5 Reasons Why Blackjack Is Better Than Video Poker

If your goal is to find gambling options that offer a high return to player percentage, blackjack and video poker are both good options. In fact, they might be the 2 best options in the casino.

But if you want to have the best chance to win you need to concentrate on 1 game. This reduces your mistakes and helps you master all of the knowledge and skills that you need for 1 game.

How do you choose which game is better for you?

I’ve put together a list of 5 reasons why blackjack is a better option than video poker to help you pick a game.

1 – More Blackjack Games Available

If a casino offers table gaming options you can count on blackjack being available. Blackjack is the second most popular casino game, following only slot machines.

On the other hand, video poker has been falling in popularity for years. Casinos track how much gamblers play each game in the casino and know how much they make from each game. When a game loses popularity it reduces the profits.

When this happens, the casino replaces the low profit game with something else that they hope will be more popular and more profitable. This means that there are fewer video poker machines available than there were in the past.

I don’t see this changing in the future, because there aren’t new video poker games being released on a regular basis and the casinos have already tried all of the old games. It’s almost reached the point that if you want to play video poker it has to be on a computer or mobile device.

I’ve always enjoyed playing at a video poker machine in a casino. But it’s harder than ever to find a good machine with the right pay table. The few video poker machines that are left in casinos almost all have a crappy pay table.

For better or for worse, the fact is that blackjack games are simply easier to find than video poker games in today’s casino environment.

2 – 1 Strategy Card

When you play video poker you need to use a different strategy for every game. You can get cards for all of the popular video poker machines, but this still means that you have to learn and use multiple strategies.

Blackjack games are almost all the same. Yes, there are a few rules variations from game to game, but for the most part the base game is always the same.

To be 100% honest, if you want to squeeze the last .01% out of a blackjack game, you need to use a slightly different strategy based on the table rules. But most blackjack players are just fine using a basic blackjack strategy card.

You can’t use a Jacks or Better strategy card when you play Deuces Wild. But you can use the same blackjack strategy card whether you can double down on any 2 cards or just certain totals. You can get 2 different blackjack strategy cards based on whether the dealer hits or stands on a soft 17, but the 2 cards are so similar that it doesn’t hurt you much to just use the same card for both games.

The best strategy is to carry a card for any game you might play when you go to the casino. And they don’t take up much room. You can fit a blackjack strategy card and 3 or 4 different video poker cards in your pocket.

But it’s always best if you play enough to memorize the best plays. This way you don’t need to use a card. And this is much easier if you only need to memorize 1 card instead of 4 or 5.

3 – Easily Change Wager Amounts

Blackjack tables have minimum and maximum wager amounts, and you can bet either of these or anywhere in between on any hand. You can change how much you bet from hand to hand or make the same wager on every hand.

Video poker machines are coin based, and almost every machine is set for 1 coin amount. If you want to use a different coin amount you have to find a different video poker machine.

I know that you can bet between 1 and 5 coins when you play most video poker machines, but the best strategy is to always use a 5 coin wager. In other words, I only look at a video poker game based on the maximum wager amount, and this is how you should look at them also.

If you’re not an advantage blackjack player the truth is that you should always use the smallest wager possible. But if you’re using advantage play the ability to make larger wagers is a way you can overcome the odds when you’re playing blackjack.

4 – Easier to See on a Small Screen

If you’ve never tried to play video poker on your phone or other small screen device, it’s difficult to see everything. Depending on the quality of your eyesight, you might not even be able to play video poker on a phone.

It’s much easier to play real money blackjack on your phone. You only need to be able to see the value of your 2 cards and the dealer’s face up card. This is easier to fit on a phone screen than 5 cards and a pay table.

The only advantage to playing video poker online or on a mobile device is it’s much easier to find good machines and decent pay tables. I rarely find a 9/6 Jacks or Better video poker machine in a live casino, but I can play this version at many online casinos.

You can also find good blackjack games online and in mobile casinos easier than in live casinos. Online and mobile casinos have a lower cost of staying in business so they can afford to offer more games with good rules than live casinos can.

The problem comes into play when you’re counting cards. I cover card counting in more detail in the next section, but it doesn’t work when you play online or mobile blackjack. You can use online play to practice, but not to get an edge.

5 – You Can Count Cards

The main advantage that blackjack has over video poker is the ability to count cards. It’s possible to count cards and change the size of your wager in certain situations enough to beat the odds. This is a specialized skill, but it’s not impossible to do.

Of course, there have been a few video poker games designed with a pay table that can be beat, but these machines are almost impossible to find. And if you do find 1 of these machines, you can’t make a single strategy mistake or your small edge is gone.

The other problem with these rare video poker machines is that even if you have a small edge, you have to play until you hit a top hand to come out ahead. This often involves 10’s of thousands of hands.

When you’re counting cards while playing blackjack, you can grind out a small edge over time. This doesn’t means that you’re going to win every single time you play blackjack, but you’re going to get ahead much faster than playing video poker.

Completely covering how to count cards can’t be done in a few paragraphs. But the key point I want to make sure that you get is that it’s 1 of the few ways you can get an edge, and you can learn how to do it.

The thing that keeps most blackjack players from learning how to count cards is ignorance. They believe that you have to learn how to remember every card that’s played, and this is simply not true. Read a few articles about card counting to see how it’s done.

If you’re able to use a strategy card when you play blackjack you’re smart enough to learn how to count cards.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for the best gambling option and want it to be easy to find games, blackjack is clearly a better choice. Many more blackjack games are available in casinos than video poker machines. And when you play video poker you need to learn strategy for each base game instead of just 1 base game.

You can change how much you bet on every hand at the blackjack table, but you have to find a new machine if you want to bet a different amount when you play video poker.

The best reason to play blackjack instead of video poker is that you can learn how to count cards and get an edge.