I’ve been an avid video poker fanatic for as long as I can remember, thanks in large part to my late grandfather’s passion for the game. As a boy, I’d visit my “Poppo” in Las Vegas every summer, and his man cave had a genuine Game King machine packed with quarters.
He wasn’t a gambling addict by any means – the machine was a gift from one of his casino manager buddies – but he definitely enjoyed a session of Jacks or Better to blow off steam. And with a machine in his own home, he never had to worry about beating the house. If you’ve never played real money video poker before, check out my top five reasons to give the game a shot.
1 – Video Poker Is One of the Easiest Games to Learn on the Casino Floor
As I alluded to above, my video poker lessons began several years before I ever stepped foot inside of a casino. Armed with an endless supply of quarters – Poppo had the fabled key to open the coin drum tucked in his office drawer – I sat there playing Jacks or Better without a clue as to the game’s strategic thinking.
Fortunately for me, it doesn’t take a genius to sort through a random five-card poker hand and do your best Kenny Rogers routine. Knowing when to holdem and when to foldem boils down to a basic knowledge of the standard poker hand hierarchy. That is to say, if you know that one pair beats no pair, two pair beats them both, and three of a kind trumps the lot, you’ll feel comfortable tackling any video poker machine.
And if you aren’t familiar with poker in the slightest, there’s no need to fret. Any good Game King machine displays the poker hand totem pole from top to bottom right there above the main screen.
The elusive Royal Flush (A-K-Q-J-10 of the same suit) tops the list of course, followed by the straight flush (any consecutive five-card string in the same suit), four of a kind (four cards of the same rank), the full house (three of a kind plus one pair), a flush (any five cards of the same suit), a straight (any unsuited consecutive five-card string), three of a kind (three cards of the same rank), two pair (two pairs of different ranks), and one pair (two cards of the same rank).
Knowing these hand combinations, it only takes a minute or two to grasp the objective ofa video poker classic like Jacks or Better. As the name suggests, you’ll need one pair of Jacks or higher to earn the minimum payout of your bet back.
From there, the various poker hands produce escalating payouts according to the following scale. Two pair pays back two coins for every coin wagered, three of a kind pays three coins, a straight pays four, a flush pays six, a full house pays nine, four of a kind pays 25, a straight flush pays 50, and a Royal Flush triggers the jackpot payout of 250* coins.
*The payout for a Royal Flush is 250 coins per coin wagered when you bet between one and four coins, but betting the maximum of five coins increases the payout to 800 coins per for a 4,000-coin jackpot
Here’s how a hand of video poker plays out from the player’s perspective.
After deciding on the coin denomination ($0.05, $0.25, $1, $5, and so on) you’d like to wager, then clicking over to the max-bet of five coins to become eligible for the jackpot bonus, you simply click the “DEAL” button. The screen then lights up with five randomly dealt cards distributed from a standard 52-card* deck.
*Video poker variants like Joker Poker add a 53rd card, but most games use the basic 52-card assortment.
When you’re dealt a pat hand that requires no improvement, that’s great, and your work is already done. More often than not, however, you’ll see five unconnected cards that create a “drawing” hand. Picture four cards of the same suit that can draw one card for a flush to get the idea.
To wrap the hand up, your job is to select which cards to hold and which ones to discard in exchange for replacements. Let’s say you’re dealt something like the Ace of hearts, Queen of hearts, Jack of hearts, Jack of spades, and 10 of diamonds.
In this case, you have a few different options to choose from on the draw. You could keep the pat pair of Jacks intact and collect a sure payout, while ditching the three other cards and hoping to improve with more Jacks for three or four of a kind, another pair for two pair, or three of a kind for a full house.
Alternatively, you could keep the A-Q-J-10 combo and draw one, hoping for a King to fill your inside straight draw or any Ace, Queen, or Jack for one pair.
Finally, you could go for the gusto and hold the three high hearts in hopes of drawing a flush, a straight, or “gin” when you draw the King of hearts and 10 of hearts to land a Royal Flush.
Deciding which play is the right one is what makes video poker so much fun. And fortunately, you can find video poker basic strategy guides that tell you precisely which drawing decision is mathematically optimal over the long run.
In our example hand, holding the sure thing with Jack-Jack is a slightly better play than shooting for the moon on a Royal Flush draw.
2 – Video Poker is Actually Dozens of Games on One Machine
My example hand is based on standard Jacks or Better, but once you get familiar with video poker’s foundational game, you’ll be happy to learn every machine contains several different variants.
I mentioned Joker Poker earlier, which adds a “wild card” Joker to the mix which can substitute for any card in the deck to form the highest paying hand. Deuces Wild takes the same concept and makes all four of the 2s in the deck wild cards. Bonus Poker and Double Double Bonus attach higher payouts to certain high hand rankings, so you’ll collect a premium on four of a kind in 2s, 3s, or 4s.
The list of video poker variants is a long one, and it continues to grow as game developers like IGT and Aristocrat roll out new concepts.
As a video poker player, toggling through the Game King machine’s menu of games and seeing what they have to offer definitely broadens your horizons. And unlike slot machines, you won’t have to get up and walk around to find a different game and mix things up.
3 – Video Poker Offers Some of the Lowest House Edge Rates
One of the best reasons to give video poker a try is how forgiving the game can be when it comes to the odds against players.
Most slots found on a Las Vegas casino floor offer players an average “payback percentage” of 95 percent. In other words, for every dollar you wager over the long run, your theoretical expected return stands at 95 cents. The other nickel winds up in the casino’s coffers, which equates to a “house edge” of 5 percent.
The same concept applies to table games too, with roulette offering a 5.26 house edge and craps set at 1.41 percent for the basic Pass Line bet. In the skill game of blackjack, the house edge stands right around 1.5 percent for average players who aren’t masters of basic strategy.
But once you learn basic strategy for a game like Jacks or Better, the house edge working against you drops to a miniscule 0.46 percent. If you prefer payback percentage, the game offers a juicy 99.54 percent return that simply can’t be beat by competing games.
4 – Video Poker Provides More Bang for Your Buck Than Other Games
Another benefit afforded by video poker is the ability to control your betting limits.
Las Vegas casinos tend to roll with a $5 minimum on table games, but you can play video poker for as low as a $0.25* per hand.
*At the nickel stakes using a five-coin max bet
Additionally, you can control the pace of play because there won’t be a dealer around dictating the action. That means you can make a few bets, take a break to review your strategy charts, and return to the game at your leisure.
5 – Video Poker Pays Out Topline Jackpots Much More Often Than the Slots
The final reason to check out video poker pertains to the jackpot scores every gambler has their eye on.
Assuming you play the typical $0.25 coin denomination and max-bet for $1.25 per hand, landing a royal flush is good for a $1,000 reward. And when you up the ante to a $5 max-bet at the $1 stakes, the jackpot climbs to $4,000.
Throw in the increasingly popular “progressive” jackpots that continue to grow until they’re hit, and you can easily turn a few bucks into $5,000 or more.
I say “easily” because Jacks or Better and its related variants offer relatively beatable odds of 1 in 40,391 on landing a Royal Flush. Compared to slot games that have jackpot odds of 1 in a million (or several million for that matter), video poker machines produce jackpots with regularity.
Conclusion
I’m obviously biased when it comes to my passion for video poker, but I genuinely believe every casino enthusiast should give the game a fair shake. Machine games get a bad rap because of the high risk versus high reward nature of slots, but video poker couldn’t be more different from the old “one-armed bandits.”
Players are free to apply skill and strategy to improve their odds, the jackpots arrive much more often, and every Game King machine contains dozens of different variants to explore. Next time you head out for a gambling excursion, be sure to find a video poker machine and try your hand.
Michael Stevens
Michael Stevens has been researching and writing topics involving the gambling industry for well over a decade now and is considered an expert on all things casino and sports betting. Michael has been writing for GamblingSites.org since early 2016. …
