6 Ways Video Poker Players Can Use Math to Win

Video poker is one of my favorite gambling activities because every decision can be made using math. Using a few simple mathematical calculations, you can predict the best play in every situation with 100% accuracy.

The first thing you need to learn about video poker is exactly how the cards that are used in the game work and influence everything else that happens. Once you learn how the cards dictate everything else, the rest quickly falls into place.

Here’s a list of six ways that math is used in real money video poker and how you can use math to get better results.

1 – Video Poker Card Math

Video poker games use standard playing cards. The machines don’t have actual playing cards in them like some of the early slot machines, but the programming is based on playing cards.

Most video poker games use a 52-card deck, but some use jokers. In this section, I’m using a 52-card deck, but you can easily change the numbers if you’re looking at a video poker game that uses more cards.

The power of math in video poker is knowing what cards are in the deck. You know that there are four cards of each rank, like four sevens or four queens, and you know that there are 13 cards of each suit, like hearts and diamonds.

You know which cards are still in the deck at every point of the game because you know which cards you’ve already seen. And you can quickly determine the odds or possibilities of receiving the cards you need to improve your hand.

For example, if you start with an open-end straight draw, you fold one card and draw one card. This means that there are 47 cards left in the deck. And eight of those cards complete your straight. In other words, eight out of every 47 times you’re going to complete your straight.

You’re going to learn more about this in the section about video poker strategy.

2 – How Many Coins Should You Risk?

When you play video poker you can choose how many coins you want to risk, from one to five. When you’re playing almost any other casino game, the best strategy is to bet the lowest amount you can. But when you play video poker, the correct strategy is to risk the maximum number of coins.

Take a look at the pay table for your favorite video poker game. I prefer Jacks or Better so I’m using it as an example. Notice how the pay table is laid out. All of the payment amounts follow the same progression except for the royal flush.

The royal flush follows the same progression as the other hands for one to four coins, but there’s a jump for the five-coin payment. This jump is basically a bonus for hitting a royal flush when you risk five coins.

The 4,000-coin payment for a royal flush with a five-coin wager changes the return percentage for the entire game. When you risk one to four coins, the return is lower overall than when you risk five coins. The math shows that risking five coins is always the best strategy when you play video poker.

3 – Pay Table Math

In the last section, you learned a little about video poker pay tables. The most important thing to understand about video poker pay tables is that they dictate the return to player percentage for each machine.

The way you play your hands, usually called “video poker strategy,” influences the return number. But it ultimately doesn’t matter how good you make playing decisions if the pay table is bad. You’re going to learn more about video poker strategy in the next section.

You can learn how to run the math to determine the difference in return between two or more video poker pay tables. But this is somewhat complicated and other gamblers have already done all of the hard work.

All you have to do is look up the return percentages for the available pay tables to learn which pay tables offer the highest rate of return. For example, I know that the pay table that I want to use when I play Jacks or Better is one that pays 45 coins when I get a full house and 60 coins when I get a flush.

4 – VP Strategy Math

Every hand you get when you play video poker gives you options about how to play. If you’re playing Jacks or Better and start with four clubs, with one of the clubs being a king, and a king of hearts, then you have to decide whether to keep the pair of kings or the 4 clubs.

The way you play the video poker hands either makes your return go up or down. Every playing decision you make is strategy. If you make the wrong strategic moves, then you lose more money. If you make the correct strategic choices, you win more money.

Every strategy-based decision can be made using mathematics. This is the main reason why I like playing video poker.

The way to determine the best strategy in every situation is to run all of the numbers based on every card remaining in the deck that you can draw. You get the total return for all of the possible cards and make the play that offers the highest overall return.

Doing this takes a lot of time, and it’s complicated. But just like video poker pay tables, someone else has already done all of the hard math work. All you need to do to use the right video poker strategy is get a chart for the game that you’re playing.

5 – VP Comps

Everything you do when you play video poker should be focused on getting the highest rate of return that you can. Learning how different video poker games work, finding the right pay tables, and using the right strategy is all about getting a higher return.

You can also do something that doesn’t have anything to do with the actual video poker game you’re playing to help your return.

When you play video poker in a land-based casino, you need to see if the casino offers a compensation program of some sort. Comps programs are usually called “players clubs” or something of that sort.

The basic idea is that you sign up for an account, the casino tracks how much you play, and rewards you with compensation based on how much you play. You might get an entry to a tournament or a free meal or even a free hotel room if you play enough.

The point is that when the casino gives you compensation, it helps reduce your losses. If you look at this another way, compensation helps you get a slightly higher rate of return for your video poker play. Sign up for the comps program when you play video poker if one is available. They may also come in the form of loyalty rewards programs.

6 – VP Bonus Offers

Most online and mobile casinos don’t have a players club. But most of them do offer something else. You might be able to get a bonus when you make a deposit to play video poker.

Most bonuses match a percentage of your deposit, with the most common percentage being 100%. This means that if you deposit $250 you get another $250 added to your bankroll.

At first, this looks like a really good deal, but you have to be careful with mobile and online casino bonuses. The first thing you need to look for is if the bonus is for video poker play. Many bonuses exclude video poker play.

The other important thing to find out is what you agree to do when you get a bonus. The bonus is going to have language in the terms dictating how much you have to gamble before you can cash out. This isn’t necessarily bad, but you need to know about the terms before you start playing.

Conclusion

When you learn exactly how the math behind a deck of cards is used in video poker games, you can use this math to get better results. Fortunately, video poker math is fairly simple so anyone can learn how to use it.

Most gambling activities are best played with the smallest wager available, but video poker is the opposite. The math shows that a larger bet is more profitable in the long run than a small bet.

You can use math to help you locate video poker machines that have the highest rate of return and use math to decide the best way to play your video poker hands.