VIDEO POKER

Online Video Poker

Video Poker is a staple of the casino floor whether you’re online or at a brick-and-mortar betting outlet. They are popular, but they’re more niche than Slots or Blackjack because not everyone knows exactly how they work. At TopRandCasinos, we can’t wait to tell you the basics of this exciting option, because you can easily gather tons of huge winnings with small bets, just like you can with Slots, but you have a better chance of winning if you use basic strategy, just like with Blackjack. It’s fast-paced, exciting, easy to pick up, and one of its variations has a house edge of around 1%, one of the lowest in the casino.

Basic Rules

The betting structure of Video Poker is coin play, and the more coins you bet, the farther the winning coin column will move from left to right down the pay chart. Click bet one, and you will see it move, and note that it is always recommended that you play all five coins, because you will unlock the maximum jackpot or the progressive jackpot. The amount you value the coins you bet with also apply to the coins you win, so the higher they’re valued, the more you stand to both lose and win. For example, if you bet five coins valued at $1 each, you could lose $5, but if you get a two pair, you could win $10, and the pay-outs climb higher from there, the best always being the Royal Flush, a 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace in the same suit, and that jackpot can be as high as 4,000 coins or more, and is sometimes what triggers the progressive jackpot. Once you set the value of the coins and the number of coins you want to play, you press the deal button and are dealt five cards. Click the cards you want to keep, and don’t click the cards you want replaced. You can have them all replaced or keep them all and anything between, and the new cards you receive after you click the Draw button are from that same deck. The hand you have after the draw is your final hand, and if it’s a hand that applies to the pay table, you win that payout. After you win, the game will ask if you want to go double or nothing, showing you one card and having you select between four other cards. If the one you select is higher, you double you win, but if it’s lower, you lose you wins, so this is not recommended. Video Poker also famously comes in several variations. Jacks or Better has the lowest house edge, but for the high roller players who only go for the big hands like four of a kinds and straight flushes,  you’ll want to go with the Bonus Poker. Joker and Wild poker variations include wild cards that can take the place of any other card to make winning combinations, and multi-hand allows players to play multiple hands simultaneously!

Interesting Facts

These facts may well boost your Video Poker prowess:

  • All the “card shuffling” is done by random number generators, so there is no actual deck of virtual cards. Instead, the 52 possibilities are dealt out completely at random.
  • The random number generators also ensure that the previous hand has no bearing on the hand to follow, so each time the cards are dealt, any hand is just as likely every time.
  • While the pay-outs are better for the strongest hands, it’s always best to play Jacks or Better, because you have the highest likelihood of winning.