History – How To Play – Rules – Odds – Strategy – Pro’s Perspective

In any jurisdiction offering Type 3 gaming video poker is at it’s heart run by the same technology that powers slot machines–a random number generator. Players are dealt hands based on a random number generator and although they have control over which cards they keep and discard the new cards drawn are also just randomly generated. How to Play Free Video Poker Choose Your Video Poker Game. There are hundreds of online poker games out there. Whether you’re into classic online. To start a free video poker game, players must choose how many credits they want to play on each spin. Deal Your Cards. Why gamble with your money when the casinos give you a real shot to win playing video poker. This is a game that can be beaten! Unlike traditional slot machines, video poker is THE ONLY game where the pay table clearly indicates the return on your gambling dollar, based on your ability to play.

Video Poker is a single-player game that takes the edge off poker, mainly the competition with the other seated players at the poker table. In this game, there is only one player against a computer. Players will be paid according to the paytable of each game and according to the minimum paying hand.

These games can be enjoyed at land-based casinos on video poker machines that look a lot like slot machines. Online casinos also offer video poker as all the major software developers have their own variants. Players can enjoy online through their computers in the comfort of their own home. Most of the video poker versions adopt the 5-card poker game rules as players will get 5 cards and they will choose to discard cards and get replacement cards in order to form the final poker hand. The only difference is that there are no wagering rounds in between the dealt cards as players will only place a wager at the very beginning.

Although video poker is mainly a single player poker game, some video poker variants involve the dealer. In these games, players will have to beat the poker hand of the dealer in order to win the pot.

Video Poker History

Because video poker is basically the integration of poker and slot machines, its history can be traced back to the invention of slot machines itself. Charles Fey is the father of the slot machine. His slot machines had numbers on it and not poker hands. These coin-operated machines were developed in the U.S. in the 1800s and were very popular in saloons and cigar stores, especially in San Francisco.

Video poker started to appear in 1989 when the Card Bell was developed. This game was a poker machine that paid players instantly by using combinations such as a straight, a flush, and so on. In the improved design of the machine, the Skill Draw, a major feature was added — the Hold. The Hold feature has become an integral part of the video poker game of today.

Video poker machines started to become commercially viable following the integration of a monitor that looks like a TV screen. This allowed players to enjoy a 100 percent computerized game. The first-ever computerized video poker game was developed in the mid-1970s. It was very primitive compared to modern-day video poker games but it was the first-ever computerized video poker machine that paved the way for other video poker games. The popularity of these machines started to skyrocket when a company called SIRCOMA (Si Redd’s Coin Machines) introduced a video poker game, namely Draw Poker, in 1979. SIRCOMA is now one of the biggest gaming developers for land-based and online casinos, going by the name IGT (International Game Technology).

The popularity of these machines increased until they were an absolute must in every land-based casino. Now, almost every single casino on the Vegas Strip offers its players a number of video slot machines. In the 1990s, with the huge breakthrough in technology, video poker games started to offer better gaming quality and more variations of the game were introduced.

Video poker also made one of its greatest development steps with the emergence of online gambling, and video poker became one of the most popular games in the online world. This transition enabled millions of players to enjoy the game, especially those who did not have a nearby land-based casino or a gambling venue they could visit in order to enjoy a game of video poker. The Internet industry provided players with countless versions of video poker. Some of the leading names in the business are Microgaming, Playtech, Cryptologic, IGT, and Betsoft Gaming. These different software versions started to include bonus rounds, gamble features, special features, wild cards, and many more.

How to Play Video Poker

There are two popular types of video poker games. The most popular video poker games offer a single-player poker experience, including 5-card draw poker games, and can be found in most online or land-based casinos. This type includes Jacks or Better, Tens or Better, Joker Poker, Deuces Wild, Joked and Deuces Wild, as well as Bonus Poker among others. The second type is a casino poker game that involves the player and the dealer, such as Caribbean Stud poker, which can only be found online. Each game has its own gaming procedure and rules.

Despite the fact that there are numerous variants, they all follow the same gaming procedure. The game starts as players place their desired stakes. They can place that stake by depositing a coin if it is a land-based video poker game. If it is an online video poker game, they will choose a coin or cash by clicking on the screen of the game.

After they place the wager, they will click on a button that says “Deal.” They will then get a poker hand that consists of 5 cards. Players will look at these cards and then decide which cards they want to hold and which cards they want to discard/fold. They can choose the cards they want to hold by clicking on the cards themselves or the button that says “Hold” under each card. When they are done choosing the cards, they will click on “Draw.” They will then get replacement cards for the cards they did not hold which will form the final 5-card poker hand. Players will then be paid according to the paytable of the game and the bet that they have placed at the start.

Caribbean Stud poker is also a 5-card poker game but players must beat a dealer. In this game, players will also place an Ante bet before they are dealt the cards. They will then get 5 cards facing up, while the dealer will get 4 cards facing down and 1 card facing up. Players will then decide if they want to fold or if they wish to call. If they call, they will place another bet that is equal to twice the original bet. If they call, the dealer’s final poker card will be revealed and the showdown will take place. In order for the dealer’s hand to qualify, it has to at least have an Ace and a King. If the hand does not qualify, the player will win regardless of his hand. Some games might also offer a progressive jackpot that is triggered when players achieve a royal flush.

Video Poker Rules

The rules of a video poker game might differ from one game to another, so we are going to discuss different poker rules that could change based on where the game is played.

Best Way To Play Video Poker Machines

The Minimum Paying Hand:

The minimum paying hand is the poker hand that players will have to achieve to be eligible to claim a payout. It differs from one game to another depending on the rules of the game as well as the other features. For example, if a game has a wild card or cards, it will have a higher minimum paying hand, which could be as high as 3 of a kind. This means that if players do not get a three of a kind, they will not qualify for a win. For a Jacks or Better, the minimum hand is a pair of Jacks. For Tens or Better, it is a pair of Jacks, but most games that do not have extra features will have a minimum hand pair of Jacks.

The Wild Card:

The wild card is a feature that is offered at some, but not all, of the video poker variants. The wild card is always the Joker or the Deuce. This wild card can be substituted for any other card from the deck in order to help players achieve a winning poker hand. In Deuces Wild, for example, the wild card is the 2, which is where the name of the game comes from. Another game is Joker Wild, where the Joker is the wild card. Some games might have more than one wild card, such as Joker and Deuces Wild. In this game, the 2 and the Joker are wild cards.

Hand Ranking:

Video poker follows the same hand ranking rules as regular poker with the Royal Flush being the highest hand. It is also important to note that in video poker, it is the hand that matters regardless of the value of the cards forming it. For example, a pair of Aces will pay the same as a pair of Jacks, and a Straight from 9 to K will pay the same as a straight from 2 to 6. Here is the poker hand ranking in descending order:

Royal Flush:

A straight flush that begins at 10 and ends with an Ace. At some games, this hand will trigger the progressive jackpot, if there is any.

Straight Flush:

Five consecutive cards in value of the same suit.

Four of a Kind:

Four identical cards.

Full House:

Three identical cards accompanied by a pair.

Flush:

Five cards of the same suit.

Straight:

Five consecutive cards in value.

3 of a kind:

Three identical cards.

Two Pair:

Two pairs in the final 5-card poker hand.

Pair of Tens:

The minimum paying hand possible at video poker.

Video Poker Odds

The odds and the payout of Video Poker will differ from one version to another, so we will only discuss the hand odds of the most popular game, Jacks or Better. We will discuss the pay seclude of a 9/6 Jacks or Better video poker while placing the maximum wager of 5 unit bet.

You should always place the maximum bet because it makes you eligible to win the grand jackpot prize of 4,000 if you get a royal flush. If you bet with 1 or 2 coins and get a royal flush, the payout will not be proportionally equal. If betting 5 coins is too expensive for your gambling budget, you can find a lot of .25 machines as online casinos usually offer their bets in denominations that include different sizes such as .25, 0.50, 1, 2, 5 and even 10 and 20.

Here is the payment schedule for each hand for a 9/6 Jacks or Better video poker game.

Here are good benchmarks on possible payouts based on an overall average. The outcomes vary depending on which version of video poker you are playing.
These numbers, on average, represent your odds for pulling a certain hand.

After studying this payout and odds table, it is notable that there is an inequality between the odds and the payouts of some hands despite the fact that a Full House is more likely to happen than a straight or a flush but pays more than these two hands. It is clear from the paytable that hands that are less likely to happen pay more than hands that are more likely to happen to. Despite this, the game is in the favor of the player, which is why it can be only found online or at big land-based casinos. You are surely not going to find them in bars or other smaller gambling venues.

Players will be able to view the paytable (it will not include the odds) at the top of the screen right above the cards. It will give players an idea of the payouts they can earn according to their bet and their poker hand.

Video Poker Strategy

Although video poker is a straightforward and simple game, players will find themselves wondering what cards they should hold, and when to discard. This simple strategy guide will be quite helpful in different situations throughout the game.

Video Poker Strategy Chart:

The first situation is when you get a low pair and one high card in your hand. You will immediately think whether to keep the low pair and go for a three of a kind, keep the high card and discard the rest to get a high and a qualifying pair or to keep the three cards and try getting two pairs.

Before making the decision, you will have to know your odds for each decision. The odds of getting the third card for a three of a kind are about 1 out of 6-8 times. The odds of getting the matching high card to form a pair are 1 out of 2-3. As for the odds of getting a two pair is slightly bigger than getting three of a kind. Therefore, it is obvious that the best course of action is to go for a qualifying pair.

For example, if you get two high cards like a Queen and a Jack, the question is whether to keep both or discard them. The best course of action is to keep the two cards and discard the rest as there is a big chance you would get another Jack or Queen, which will qualify you for a win.

If you get 3 different high cards, the best course of action is to keep two of the high cards. It does not matter which two as long as they qualify for a winning hand. A pair of jacks pays the same as a pair of aces, or just pick two and hold them.

If you get a pair of aces and a flush draw, you will wonder whether to keep the pair or discard it in the hopes of getting a flush. The safest course of action is to keep the pair but the best action is to go for the flush. A pair will only pay you even money while a flush will pay you 6 times your original bet, so it is worth the risk. Since there are a lot of games that offer different paying hands, gamble features, and wild cards, it is essential to check the rules and the paytable of the video poker game before you start playing. Knowing the minimum paying hand is quite important. The names of some video poker games might give you a clue, such as Tens or Better (a pair of tens is the minimum hand) and Jacks or Better (a pair of jacks is the minimum hand). For other games, it is essential to check the paytable and know the minimum paying hand because it will affect your decisions during the game.

Pro’s Perspective: Video Poker Strategies and Tips

With John Grochowski

When you play poker, a few simple little tricks can make a big difference in regards to your return. Here are three tips to help keep you in action while you wait for the big-paying hands to come/

Investigate Pay Tables Before You Play

Not all video poker games are created equal, and it pays to do a little looking around. If you have several online casinos you would like to play at, take the time to check pay tables before you start wagering. Those who play in brick-and-mortar casinos should do the same – I’ve often found higher and lower pay tables on the same game in different areas of one casino.

The differences can be quite large. If one site has 9-6 Double Double Bonus Poker (98.98 percent return with expert play), another has 9-5 DDB (97.97 percent) and a third has 8-5 DDB (96.79 percent), think about what that means: In casino No. 1, the house expects to keep $1.02 per $100 in wagers, casino No. 2 expects to keep $2.03 and casino No. 3 expects to keep $3.21.

You can dramatically cut the house take by looking for the highest-paying version.

Learn Jacks or Better Strategy

When you learn the Jacks or Better strategy, you take a giant step toward learning strategies for other games. The basic format, with a pair of Jacks being the lowest paying hand, is a starting point for most non-wild card games, including Bonus Poker, Double Double Bonus Poker, Super Aces, and more.

To get the most out of any of those games, you need to learn specially adapted strategies that take advantage of what their paytables have to offer. But the adaptations bring small gains, with the Jacks or Better strategy taking us most of the way there.

Take 9-6 Double Double Bonus Poker, which returns 98.98 percent with its own special strategy. If you use the 9-6 Jacks or Better strategy, the average return is 98.44 percent. For the 9-6 Bonus Poker Deluxe, specialized strategy brings 99.64 percent, and JB strategy brings 99.61, while the 8-5 Bonus Poker has the same strategy as 9-6 JB and returns 99.16 percent.

If you want the most out of any game, the fine points are important, but the gains compared to Jacks or Better strategy is in the tenths of a percent.

Bet Enough to be Eligible for Max Payback

One common feature among video poker games is the disproportionate jump in the top jackpot if you wager five credits. With one credit wagered, a royal brings a 250-credit return, then pays 500 for 2, 750 for 3, and 1,000 for 4. But on the fifth coin, that jackpot leaps to the top 4,000 credits.

Thus, betting the five-credit max brings a higher payback percentage than betting less. The 98.98 percent return for 9-6 Double Double Bonus Poker assumes five-credit wagers. If you bet less, the return is only 97.83 percent.

There’s a similar percentage difference in virtually every video poker game. Part of the expert strategy is betting enough to get the jackpot jump.

Home > Online Casinos > Casino Articles > 10 Best Video Poker Games

If you want to get the best odds in the casino, you really only have 2 choices-blackjack and video poker. When it comes to blackjack, you're basically looking at a single game with a few rules variations. But with video poker, you have multiple games to choose from.

But which of these games offer the player the best odds?

I should start by explaining why video poker games are such a good choice for the casino gambler, especially when compared to their not-so-distant cousins, slot machines. The rest of this introduction explains that, then I'll explain which games you should look for and how you should play them.

Transparent Odds versus Opaque Odds

The first thing you should understand about video poker compared to slot machines is transparency. When you play a slot machine, you know how much the payoffs are for the various symbol combinations.

What you don't know are the odds of getting any particular symbol.

This is what makes the math behind a slot machine opaque to anyone except the designers and the casinos.

But a video poker game uses the same probabilities as a 52 card deck of playing cards. Everyone knows the probabilities related to a deck of cards. You have a 1/52 chance of getting any particular card, a 1/13 chance of getting a card of any particular ranking, and a 1/4 chance of getting a card of any particular suit.

Since you also know the payoffs for the various combinations-in video poker games, they're called 'hands'-you can calculate the game's expected return.

That's not as complicated a calculation as you might think, either. You just list all the possible outcomes. Then you multiply the probability of winding up with each of those outcomes with how much it pays off. Add all those numbers up, and you have the overall expected return for the game. This is also sometimes called the game's payback percentage.

The House Edge and the Payback Percentage

When you're talking about the math behind a table game in a casino, you usually discuss the game's edge or the 'house edge'. But when we discuss the math behind a gambling machine, we talk about the game's 'payback percentage'. Both numbers are different ways of expressing the same concept.

The house edge is the amount of each bet that a casino expects to win over the long run. It's an average that applies to tens of thousands of bets.

The payback percentage is the amount of each bet that a casino expects to pay back to the player over the long run. It's also an average over tens of thousands of hands.

If you know a game's payback percentage, you can subtract it from 100% to get the house edge.

Here's an example:

When you're playing blackjack, the house edge might be 0.5% That means that over time, the casino has a mathematical expectation that you'll lose 50 cents out of every $100 you bet.

When you're playing Jacks or Better video poker, the payback percentage might be 99.54%. That means that over time, the casino has a mathematical expectation that you'll win $99.54 for every $100 you bet.

You could convert that 0.5% into a 99.5% payback percentage. You could also convert that 99.54% into a 0.46% house edge.

Both bets offer similar odds. The main difference is the way in which each game plays out.

Decisions Matter

Here's the 2nd thing you need to understand about video poker games:

Your decisions matter.

This is a major difference between video poker games and slot machines. With a slot machine, you just put your money in and pull the lever and hope for the best.

You do the same thing in video poker games, but you have an extra step:

You get to decide which cards to keep and which cards to throw away.

Since there are 32 different ways to play each hand, you have a significant number of choices facing you on every video poker hand. Only one of those choices offers the highest expected return.

Here's an example:

You're dealt a hand that consists of the jack of clubs, the jack of hearts, the queen of hearts, the king of hearts, and the ace of hearts.

So you have a pair of jacks, and you could hold those 2 cards and guarantee yourself an even money (1 for 1) payoff. That's a 100% chance of getting a 1 unit payoff, which is an expected value of 1.

But you also could throw away the jack of clubs and hope to hit a royal flush. The royal flush pays off at 800 to 1. Since the odds of filling your hand are 1 in 47, you're looking at a roughly 2% chance of winning 800 coins. That's an expected value of 16.

16 is clearly better than 1, so that's the correct play in this situation. That's obviously an overly simplified look at this decision, since there are several other potential decisions and outcomes. But those are the 2 most obvious ways to play the hand.

You can find strategy charts for most video poker games online-including on specific pages on this site. These charts are organized as lists of hands. The hands with the best expected return are listed at the top, so you start from the top and work your way down. You keep the first hand that matches what you're holding.

Pay Tables

Finally, you want to be familiar with how a pay table for a video poker game works. Even though a game shares a name with another game, the pay table might be different. The differences in the pay tables make a significant difference in the payback percentage.

Here's an example:

A 9/6 Jacks or Better game has a 99.54% payback percentage. The 9/6 in the title of the game refers to the payoff for a full house and a flush. The former pays off at 9 to 1, while the latter pays off at 6 to 1. They don't list this on the title of the game on the machine, by the way. You have to read the pay table.

You can compare that to an 8/5 Jacks or Better game, which has a 97.3% payback percentage. The 1 unit difference in payoffs for those 2 hands has a significant effect on your odds.

How significant?

Think about the average hourly loss on a gambling machine. You calculate this number by multiplying the number of hands per hour you're playing by the average you're betting per hand. That's the total amount of action you're getting in per hour.

Multiply the total hourly action by the house edge, and you get your average expected hourly loss.

On a full pay (or 9/6) Jacks or Better game, the house edge is 100% - 99.54%, or 0.46%.

On the 8/5 Jacks or Better game, the house edge is 100% - 97.3%, or 2.7%.

If you're playing for $5 per hand, and you're playing 600 hands per hour, you're putting $3000 into action each hour.

0.54% of $3000 is $16.20 per hour in expected losses. Keep in mind that this is over the course of tens of thousands of hands. In any single hour, you might be doing much better or much worse than this. But if you play long enough, your results should come pretty close to resembling this number.

2.7% of $3000 is $81 per hour in expected losses. That's 5 times as much money in the casino's pocket and out of yours.

So it's easy to see why you should educate yourself about the various pay tables and their payback percentages.

Luckily, you don't have to work out the calculations with a pencil and paper every time you play. You can look these numbers up online. In fact, I can give you the 10 best games to look for-which is what the rest of this post is all about.

Jacks or Better

I have multiple reasons for listing Jacks or Better as the #1 video poker game you should play. It's not because this is the game with the best odds, although if you can find a game with a 9/6 pay table, you are looking at one of the best games in the house. Mostly it's because Jacks or Better is the foundation upon which knowledge of all other video poker games rests.

Jacks or Better is pretty straightforward. It's based on 5 card draw. You're dealt 5 cards, you get to choose which ones to keep and which ones to throw away, and then you get paid off based on the poker hand ranking of your end result. The lowest-paying hand is a pair of jacks or higher. A pair of tens or less doesn't pay out anything. The highest-paying hand is a royal flush, which pays off at 800 to 1 if you bet 5 coins per hand. (If you bet 4 coins or fewer, it only pays out 250 to 1, so always play max coins.)

One of the reasons I like this game so much is because it's also easy to spot the better pay tables. I discussed earlier that game designers and casinos normally only adjust the payoffs on 2 hands for this game-the full house and the flush. When they pay off at 9 and 6, then you're looking at a game with a 99.54% payback percentage. Those are some of the best odds in the house.

The other thing I like about Jacks or Better is that strategy is more or less straightforward. You can find strategy charts for this game at any number of websites, and it isn't that hard to learn. In fact, you can find simplified strategy charts that you can memorize in a few minutes that only give up 0.1% in payback percentage when compared to the complete strategy.

And once you know how to play Jacks or Better, almost every other video poker game in the casino becomes easy to learn. The only video poker game I can think of that doesn't mimic Jacks or Better in almost every particular is Pick'em Poker, which is also called Pick a Pair Poker. It's on this list, too, and it's a simplified version of video poker-more about that later.

Deuces Wild

The 2nd most common video poker variation is Deuces Wild. This game plays almost exactly like Jacks or Better, but there's one big difference-all the 2s in the deck act as wild cards. This means they can stand in for any card you need to fill your hand. Since there are 4 of these cards in the deck, the difference in the value of your average final hand is significant.

Of course, a casino would have to be insane to offer the same pay table for this game that they offer for Jacks or Better. The odds of getting a pair skyrocket with the addition of the wild cards. And in fact, they offer VERY different pay tables for this game. In Deuces Wild, the lowest-paying hand is a 3 of a kind, in fact.

The highest-paying hand is still a royal flush, but Deuces Wild distinguishes between a natural royal flush and a wild royal flush. A natural royal flush still pays off at 800 to 1, because the odds are still the same. You'll see a natural royal flush roughly once every 40,000 hands or so.

But the other big difference between Deuces Wild and Jacks or Better is how the pay tables are structured. In Deuces Wild, you don't have just 2 hands with different payoffs to keep up with. The designers and the casinos change up multiple payoffs on multiple hands, which makes it a little bit harder to choose a pay table.

But you can find Deuces Wild games with better payouts than Jacks or Better if you know what to look for. In fact, full pay Deuces Wild offers a payback percentage of 100.76%. This is called full pay Deuces Wild, and it's not the easiest game in the world to find. But it's not extinct or impossible to find, in spite of what some other gambling writers on the Internet might tell you.

Your best chance of finding Deuces Wild in its full pay format is to visit some of the casinos on Boulder Highway in Las Vegas. They cater to video poker players and offer the best pay tables in the industry.

But how much of an edge is 0.76%? Could you make a living playing this game?

As it turns out, probably not.

Here's why:

Remember when I calculated the average hourly loss in the introduction? The math for calculating the average hourly win when you have an edge is the same. In this case, you take the amount of hourly action and multiply it by YOUR edge, in this case, 0.76%.

Assuming you can find a game with the right pay table and you can play it with perfect strategy, you might be able to make a little bit of money playing this game. Let's say you can find a game where you can play for a quarter, or $1.25 per hand. (You're betting 5 coins per hand, remember.)

That's $750 in action per hour. You expect to win $5.70 per hour on this game.

That's a far cry from losing an average of $16 per hour, but you'd have a hard time making a living at that wage. We're talking less than $240 per week if you played for 40 hours per week.

But what if you found a dollar machine, you ask? Couldn't you make over $20/hour on such a game?

I'm confident that a game with this pay table is not going to be available in that denomination. The casinos are too smart for that-even the ones on Boulder Highway.

And that's not a common pay table, even there.

A more common Deuces Wild pay table is called 'not so ugly' Deuces Wild. This game has a payback percentage of 99.73%. This is still better than full pay Jacks or Better, but it's still a long term winner for the casino.

Something else to keep in mind about Deuces Wild is that the game has a completely different strategy for playing than Jacks or Better. One aspect of this strategy is easy to remember though:

Never discard a deuce.

Another aspect of the correct strategy is this:

Never hold 2 pairs.

Bonus Poker

I always thought it was funny that Bonus Poker was considered a different game from Jacks or Better. The differences are minimal in terms of gameplay. It's still a video poker game with no wild cards. The lowest-paying hand is still a pair of jacks or better. And it still pays off 800 to 1 for a royal flush.

In fact, the only difference between Bonus Poker and Jacks or Better is the payoffs for the 4 of a kind. And depending on the cards making up the 4 of a kind, you might get a much bigger payoff than you'd expect in Jacks or Better.

Here's the difference:

In a Jacks or Better game, the payoff for 4 of a kind is consistent from game to game. It pays off 25 to 1.

But in Bonus Poker, it pays off based on the rank of the cards:

• 4 aces pay off at 80 to 1.
• 4 deuces, 3s, or 4s pay off at 40 to 1.
• All other 4 of a kinds pay off at 25 to 1, just like in Jacks or Better

The payback percentage on a full pay Bonus Poker game is 99.17%. They pay for the bonuses on the 4 of a kind hands by adjusting the payoffs on the full house and the flush, by the way-a full pay Bonus Poker game only pays off at 8 to 1 and 5 to 1 on those hands, respectively. If you were paying attention to the section on Jacks or Better, you already know that such a difference in pay tables on Jacks or Better reduces the payback percentage to under 98%. You get some of that back with the bonus payouts for the 4 of a kind in this game.

How To Play Video Poker Slots

But this is a more volatile game as a result. Since the extra percentage points come from the 4 of a kind hands, you won't see them very often. In fact, you'll only see 4 aces 00.02% of the time. That's not very often at all.

Still, any game where you can get a payback percentage of 99%+ is worth looking at. In fact, I recommend that you ONLY play video poker games where you can get such a payout. Bonus Poker is one of them.

Here's one other observation about Bonus Poker. It's a good demonstration of how video poker differs from traditional poker.

Here's why:

When you're looking at a 4 of a kind at a traditional poker table, the higher the rank of the cards, the better the hand. A 4 of a kind made up of 5s beats a 4 of a kind made up of 4s, for example.

But in Bonus Poker, you get paid almost twice as much for a 4 of a kind made up of 4s as you do for a 4 of a kind made up of 5s.

Double Bonus Poker

Double Bonus Poker, along with Deuces Wild, is your best chance of finding a game where you can get an edge over the house at video poker. It's a small edge, though-smaller than full pay Deuces Wild, in fact. The payback percentage on Double Bonus Poker is 100.17% with the right pay table.

As you might have gathered from the game's name, Double Bonus Poker is most similar to Bonus Poker. Here's the difference:

The payoffs for the 4 of a kind hands are literally doubled:

• Instead of getting 80 to 1 for 4 aces, you get 160 to 1.
• Instead of getting 40 to 1 for 4 deuces, 3s, or 4s, you get 80 to 1.
• Instead of getting 25 to 1 for all other 4 of a kinds, you get 50 to 1.

But full pay Double Bonus Poker has another significant and surprising difference-the payouts for the full house and the flush are even higher than in Jacks or Better. On a full pay Double Bonus Poker game, those hands pay out at 10 to 1 and 7 to 1.

How can the casino afford to offer such generous payouts on all these hands?

They've reduced the payoff for 2 pairs from 2 to 1 to even money. Since that hand comes up about once in every 8 hands, cutting the payoff for it in half frees up a lot of money to add to those other hands.

What does this do to the texture of the game?

It makes it even more volatile than Bonus Poker.

Like full pay Deuces Wild, Double Bonus Poker is hard to find, and it's almost impossible to find at higher denominations.

But it's out there if you look-especially if you look at the casinos on Boulder Highway.

Loose Deuces Wild

Loose Deuces Wild has about as much claim to being a 'different' game from Deuces Wild as Bonus Poker does to being a different game from Jacks or Better. The only real difference is the extra payoff amount on the 4 of a kind hand consisting of 2s.

The standard payoff for a 4 of a kind made up of deuces is 200 to 1.

In Loose Deuces, it's 500 to 1.

That's a huge difference, but keep in mind that every time you get something extra from a video poker game, you're losing something somewhere in order to pay for it.

In the most common versions of Loose Deuces, though, the major difference is in the payoff for the straight flush. In a more-or-less standard Deuces Wild game, that hand pays off at 9 to 1. On most Loose Deuces games, it pays off at 8 to 1.

The other thing to keep in mind is that even though a 500 to 1 payoff is great, the odds of getting a 4 of a kind made up of all deuces is relatively small. It's still about 10 times as likely as a natural royal flush, though.

If you can master the correct strategy for this game-which is actually pretty close to the correct strategy for full pay Deuces Wild-you can enjoy a game with a large payback percentage that's comparable to some of the other positive expectation games on this list. I've seen sites listing pay tables for Loose Deuces Wild games where the expected return was 101.60%, but you're a lot more likely to find a game with a 100.15% payback percentage or even 99.2%.

Any of those games are worth playing-it's just that some of them are better than others.

Double Double Bonus Poker

Double Double Bonus Poker is another game on the very short list of games where a video poker player can get an edge over the house. But don't think you're going to make a fortune playing this game-at least not in the long run. The payback percentage for Double Double Bonus when played with perfect strategy is 100.07%, so your edge is tiny.

But what's the difference between Double Double Bonus Poker and Double Bonus Poker?

If you guessed that certain hands get paid off at better odds, then give yourself a gold star.

This game offers higher payoffs for 4 of a kind hands, but it also takes into account the kicker. This makes it unusual, because the kicker in video poker almost never matters.

Here's what the payouts look like on the 4 of a kind hands in Double Double Bonus Poker:

• 4 aces with a 2, 3, or 4 - 400 to 1
• 4 deuces, 3s, or 4s with an ace, 2, 3, or 4 - 160 to 1
• 4 aces with any other kicker - 160 to 1
• 4 deuces, 3s, or 4s with any other kicker - 80 to 1
• Any other 4 of a kind - 50 to 1

As you can see, the lower ranked cards are rewarded in the 4 of a kinds in this game. (Most people don't think of an ace as a low card most of the time, but it is in this case. In fact, you can think of this as a game that rewards 4 of a kind hands that have cards lower than 5 in them.)

I mentioned in the section above about how traditional poker and video poker differ in terms of hand rankings. This is an even more prominent example of this.

As with many of the other games I recommend on this page, Double Double Bonus Poker is more volatile than some games (like Jacks or Better). But it's still well worth learning how to play.

Triple Bonus

You'll like the gimmick behind Triple Bonus Poker. It's the same game as Bonus Poker, but instead of doubling the payoffs for 4 of a kind, like Double Bonus Poker does, Triple Bonus multiplies the payoffs by 3.

So here are the payoffs for 4 of a kind in Triple Bonus:

• 4 aces - 240 to 1
• 4 deuces, 3s, or 4s - 120 to 1
• Any other 4 of a kind - 75 to 1

If you can find a Triple Bonus game with the right pay table, the payback percentage is right up there with any of the other big boys on this list-99.94%, in fact. Of course, like most of the games on this list, there are other pay tables available which aren't as generous. You can find Triple Bonus with a payback percentage between 94% and 95%, but once you get to that point, you might as well play the slots.

Play Video Poker Machines

Pick'em Poker

What Is Video Poker

Pick'em Poker is also sometimes called Pick a Pair Poker. This is one of the most interesting games on the list, as it actually has different gameplay than any of the other games here. It's actually a simplified version of video poker with fewer decisions to make. If you find the right version with the right pay table, the payback percentage is exceptional, too-99.95%.

Here's how the game works:

You start with 2 cards. These are the foundation of your hand.

You also get 2 more cards. These are the ones where you have a decision to make-you choose to keep one of these 2 cards.

Then the machine deals 2 more cards and you get a final hand.

You'll notice that you only have 2 cards to choose from when you're deciding which card to keep and which one to throw away. The first 2 cards, you're stuck with. Then with the next 2 cards, you're stuck with one of them. And in terms of the final 2 cards, well-you don't get to discard either of them, either.

In fact, this game might be considered a video poker version of stud poker. All of the other video poker games that I know of are basically video game versions that sort of combine solitaire with 5 card draw.

One of the advantages that Pick'em Poker offers over the other games on this list is that the strategy is much easier to learn. In fact, most Pick'em Poker games have a great pay table available-it's harder to find a bad pay table for Pick'em Poker than it is to find a good one.

I remember when I first started studying video poker strategy. I bought all of the strategy guides from Bob Dancer and Liam Daily. Most of these books are pretty thick, but the thinnest of them was the strategy guide for Pick'em Poker. When I read it, I realized the strategy for the game was simple enough that a book was almost superfluous.

If you can find this game, you should give it a try. It moves a little faster than the other video poker games on this list, too.

Jokers Wild (or Joker Poker)

Jokers Wild actually has a legitimate claim to being a different game from Jacks or Better and/or Deuces Wild. Not only does it have a different pay table, it's dealt from a different kind of deck. But it's not a deck that's significantly different-the main difference is that there are 53 cards instead of 52. The additional card is a joker, which acts as a wild card.

But there's a big difference between Joker Poker and Deuces Wild. That's because there's a big difference between having 4 out of 52 cards being wild and 1 out of 53 cards being wild.

The pay table for this game is similar to that for Jacks or Better, but there are some differences. For one thing, a pair of jacks or higher isn't good enough-the payoffs in Jokers Wild start with a pair of KINGS or better. That's significant, because out of all the possible pairs, you're only looking at 2 of them which pay-kings or aces.

The payoff for 2 pairs is reduced, too. In Jacks or Better, it's 2 to 1, but in Jokers Wild, it's reduced to even money.

Of course, since there's a wild card, you have another hand available that's not available in games without wild cards-the 5 of a kind. This hand pays off at 200 to 1.

The game also distinguishes between a natural royal flush and a wild royal flush. As always, the natural royal flush pays off at 800 to 1. The wild royal flush only pays off at 100 to 1.

With the right pay table and correct strategy, Joker Poker has a payback percentage of 100.64%, making it almost as good a game as full pay Deuces Wild.

ACE$ Bonus Poker

ACE$ Bonus Poker is one of my favorites on the list just because I like the name of the game so much. It also has a legitimate claim to being significantly different from the other games on the list, although really it's just a variation of Bonus Poker. But it's at least an interesting variation.

ACE$ Bonus Poker is played just like Bonus Poker, but there's a difference. The aces are each marked with the following letters:

• A
• C
• E
• $

Normally in a video poker game, the position of the cards doesn't matter. A 10JQKA is a straight, but so is an AQ10JK.

But since the aces in this game have an extra designation, the game can pay an extra bonus on certain 4 of a kind hands.

If you get 4 aces in the right order-ACE$--you get an 800 to 1 payout.

This is one of the only other video poker games I know of which has a bonus jackpot comparable in size to the jackpot you get when you hit a royal flush.

But don't think this is going to come up very often. It's actually even less likely to come up than a natural royal flush.

That doesn't mean this is a bad game-on the contrary. The full pay version of this game has a payback percentage of 99.4%

I recommend sticking with video poker games where you can get a payback percentage of no less than 99%. If you stick with the 10 games on this list, you'll achieve your goal, but only if you get familiar with the pay tables. The other trick is to raise your standards-simply refuse to play video poker games with a lower payback percentage.

Keep in mind, too, that all of these payback percentages are theoretical long term results. They're also based on the assumption that you're going to play each hand with perfect strategy. You might or might not be that good at video poker. But you can get that good if you're willing to put in the study and practice.