Should You Play the Ultimate X Feature?

By John Grochowski on Tuesday July 3, 2018

bonus, casino-games, gambling, games, slot-machines, slots

Among the many video poker games IGT produces that offer bonus multipliers in exchange for an extra bet, the most popular appears to be Ultimate X.

That’s especially true among low-denomination players, who love the Ultimate X option when playing nickel multiple-hand games. And it seems there’s an incentive for playing more hands.

In Ultimate X, you wager an extra five credits per hand to activate a multiplier feature. Winning hands bring a multiplier for the following hand. The multiplier depends on the rank of the winning hand.

In Triple Play Jacks or Better, for example, if you’ve activate Ultimate X and have a pair of Jacks or better on the bottom hand, a full house on the middle hand and losing hand on top, then on the next hand, a 2x multiplier would be applied to any winner on the bottom, a 12x multiplier to winners on the middle and you would get no multiplier on top.

On some winners, the multiplier is higher if you play more hands.

In Jacks or Better, an analysis at wizardofodds.com points out that royal flushes and straight flushes bring 2x multipliers on Triple Play and Five Play, but 7x on Ten Play. On four of a kind, you get a 2x multiplier for the following hand for Triple Play, but 3x on Five and Ten Play.

The bigger multipliers on some hands leads to higher payback percentages when you’re playing more hands.

The average return with expert play on 7-5 Jacks or Better — much more common than higher pay tables on Ultimate X — with no multiplier feature is 96.15 percent. With the Ultimate X feature, the paybacks rise to 96.72 percent for three-hand play, 96.81 percent for five hands and 96.83 percent for 10 hands.

On 9-6 Double Double Bonus Poker, the usual return is 98.98 percent with expert play. With Ultimate X active, that rises to 99.73 percent for Triple Play, 99.79 percent for Five Play and 99.87 percent for Ten Play.

Regardless of game and pay table, paying extra for the Ultimate X feature does boost our overall payback percentage and it adds to the fun when you get the multipliers.