The option to play Double Up after any winning hand is becoming common on all video poker machines, both on land and online. The side game typically involves dealing 5 cards down, the first is turned over and represents the house card. The player must then choose one card from the remaining 4 and hopes it beats the house card (i.e. King beats Jack). If you beat the house card then you are paid 1-to-1 on your wager and you are "helpfully" offered another chance to double up your winnings. This continues until you lose or turn down the double up offer.
The first thing to check about the Double Up side game is whether ties are considered push or house wins. If ties are still considered house wins, then the game has a house edge of 5.8%*. So, if ties are house wins then just don't play the Double Up game. It will only increase the house edge on your overall gambling.
If ties are push, then the game is a zero expectation game. That is, there is no house edge on the action. If this is the case, then you should play because increasing the proportion of your wagering with a better expectation will reduce the overall house edge on your action. That is, if you are playing perfect strategy on a 9/6 Jacks or Better, then your expected value is around 99.54%. By increasing the proportion of wagering on the Double Up game you can bring you expected value closer to 100%.
A great deal? If it improves your expected value, then should you maximise as much as possible the amount of action on the Double Up game? Well the problem is volatility. That is, even though it improves your theorectical expected value it increases the chances of you busting out on a cold streak because you will be gambling larger and larger portions of your bankroll. The game essentially plays like a Reverse-Martingale. Where depending on how many successive wins you chase, you will face alot of losing and a few big wins.
So unless you come with quite a large bankroll, the best strategy for the double down game is to limit the action to a percentage of your session bankroll. If you keep the double up wagers capped to 5% of your session bankroll you should strike a safe balance between improving your expected value and increased volatility.
Good Luck!
Side Note: If you can somehow find a full pay Deuces Wild game, then you have a expected value of 100.762% when playing perfect deuces wild strategy. Because you already have a positive expected value you should NOT PLAY the Double Up game. Playing the double up game on a full pay Deuces Wild will in fact increase your bankroll volatility and decrease your overall expected value!
* Drawing from a standard 52 card deck, means after the house draws 1 card there will be 3 cards out of 51 to make a tie. So the probability is:-
P(tie) = 3 / 51
= 0.05882 or 5.8%
Otherwise, the odds of winning and losing are a coin flip, exactly 1-to-1. So if the tie is a house win the house edge is 5.8%. If the tie is a push then it is a fair game.
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