Contents
Video Poker Basics
Video Poker Cards and Hands
General Video Poker Strategy
Strategy Guides for Specific Video Poker Games
How to Read the Strategy Guides
Jacks or Better
Deuces Wild
Deuces Wild Bonus
Deuces Wild Double Bonus
Bonus Poker
Bonus Poker Deluxe
Double Bonus
Double Double Bonus
White Hot AcesTM
Joker Poker
Other Video Poker Games
Video Poker Players’ Clubs
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General Video Poker Strategy
If you’re a savvy player, video poker will reward you with increased and more frequent payouts. To get the best return on your money, you need to do three things:
- Choose the best game
- Bet the maximum number of credits
- Hold the right cards
Choose the Best Game
The first step on the road to video poker success is to choose a good game. Video poker games vary widely in their rules and in how much they pay for particular hands. As a result, they vary in the expected return they offer you. The return on a game is the percent of each bet you can expect to keep, on average, after many bets. For example, the return on the best version of Jacks or Better is 99.54%. This means that you can expect to keep 99.54% of all the money you bet on this game. In terms of dollars and cents, this is equivalent to losing six cents for every $100 you wager.
Some games offer a return greater than 100%—in these games, if you play perfectly according to best strategy, you can expect to make a profit. For example, the return on the best version of Deuces Wild is 100.76%. This means that for every $100 you play you could expect to win 76 cents with perfect play. Choosing the best game means choosing the game with the highest return.
How to Read the Payout Tables
Every video poker game provides a payout table, which lists how many credits the game pays out for each hand. The payouts vary across different games, and often vary even for different machines that offer the same game. For instance, two machines that both have Deuces Wild may offer different payouts for those games. You can see what payouts a video poker machine offers by pressing the See Pays button on the main screen.
To determine whether a particular machine offers games that you should play, compare the payouts listed onscreen for those games to the payout tables listed in this guide’s Specific Game Video Poker Strategy Guides. For instance, if you want to play Deuces Wild, compare the payout table listed on the video poker machine to the common payouts listed in this guide under Deuces Wild. Though finding games with returns greater than 100% can be difficult, you shouldn’t settle for any game with a return of less than 98.5%.
Bet the Maximum Number of Credits
All the returns and strategies in this guide assume that you’re playing the maximum number of credits (which, for the games listed, is five). There are two reasons you should always bet this maximum number of credits:
- Royal flush bonuses: Most video poker games award a royal flush bonus only if you bet five credits. You’re cheating yourself if you don’t take advantage of this bonus. The royal flush bonus is usually 3–4 times the amount you’d normally win by playing five credits.
- Progressive bonuses: Some casinos award a progressive bonus for various hands. These progressive bonus hands can vary from casino to casino and from machine to machine. A progressive bonus increases every time you play without winning the bonus. Progressive bonuses are given only if you play the maximum number of credits.
If you can’t afford to play the maximum number of credits on the machine you’re currently playing, move to a machine with a lower unit size denomination. In general, it’s better to play five credits per hand on a 5¢ machine than one credit per hand on a 25¢ machine.
Hold the Right Cards
Only rarely will your initial five cards form a high-paying hand, so knowing which cards to hold and which to discard from that first deal is the key to video poker success. Many video poker players use their intuition to make these decisions. Unfortunately, intuition can easily steer you in the wrong direction.
For specific strategies about which cards to hold and discard for each of the most common varieties of video poker, see Strategy Guides for Specific Video Poker Games. Some of the plays may seem counterintuitive and can be difficult to memorize, but you don’t have to memorize them—most casinos allow you to use strategy guides when you play video poker. So you can bring this guide into the casino and refer to it whenever you have a tough decision to make. With practice, good video poker strategy will become second nature for you.
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