Video poker is played based on the rules of 5-card draw poker. Most of the rules of draw poker apply save that a video poker game is played, as implied, not at a poker table but on a machine. A video poker machine has a screen which displays the dealt cards as well as your bet credit. It has “Cash Out”, “Bet Max”, “Bet One Credit”, “Hold/Cancel” and “Deal/Draw” buttons. You use this buttons when making your bets, drawing your cards, and cashing out your wins when playing a video poker. Playing video poker at online casino may seem nothing more than a combination slot machine/poker game. But to those in the know, online video poker holds two unique qualities.

Most important, video poker’s house edge is lower than nearly all other online casino games. Trumped only by blackjack, Jacks or Better video poker maintains an average house edge of .46%. Compare that to slots and roulette, whose house edges range from 1% to 25% and 2.7% to 5.26%, respectively. Video poker also balances skill with luck, providing an exciting combination of challenge and surprise.

When betting at video poker, most video poker game use the combinations of hands that can be made from a single 52-card deck. The number of combinations that can be made from the cards determines the payout. There are 2,598,960 possible hands from a 52-card deck. The computer chip in a video poker program is set to simulate the probabilities of drawing any of these combinations. However, as this is a fixed set of possibles, the online casino operator always adjusts the pay table of the online machines to produce the house odds advantage in their favor.

But if you know how to read a pay table, you then can pick a machine with the best return and best odds of success. As a rule, the payouts for all online video poker game are the same except for the for a flush, a full house, or a royal flush.

Let’s take a comparability of payouts on a Jack-or-Better video poker game:

• 9 for a full house 6 for a flush 99.5%
• 8 for a full house 5 for a flush 97.4%
• 7 for a full house 5 for a flush 96.3%
• 6 for a full house 5 for a flush 95.2%

In the above payout, statistically a 9/6 will bring a royal flush once for each 40,000 hands. The 8/5 odds are once for each 45,000 hands etc. Obviously, I recommend to play at 9/6 machines only.

However, most video poker game gives you the choice of how many coins you want to bet per game – just like most regular slots do. In video poker the payout table – like the one above – changes as more coins are bet per game. So the big question is, if it’s best to bet the maximum coins per game, or if you should bet 1,2,3 or 4 coins at times.

If you are betting 5 coins per game, it is a bit too much for your pockets and you will normally also have the chance of adjusting the size of the coins you are playing with; as low as $0.05 and up to $5 or even $10 per coin. So if you want to lower your total bet per game, try to find a lower coin denomination to play with instead of betting less then max. coins every time.