Hello all. I was just wondering how your VP play has been panning out? I play a lot on videopoker.com and there are ongoing forum posts about the downfall of VP play over the past several years. In 2013, I had 11 VP hand pay jackpots, 2014 I had 5 and 2015 I had 2. What has changed? It seems to me that newer VP machines are much tighter than the old ones. I don't know if that is a product of programming or newer RNG chips running faster, honestly, I don't know. All I know for fact is my wins have gone way down and losses are way up. Maybe it's time to take a few months off.
My results have been the exact opposite of yours, including a 10x pay aces with kicker this past August. 2014 was the first year I had multiple royals DEALT to me. Based on your post and not knowing where you play, sounds like you are just on the negative end of variance, or perhaps you were luckier than you should have been in 2013 and now you are comparing typical results to what was an extra lucky year. I am assuming you are referring to the newer "GAME KING" style machine when you say the newer vp machines are tighter. There is no such thing as a "tight" machine, the paytable is what will determine your overall results along with your playing strategy. Hand pays are determined primarily by the denomination of the machine as the only way you can get a hand pay on a quarter machine or lower is to hit a high progressive jackpot, play a machine that has multiple lines or a multiplier of some sort.
I read posts where people get 3 and 4 royals on a trip. Some people get none for 15 years. It's just luck of the draw in most instances. (In some instances, people don't know how to play, and that hurts them) I have had horrid luck over the past 3 trips. It would be nice to have it swing around in February!
You can see exactly how "tight" a video poker machine is when you look at the pay table. Your wins may be down because you got super lucky in 2013, and not lucky in 2015.