The Video Poker In Online Casino

The Game

Game play begins by placing a bet of one or more credits, by inserting money (or in newer machines, a barcoded paper ticket with credit) into the machine, and then pressing a "Deal" button to draw cards. The player is then given an opportunity to keep or discard one or more of the cards in exchange for a new card drawn from the same virtual deck. After the draw, the machine evaluates the hand and offers a payout if the hand matches one of the winning hands in the posted pay schedule.

On a typical video poker machine, payouts start with a minimum hand of a pair of jacks. Pay tables allocate the payout for hands based partially upon how rare they are, and also based upon the total theoretical return the game operator chooses to offer.

Some machines offer progressive jackpots for the royal flush, (and sometimes for other rare hands as well), thereby spurring players to both play more coins and to play more frequently.

Kinds of video poker

Newer video poker machines may employ variants of the basic five-card draw. Typical variations include Deuces Wild, where a two serves as a wild card and a jackpot is paid for four deuces or a natural royal; 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 of five cards, and each additional played hand draws from a different set of cards with the base hand removed. (Multi-play games are offered in "Triple Play", "Five Play", "Ten Play", "Fifty Play" and even "One Hundred Play" versions.)

In the non-wild games (games which do not have a wild card) a player who plays five or six hundred hands per hour, on average, may receive the rare four-of-a-kind approximately once per hour, while a player may play for many days or weeks before receiving an extremely rare royal flush.

Full pay games

Full pay video poker machines are games which offer the typical maximum payback percentage for that game type. Payback percentage expresses the long-term expected value of the player's wager as a percentage. A payback percentage of 99 percent, for instance, indicates that for each $100 wagered, in the long run, the player would expect to lose $1. Payback percentages on full-pay games are often close to or even in excess of 100 percent, assuming error-free perfect play.

Full-pay Jacks or Better, for example, offers a payback percentage of 99.54 percent when played with perfect strategy. It must be remembered that winning the jackpot (royal flush) is also part of the "long run" in every variant. One should not play a "full pay" video poker game expecting not to lose, because even over many thousands of hands played, you are playing a game that pays back less than 100%.

Casinos often place full pay machines alongside other machines with pay schedules that offer less attractive payback percentages, leaving it up to the player to identify which video poker machines offer full pay schedules.

Most full pay machines are configured with a pay schedule that is only full pay when the maximum number of credits is bet. (See the pay schedule tables later in this article for details.)

Jacks or Better

"Jacks or Better" is the most common variation of video poker available. Payoffs begin at a pair of jacks or better. Full pay Jacks or Better is also known as 9/6 Jacks or Better; the 9 refers to the payoff for a full house and the 6 refers to the payoff for a flush. Full pay Jacks or Better has a theoretical return of 99.5 percent when played with perfect strategy.

Tens or Better

"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

"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.(2) It is also available with other pay schedules that have lesser theoretical returns:

Bonus Poker

"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%. The game has multiple versions featuring different bonus payouts based on the ranking of the four of a kind.

Double Bonus

"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.(4)

It is also available with other pay schedules that have lesser theoretical returns:

Double Double Bonus

"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. It is also available with other pay schedules that have lesser theoretical returns: