Video Poker
Video poker is still a really popular game within the casinos and also you can now play video poker online on a multitude of websites. In essence they should be very similar and we are going to focus upon playing video poker within casinos. The most popular and common game is 'Jacks or better' which involves payout when you hit a hand of a pair of jacks or higher. We cover this game below-
Jacks or Better-
If you play this game correctly the house edge is minimal. This is the real beauty of jacks or better as it is rare to find such a tiny house edge on any of the casino games. This could waver between 98.5% - 99.6%. So how do you play the game? Basically it is the same as 5 draw poker, and you get paid the btter your hand is. After the initial 5 cards are dealt on screen, you can choose to retain any number from 1 card right through to 5 cards if you have been lucky. After this you will press the draw button to get the extra cards you have decided to draw. At this point, whatever you have, you get paid the equivalent number of coins or credits:-
Royal Flush- 250
Straight Flush- 50
4 of a kind- 25
Full House- 9
Flush- 6
Straight-4
3 of a kind-3
2 pair- 2
Pair of Jacks or better- 1
Now obviously everyone wants to get a royal flush, and sometimes it will pay to hold the cards that can give you the best chance of that happening. Also, the above payouts are for playing one coin. All 'Jacks or Better' poker machines will let you play 'max' credits which is up 5 times the amount of the bet. Now for everything other than a royal flush the odds are simply multiplied by the number of coins that you play- for example 2 would be 18 credits on a full house and so on. The real jackpot is if you hit the royal flush when playing max credits as this pays 8 times the amount of 1 credit for a whopping 4,000 coins. At a $1 stake for example that is a tidy payout of $4,000!
On the same video poker machine as Jacks or Better, there are usually a multitude of different games. We aren't going to cover them all off here as it would take you forever to read, but they are designed to be straightforward poker games and are relatively easy to pick up. Favourites include deuces wild, where any 2 is wild and the payout thresholds reflect this, as well as bonus poker and even tens or better. Video Poker is usually a good way to gamble for a while without losing too much cash and possibly have the chance to win a nice amount. Good luck.
