[kyteland]

These games are extremely random, by law. The card game itself is truly random, short of any unknown bugs that escaped testing by both the manufacturer and the regulators. The only thing that affects the payouts in a video poker game is the paytable, which is visible to the player up front and can't be changed while they're playing it, again by law. You can look up the expected value of each game online before putting any money in by the advertised paytable.

Source: I've been a casino game mathematician for 20 years.

[disgruntledphd2]

Incidentally, I would love to read some blog posts/articles about this stuff, if you've ever gotten around to writing them :)