ONLINE VIDEO POKER

If you know how to play regular poker, you probably know how to play online video poker. After all, the rules are simple. You get five cards. You try to make your best poker hand by replacing as many of those cards as you wish with new cards. Nothing could be easier!

The Game

After inserting money, play begins by placing a bet of one or more credits and pressing the "deal" button. The player is then given cards and has the opportunity to discard one or more of them in exchange for new ones drawn from the same virtual deck. After the draw, the machine pays out if the hand or hands played match one of the winning combination's. which are posted in the pay table.

Pay tables allocate the payouts for hands and are based on how rare they are, the game variation, and the decision of the game operator. A typical pay table starts with a minimum hand of a pair of jacks, which pays even money. All the other hand combination's in video poker are the same as in table poker, including such hands as two pair, three of a kind, straight (a sequence of 5 cards of different suits), flush (any 5 cards of the same suit), full house (a pair and a three of a kind), four of a kind (four cards of the same value), straight flush (5 consecutive cards of the same suit) and royal flush (a Ten, a Jack, a Queen, a King and an Ace of the same suit). Some machines offer progressive jackpots or other unique bonuses, thereby spurring players to both play more coins and to play more frequently.

Kinds of Video Poker

There are many variations of video poker. They include Deuces Wild, where a two serves as a wild card, pay schedule modification, where four aces with a five or smaller kicker pays an enhanced amount (these games usually have some adjective in the title such as "bonus", "double", or "triple"); and multi-play poker, where the player starts with a base hand, and each additional played hand draws from a different set of cards with the base hand. (Multi-play games are offered in "Triple Play", "Five Play", "Ten Play", "Fifty Play" and "One Hundred Play" versions.)

In games which do not have a wild card a player on average will receive the rare four-of-a-kind hand approximately once every 500 hands, while a player may play tens of thousands of hands before an extremely rare royal flush, which usually has the highest payout.

Jacks or Better, sometimes simply called "Draw Poker," is the most common variation of video poker. Payoffs begin at a pair of jacks. Full pay Jacks or Better is also known as 9/6 Jacks or Better since the payoff for a full house is 9 credits and the payoff for a flush is 6 credits.

Bally's All American

All American is based on Jacks or Better with an increased payout for flushes, straights and straight flushes, but reduced payout for full houses and two pairs (8=8=8=3=1 versus 9-6-4-3-2). The full pay version (quads return 50 bets), once common but now rare, is one of the highest return versions of video poker offered, but the play strategy is very complex and mastered by few.

Tens or Better is a variation of 6/5 Jacks or Better. The minimum paying hand is a pair of tens, rather than a pair of Jacks. Strategy is similar between the two games, in spite of the very different full house and flush payouts.

Deuces Wild is a variation of video poker in which all twos are wild. (Wild cards substitute for any other card in the deck in order to make a better poker hand). In Deuces Wild, the payout for a four of a kind makes up approximately ⅓ of the payback percentage of the game, and a four of a kind occurs on average approximately every fifteen hands. Deuces Wild can be found with pay schedules that offer a theoretical return as high as 100.8 percent, when played with perfect strategy: this full-pay version is found only in Nevada.

Bonus Poker is a video poker game based on Jacks or Better, but Bonus Poker offers a higher payout percentage for four of a kind. The full-pay version of this game returns 99.2%. (3) The game has multiple versions featuring different bonus payouts based on the ranking of the four of a kind.

Double Bonus video poker is a variation of Jacks or Better with a bonus payout for four aces. This variation offers up to a theoretical return of 100.2 percent, when played with perfect strategy - however, it must be noted that this % is only on a "10/7" version video poker game (10/7 being the payouts for a full house and a flush). There are many other video poker varieties of 10/6, 9/6, etc. that have slightly lower than the most generous 10/7 version payout. Although the full-pay version has a theoretically-positive return, few play well enough to capitalize on it. Double Bonus is a complex game.

Double Double Bonus video poker is a variation of Jacks or Better which offers bonus payoffs for different four of a kinds, as seen in the payout table below. Full pay Double Double Bonus can be found with pay schedules that offer up to a theoretical return of 100.1 percent, when played with perfect strategy.

How to Win at Video Poker Step 1: Find the Right Machine

While "Jacks or Better" video poker machines offer a minimal House edge and are the most common, they do not favor the player (unless the progressive jackpot is inordinately high). If you want to try to get an edge in video poker, you'll need to find a "Deuces Wild" machine, where a deuce can be any card.

How to Win at Video Poker Step 2: Find a Full Pay Machine

While a full pay Jacks or Better machine pays nine coins for a full house and six coins for a flush, the payouts for Deuces Wild machines are much lower because it is so much easier to make a hand. For deuces wild, you'll be looking to get paid nine coins for a straight flush and five for four of a kind.

How to Win at Video Poker Step 3: Play Perfect Strategy

To get the biggest edge, you have to play perfectly. You can find strategy tables online that will tell you exactly what to do in every situation. You should have the strategy guide open while you play online. Print out a copy and take it with you, as the strategy can get complicated at certain points.