7 Things I Love About Video Poker

Video poker is one of my favorite casino games if I can find the right machines. This is harder than ever, because most live casinos are actively replacing video poker machines. But I still find good video poker machines at the online casinos where I play. Thankfully, they’re increasing options rather than taking them away.

Here’s a list of seven reasons why I love video poker. If you haven’t played video poker in a while, this list might remind you why you started playing to begin with. And if you haven’t played video poker before, this list is going to show you some of the things that you’re missing.

1 – Running the Odds

Video poker games are almost all based on Five-Card Draw Poker in one way or another. You start with a hand of five cards and decide which cards you keep and which cards you replace.

When you replace cards, the cards you receive to replace them come from a pool of cards based on the original pool of cards minus the cards that you start your hand with.

This might not seem like it’s important, but this is what I love about video poker. If I have two pairs and fold one card to try for a full house, I know that four of the cards left in the deck give me a full house. I also know that 43 cards don’t do me any good.

This also means that if I play a hand exactly like this 47 times, on average, I’m going to complete my full house four times and not complete it 43 times.

You can run the odds for every possible situation when you play video poker. This helps you make the best plays and gives you the best chance to win. It can be challenging to run the odds when you start trying to do it, but if you keep practicing, it gets easier.

You can practice using a deck of cards at home without even playing video poker. This is how I learned to use odds years ago.

2 – Playing New Video Poker Games

Sadly, I don’t get to do this often, but I love to try new video poker games. The problem is that the casino industry is making more money from many other games than they do from video poker, so they aren’t developing many new games.

But this doesn’t keep me from looking for new video poker games. Every time I go to a casino, I look to see if they have anything new to offer. And every time I log into an online or mobile casino, I check out the list of video poker games to see if there’s anything new.

I love finding new video poker games to try. Most of them don’t end up being as good as the old Jacks or Better games, but every once in a while, I find a surprise to add to my list of video poker games that I like to play.

3 – Chasing a Royal Flush

It takes tens of thousands of hands to hit a royal flush or other top hand, depending on the machine, on average. But few things equal the feeling when you finally hit one.

The reason a royal flush is the top-paying hand on video poker machines that don’t use wild cards is because it’s the hardest hand to get. Even when you get extremely lucky and start with four cards to a royal flush, which is rare, you still only have a 1 out of 47 chance to complete it when you draw one card.

I understand the odds of hitting a royal flush are stacked against me, but I still get excited when I’m chasing 1. Even when I’m drawing two cards to try for a royal flush I know there’s a small chance I can hit it.

I’ve hit some royal flushes playing Jacks or Better over the years, but this is because of the hundreds of thousands of hands that I’ve played. You can’t find a secret strategy that gives you more royal flushes other than just using proper strategy for the machine you’re playing. I cover more about video poker strategy in section five of this page.

4 – Finding Good Pay Tables

When I walk into a casino, especially one where I haven’t played before, I always walk by all of the video poker machines to look at the pay tables. I love it when I find a video poker variation that’s both fun and still has a good pay table.

I only play a couple of video poker variations on a regular basis, and I know what pay tables I’m looking for. So, when I find the right pay table, I grab a seat and start playing immediately. I also add it to my personal list of where to find the best video poker machines with good pay tables.

It’s getting harder to find good pay tables in live casinos. Most video poker machines I find have bad pay tables, and I simply just flat-out refuse to play on these machines. The only places where it’s easy to find good pay tables are online or at mobile casinos. And even some of them use pay tables that aren’t worth wasting your time on.

5 – Using Math and Strategy

In the first section, I talked about the importance of odds in video poker and how you can learn how to run the odds when you play. When you learn to use the odds, you can then take this another step and use the math of the odds to develop a strategy for the video poker game you’re playing.

Each decision you make when you play real money video poker either helps you win or hurts your chances to win. Using the odds you can figure out which play is the most profitable in every situation.

This isn’t easy, but you can run all of the numbers yourself. But there’s an easy way to use the power of math and odds when you play video poker without going through everything yourself.

All you have to do is get a strategy card for the video poker variation that you want to play. These are available in shops in casinos and online stores. You can even find free charts online that you can print and use when you play.

A strategy card isn’t going to beat a video poker machine, but it does give you the absolute best odds of winning when you use it.

6 – The Familiarity of a Jacks or Better Machine

Like many video poker players, I learned how to play on an old Jacks or Better machine. And this is still my favorite game.

I love the simplicity of Jacks or Better, and I’ve played for so long that I know the best strategy by heart. I know which pay tables are good and which ones are bad.

Every time I see a Jacks or Better game, it makes me feel right at home.

7 – Finding a Good Bonus

It’s rare to find a good video poker bonus, but when I find one, it makes me smile. You can find video poker bonuses on a fairly regular basis, but most of them aren’t good.

The difference between a good and bad video poker bonus is what you have to do to clear it. A bad video poker bonus forces you to play so much that the casino edge is going to take your entire bonus and deposit before you finish.

A good video poker bonus is one with clearing requirements that give you a chance to accomplish it before the casino edge eats all of your deposit and bonus.

Conclusion

Few people seem to love video poker as much as I do. The main reason for this is because there are fewer video poker machines available in land-based casinos than ever before. But you can still find good video poker machines in mobile and online casinos.

I love the fact that I can quickly run the odds for any draw in a video poker game. And as an extension of this, I can always make the playing decision that gives me the best chance to win. In the end, there are many more reasons to love video poker than to hate it.