When I dealt in Las Vegas, I was surprised to see that in BlackJack etc, the execs were always concerned about the "hold" in terms of what percent of the buy-in was retained by casino. Say someone buys in at the BJ table for $100. They place $5 bets on 100 hands, then cash out for $95. In mathematical terms, the player lost 1% on his entire amount wagered. The casino execs never cared about that; they cared that the player had lost 5% of the money he bought in with.
This might be because the casino's definition of "hold" gives them results that more closely relate to casino profits. Or it might be because it's much much much easier for the casino to track results of a table game using their definition of "hold." (Think of how easy it is for casino to track the cash going into the BJ table slot and how many chips go out of the dealer's tray... vs how difficult it would be to track the total amount wagered.)
So perhaps they talk about video poker "hold" in the same way. And it might make sense from a business perspective. If someone comes into a casino with $100 and sits down at a VP machine, perhaps the most meaningful metric for the casino to track is how much of that $100 will be left whenever the player leaves.
Stuart (RandomStu)
http://stuart-randomthoughts.blogspot.com/
