How To Play Video Poker Archives

August 26, 2014

Why Play Video Poker

Like blackjack, video poker involves making decisions that affect the profitability or lack of profitability in your play. If you’re playing on an appropriate machine, and if you can play perfectly, you can get the house edge down to 0.46% or lower. Blackjack players who are really good might be able to beat those odds, but that ain’t easy–have you tried counting cards? That’s the only way to get a better payout percentage playing blackjack as opposed to video poker.

Video poker is dead easy, and I can play it by myself. When you’re playing blackjack and you want to think about a decision, you might have a whole table full of people staring at you while you make your decision. I can’t stand that kind of pressure. Give me the solitude and comfort of a video poker parlor any day, thanks.

Video Poker Payback Percentages

Different video poker games have different payback percentages, but even the worst games with the worst paytables usually have better payback percentages than slot machines. It’s more exciting to talk about the really great payback percentages that are available. Jacks or Better, with a 9/6 pay table, offers a payback percentage of 99.5%. Some Deuces Wild games offers payback percentages of just over 100.1%. And one of the easiest video poker games to learn perfect strategy for, Pickem Poker, offers a 99.95% payout.

When you add back the value of the comps and rewards available through the slots club, even negative expectation video poker games become positive plays. If a casino is paying out 0.4% of your play back in comps and slot club rewards, and you’re playing a game that already pays back 99.95%, your total payout percentage becomes over 100.3%. (And that doesn’t include the free drinks you can order while you’re playing. If you like premium liquors, you can increase the value of those free drinks even more.)

Video Poker Strategy

Video poker is similar to slot machines and has something in common with poker besides just the name. The decisions you make affect how much you win or lose. That’s the biggest difference between a video poker machine and a slot machine, by the way–no matter what decision you make while playing a slot machine, it has no effect on the mathematical outcome of the game.

This site aims to teach you how to play video poker. There are two reasons we recommend playing video poker – one is that it’s a lot of fun! The other is that we think video poker is your best chance of winning against the casino in the long run. No other casino game gives you the chance to win with less effort than video poker.

May 13, 2014

How To Play Video Poker

Video poker is a rather popular casino game that looks similar to a modern slot machine and is played an a computer monitor. When the game first came out, the machines were not all that popular but, eventually, they became a staple in gaming centers all over the world.

The very first video poker machine was created and developed in the early seventies around the same time that personal computers emerged. Starting in the early eighties, casinos around the country began putting the games out on their floors where they became increasingly popular among customers were too intimidated by the tables of real poker games.

In many ways the poker machines work the same way that electronic slot machines do. Players insert money or a preloaded gaming card into it, they receive a randomized hand and use the buttons on the screen to begin placing their bets, which are usually set at increments of one or five dollar amounts. The machine, after the draw, then pays out if the hand that the player had was one that consisted of a winning combination such as a pair, straight, flush, or etc.

The amount of money that players can win each hand depend on how rare of a hand they end up with. Most hand combinations are exactly the same as they are in regular table poker and the odds of getting one are roughly similar as well. In most high end casinos, the video poker devices also offer some sort of progressive jackpot, in which a player is encouraged to continue playing the same machine and feeding in more money with the hopes of winning one of the unique bonuses.

Since poker is more of a game of skill, rather than purely a game of chance like so many other casino activities, experienced and knowledgeable gamblers can eventually learn helpful tricks and skills which can help them win. Since the cards are dealt randomly from a computer generated deck of fifty two, the possible outcomes and combinations can sometimes be calculated to an extent. Good poker players will learn and develop helpful strategies to end up with an optimal hand.