Full-pay schedules-the pay tables that return 99 percent-plus with optimal strategy-were everywhere. In the old days, Atlantic City was a paradise for the video poker enthusiast. Thus, by and large, good video poker has all but vanished in the Boardwalk casino town. Casinos have stopped offering the best pay tables because today’s operators look only at that optimal return achieved through expert play and decide their “hold”-the percentage of wagers kept as casino win-is too low.

My bad experience at the Trop was part of a trend in Atlantic City. I ended up playing slots, which certainly are fun, but come with a caveat in that, on most of the interesting newer slot machines, the player returns hover around 90 percent or lower. I don’t play Joker poker, and the pay tables offered hovered around 98 percent in any event. Eventually, I asked a slot attendant, who told me the new Caesars-owned Tropicana removed all video poker except around a dozen Joker Wild games near the Boogie Nights nightspot. Never mind full-pay games I couldn’t find any video poker machines. During my recent visit, though, I wandered the floor looking for the video poker-and wandered, and wandered. I had my favorite machine back then, a 50-cent Jacks or Better game with the 9/6 paytable (9-for-1 for the full house 6-for-1 for the flush), which has a payback percentage of 99.54 percent with perfect strategy.Įventually, the pay tables tightened up a bit, but there was always a great selection of games at the Tropicana. It was one of the two places in my life where I was dealt a royal flush-a one-in-600,000 occurrence.īack when I was editor of Atlantic City Insider in the late 1990s, the Tropicana had an entire room near the hotel’s North Tower that was dedicated to video poker, as well as a good selection on the main slot floor. I have fond memories of video poker at the Tropicana. After dinner at Carmine’s in the Quarter, my wife went to look for her favorite video slot machines, and I, as is my nature, went on the hunt for good video poker. I love the Trop, now owned by Caesars Entertainment, because of the Quarter dining and retail attraction. By Frank LegatoĪ few weeks ago, I stayed at the Tropicana Atlantic City. Editorial Staff | Posted on | Atlantic City used to offer great choices for the video poker player.

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