed programmed just a bit beyond what anyone has been told they are or has been able to determine from reading the limited and incomplete Gaming Regulations on-line or on paper that we the public are allowed to see. Any astute player will keep this in mind as they compete against the casinos – using it as confident knowledge that there’s more to the game than meets the slide rule. And armed with that type of open-minded knowledge, we can conclude that the simple-minded "advantage player" has really been fooling only himself all along.

And can this 55% be considered an anomaly? No, not in the least. It’s something I’ve noticed – and probably EVERY player has noticed – only they/we didn’t want it to be so. Well now I know it is, and all the pretending in the world by the misled math people that’s it’s just another case of “selective memory” cannot alter a fact that was investigated simply because the human mind spotted it first.

I’m sure this incident brings to mind the many, many times you all believe that draw card or cards for the Royal or Quad or SF that’s missed, all too often seems to be the very first one dealt on the following hand. I do have that same concern and I believe those numbers would be skewed too, however, there’s no way I’m going to sit at a video poker machine 8 hours a day for a week or more to test that theory out. I had MORE THAN ENOUGH banging away for 5 hours – even with multiple breaks – checking this one out, and I was completely & totally burned out for playing serious video poker on the trip after that.

To expand on that which I recently sent out in a June e-newsletter, a pattern that could help you if you approach it properly is one where you’re in a truly random mode on your multi-game/multi-denomination machine, you’re not getting killed nor are you winning a whole lot, and suddenly an unusual number of mid-level wins start appearing seemingly out of nowhere. That means holding usually one but sometimes none or two cards MORE OFTEN THAN NOT results in trips, straights, flushes or full houses “the hard way”.

But if you’re just playing the same denomination, what good will this do you? A little, because this “pattern” usually signals a big hit or two is coming very shortly. But what you want to do is what I’ve been doing. I play a while on the lowest denominations, and if the higher denominations have the exact same pay table on the same game, as soon as I see this develop I jump up a few levels. I’ve made about $16,000 following up on these over the past few months.

Yes I know, the gurus are twitching, the critics are reeling, and the math nerds are pulling out the Maalox right about now. Why is that? Because if they accepted any of this it would be like putting their entire video poker-playing world on one big TILT! But I don’t really care how uncomfortable they become over what I’ve experienced and have been told to look for by people who are far more involved in the game than them.

I’ve investigated it, I’ve documented my findings in one instance, and the rest just makes me more money. Players can always choose to believe in what they wish to believe – and for their own reasons. But remember, my website isn’t called VPTRUTH for nothing, and Gaming Today didn’t publish my 388 articles for 7-1/2 years straight in a column THEY called “The Undeniable Truth” because they liked the disagreeing mail each week. Think about it. And there's more on these patterns coming next week.