• Video Poker Winning
• Video Poker Youtube Winners
• Video Poker Wins 2020
• Video Poker Wins 2018

This video poker strategy page and the accompanying section have a single goal—to help you get the best odds when gambling at a casino. Video poker, unlike many casino games, offers you at least some degree of control over the odds. Games like roulette and slot machines have no strategy. The decisions you make are essentially meaningless.

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Video poker, on the other hand, resembles blackjack. You can use strategic thinking to improve your chances of winning and decrease the house edge. This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, as both games use a deck of cards to play. Of course, in the case of blackjack, you’re usually looking at a real deck of cards. In video poker, you’re using a virtual deck that’s actually being simulated using a random number generator.

But legitimate video poker games duplicate the odds you’d see if you were using a real deck of cards.

And that’s why you can use a strategy to improve your odds. We talk more about that in the next section.

Why Does Video Poker Have a Strategy?

When you’re playing a slot machine, you have no idea what the probability of a particular symbol coming up on a particular reel is. That probability is determined by the random number generator.

A random number generator is a computer program that constantly cycles through numbers at the rate of thousands of numbers per second. Each number corresponds to a different stop on the reel in a slot machine game. Or in the case of a video poker game, each number corresponds to a playing card.

But since you don’t know anything about the probability of getting a particular symbol on a slot machine game, it’s impossible to make any kind of strategic decision.

In fact, even if you DID know the probabilities of getting each symbol on the reel, you still wouldn’t be able to make a decision that would affect your outcome.

There are no decisions to be made. You put your money in, your spin the reels, and you accept the outcome.

Several, if not most, casino games are like this. You have no way of affecting the odds no matter how smart you are. The odds of winning a single number bet in roulette are 37 to 1, no matter what kind of strategy you use.

That’s why video poker (and blackjack) are different. You DO have the opportunity to make decisions which affect your outcome.

Understanding why requires looking into the math behind the game a little bit.

Expected Return, Payback Percentages & the House Edge

The expected return of a bet, video poker or otherwise, can be calculated if you know the probability of winning and losing. You also need to know how much you stand to win and how much you stand to lose.

You multiply the probability of winning by the amount you’re going to win. You multiply the probability of losing by the amount you’re going to lose. You add those two numbers together to get your overall expectation.

Suppose we set up a really simple gambling game where you’re going to flip a coin. If you guess the correct outcome, you win 25 cents. But if you’re wrong, you lose 50 cents.

In this example you have a 50% chance of winning and a 50% chance of losing. 50% of 25 cents is 12.5 cents, which is the first part of your equation. 50% of 50 cents is -25 cents. (It’s negative because that’s the amount you lose.)

Your expected loss on that bet is 12.5 cents.

You won’t lose 12.5 cents every time. That would be impossible.

But if you tallied all your net wins and losses over time, and if you played for a long time, your results would eventually start to conform to the mathematical expectation.

Return is usually measured as a percentage. In this case, 12.5 cents is 50% of the original bet, so your expected return is -50%.

That’s an awful bet. Most experienced gamblers wouldn’t take it.

But it’s an example of how the casino gets its edge in every game in the casino.

This same kind of math can be applied to video poker games and to slot machine games to determine a payback percentage. The payback percentage is just the amount of money you expect to win back from the casino for every $100 you wager over a long period of time.

Keep in mind that in the short run, anything can and often will happen. You can win a big jackpot early in your session, and your results won’t look anything like the mathematically expected payback percentage.

But the longer you play, the closer your results will get to the mathematically predicted results. Over an infinite number of trials, you would certainly have results which mirror the mathematical prediction.

The house edge, on the other hand, is the amount of each bet that the house mathematically expects to keep. It’s the opposite of the payback percentage.

In the case of a full pay Jacks or Better game, the payback percentage is 99.54%. So the house edge is 0.46%.

That means for every $100 you bet, the casino expects you to win $99.54. They expect to win 46 cents.

Those are long term expectations, though. In the short run, anything can happen.

All of that background is necessary for understanding why video poker strategy matters.

Since you know the odds of being dealt a particular hand, and you know the odds of improving a hand, you can compare your choices in a video poker game to go with the choice that has the better expected return.

You’re playing Jacks or Better, and you have 4 cards to a royal flush, but you also have a pair. You could play this hand in a number of ways.

You have a number of options in this example:

• You could throw all 5 cards away and start over. That’s obviously the play with the lowest expected value.
• You could throw away all the cards except the pair. In this case, you’re hoping to improve your hand to 2 pairs, 3 of a kind, or a full house.
• Or you could throw away the card that makes the pair and try to draw the royal flush.

Since you have a pair, you have a 100% chance of winning at least 1 unit. That’s an expected value of $1. But it’s actually a little better than that, because you also have the chance to improve the hand. Let’s just call it an expected value move of $1.50.

But a royal flush has a payout of 800 to 1. The odds of drawing the card you need for that hand are 1 in 47, but any time you get a 46 to 1 shot at an 800 to 1 payout, you should take it. The expected value of that play is huge.

You have a roughly 2% chance of winning $800. That’s $16. You also have a roughly 98% chance of losing $1. That’s -98 cents.

$16 – 98 cents = $15.02, which is a heck of a lot more than $1.50.

The correct choice is clear, even though you’re going to lose this bet more often than not. On the occasions when you do win, your winnings are going to be so large that they’ll make up for all the times you lost the bet and then some.

Not all situations in video poker are that clear. In fact, a human can’t just sit there and work out the correct play in every situation using a pencil and paper.

Luckily, we have computers for that.

You can find a video poker strategy chart for just about any variation available. In fact, you can even find websites which will generate the perfect strategy for you based on the game and the pay table that you input.

Here’s how such a strategy chart works:

• You get a list of hands.
• At the top of the list is the best possible hand.
• You work your way down the list until you find a hand that matches what you have.
• When you get to that hand, you stop and keep the cards that are listed.

Almost all video poker strategy charts start with a royal flush as the top listed hand. That makes sense. After all, you would never throw away the top paying hand in the game. That would just be silly.

In most games, 4 of a kind and a straight flush will also be at the top of the list—those are usually the top 3 hands with the best payouts.

But the next best hand after that?

You’ll always hold on to 4 cards to a royal flush.

That’s some strategy advice based on Jacks or Better, but the strategy for Deuces Wild is a little bit different.

For one thing, you’ll always look at lists of potential hands based on how many deuces you have. One of the fundamental tenets of Deuces Wild strategy is that you never discard a 2.

Then based on how many deuces you have in your hand, you have a list of potential hands to choose from. Start at the top and work your way down.

Another way of thinking about video poker strategy is to think about potentially conflicting hands.

You have 3 cards to a royal flush, but you also have a pair. Do you keep the pair, or do you go for the royal flush?

In this case, you keep the pair. Your odds of hitting the royal flush go down exponentially when you need 2 cards to complete your hand.

In probability, when you want to know the odds of event A happening AND event B happening at the same time, you multiple the probabilities by each other.

In the event of filling a royal flush, each card has a 1/47 chance of showing up. The odds of getting both cards are 1/47 X 1/47, which is about 1 in 2500. And 800 to 1 payout doesn’t warrant that kind of risk, especially if you’ve got a sure winning in your hand already.

The strategy varies from game to game because the payouts vary from game to game. In Bonus Poker, which is basically just Jacks or Better with a bonus payout for a 4 of a kind, you might be more likely to draw to your 4 of a kind in certain instances.

In Deuces Wild, the presence of the wild card makes a huge difference to how you play your hands. You need much stronger hands to win, but those wild cards make it easier to get those hands. One of the fundamental tenets of Deuces Wild strategy is to never discard a deuce.

The basics of Jacks or Better strategy are pretty simple.

First check to see if you have one of the following 3 paying hands:

If you have any of those, keep what you’ve got and collect your winnings.

If you don’t have any of those, check to see if you have 4 cards to a royal flush. If you do, keep those 4 cards and try to hit the royal.

4 cards to a royal flush trumps everything except those 3 hands we mentioned above.

If you don’t have 4 cards to a royal flush, then look to see if you have any of these other “made hands”:

• Full House
• Flush
• Straight
• 3 of a Kind

If you have any of those, keep it and collect your winnings.

If not, check to see if you have 4 cards to a straight flush. If you do, then draw to that straight flush.

Video Poker Winning

Then check to see if you have one of the following 2 paying hands:

You’ll keep those over the other options below.

Once you get to that point, you’re looking at speculative hands. Your best speculative hand at this point is 3 cards to a royal flush. It’s a long shot, but if you don’t already have one of the other hands listed above, that’s what you should go for.

Then if you have 4 to a flush, try to fill your flush.

If you have a low pair, try to draw to 3 of a kind or better.

A full strategy chart will have several more hands for you to go through, but you get the idea.

Jacks or Better strategy just isn’t that hard. Even though this isn’t a complete strategy chart, you’re probably only giving up a few tenths of a percent of payback percentage following these guidelines.

Our guide to Jacks or Better video poker covers the correct strategy in more detail.

Content

If you have 4 deuces, you’ll keep them.

If you have 3 deuces, you’ll keep them. You’re hoping for a royal flush.

If you have 2 deuces, you’ll keep both of them. You’ll hope for a 4 of a kind or better, but if you don’t have that, try for a royal flush or a straight flush.

If you only have one deuce, strategy gets a little harder. But it’s still just a list to go down:

• 4 of a Kind or better
• 4 to a Royal Flush
• Full House
• 4 to a Straight Flush
• Flush, Straight, or 3 of a Kind
• 3 to a Royal Flush

And so on.

The payback percentages for Deuces Wild games are all over the place. Unlike Jacks or Better, which has an easy to understand system for adjusting the payback percentage, Deuces Wild pay tables can vary quite a bit from one another.

Your best bet, when choosing a Deuces Wild game, is to use some kind of online tool to determine the payback percentage for the game with the pay table you’re considering.

For a detailed discussion of Deuces Wild strategy, please see our page on Deuces Wild video poker.

The optimal strategy for Bonus Poker, which offers a bonus payout for 4 of a kind hands, is so similar to the optimal strategy for Jacks or Better as to be almost indistinguishable.

If you just used the same strategy, you’d probably be giving up less than 0.2%.

It is good to know how to play Bonus Poker, though, because in many of today’s casinos, it’s the video poker game with the highest payout percentage.

We have an entire page dedicated to Bonus Poker, and it includes detailed strategy advice.

Joker Poker has some similarities to Deuces Wild, but it’s not as complicated. You’ll only ever see a single joker in the deck, which changes the texture of the possible hands considerably.

You’ll basically be presented with 2 basic strategy charts—one to follow if your hand includes a joker, and one to follow if it doesn’t. The differences are subtle in some cases, but it’s not too complicated.

We offer a full page on Joker Poker, too, which also includes a detailed discussion of the correct strategy for playing that game.

Video poker strategy resembles basic strategy in blackjack in many ways. They both represent the optimal way of playing every possible hand you could get.

Of course, the differences are obvious, too. Your goals in video poker are quite different from your goals in blackjack.

Most video poker strategy is just presented as a list. You start at the top, work your way down, and stop when you get to the hand that matches what you’re holding in your hand. Then you keep the appropriate cards and move on.

We offer detailed strategies for almost all of the video poker games on our site on the appropriate pages. Please visit this page for a complete list of all the games we cover.

You may also be interested the following pages. These cover a range of subjects related to video poker strategy.

Video Poker Strategy Articles

• Video Poker Trainers
• Video Poker for Winner
• Video Poker Bankroll
• Video Poker Books
• Video Poker Cheat Sheets
• Video Poker Calculators
• Video Poker Comps
• Video Poker Double Up Feature
• Video Poker EV (Expected Value)
• Video Poker Hands and Hand Analyzers
• Video Poker House Edge
• Video Poker Lessons
• Video Poker Odds and Probability
• Video Poker Royal Flush Odds & Strategy
• Video Poker Risk of Ruin and Variance
• Video Poker Tutorial
• Bob Dancer: Video Poker Expert
• Jean Scott: The Frugal Gambler

Video poker is a form of poker that’s usually played on poker machines. Unlike Texas Hold’em or Omaha, video poker is a single-player game and is played either on video poker machines on in the form of online video poker. There are numerous versions of video poker, but the majority of them follow the same rules.

If you’re on this page, the chances are that you’re looking for a way to beat online video poker, and this guide is going to help you in your effort. It will help you understand how this game works and what to pay attention when playing it.

Here are several things you’re going to read by reading this article.

If what you’ve read so far seem promising, make sure to read this article until the end. After reading the guide on how to beat video poker, you’ll gain in-depth insight into this game and understand all the intricacies which you’ll be able to use in your favor. Read on!

Video Poker Rules of Play – How Is It Different from Other Types of Poker?

Video poker is a popular game found in many land-based and online casinos. Unlike other types of poker that are played with a dealer and against other players, video poker is basically a single-player game.

It is based on five-card draw poker. At the start of every round, you’ll receive five cards once you make a bet. After that, you’ll have an option to replace some of the cards in order to improve. The new hand you created with replaced hands is your final hand. If you have a valid poker hand, you can receive a prize based on a payout chart which is usually provided in the game.

Therefore the steps of playing video poker are the following.

1. Select an online casino that offers online video poker and open an account
2. Choose one of the available poker games (there are many variations)
3. Select the betting amount — you can select 1 to 5 coins and select how much your coin is worth
4. Receive five cards and analyze them
5. Select the ones that you wish to replace
6. Receive replaced cards
7. Claim the prize if you have a valid poker hand

As you can see, the basic rules are rather easy. However, there are many video poker variations, so let’s take a look at some of the most popular ones.

Most Important Online Video Poker Games

There are so many video poker variations on the web right now, that it would be difficult to list them all here. That’s why I am going to mention just some of the most popular ones here. That doesn’t mean that the ones that aren’t mentioned aren’t good. It means that they are just less popular compared to the ones in this article.

Here’s a short overview of popular online video poker games.

• Jacks or Better – Video poker doesn’t consider a pair a valid hand, but Jacks or Better does. However, that pair has to be at least a pair of Jacks.
• Deuces Wild – Deuces are considered wild cards and can replace any other card to make a valuable hand.
• Bonus Poker – Some hands have better payouts than others.
• Double Bonus Poker — Also, some hands have better payouts than others
• Jokers Wild — Jokers can replace any card to help you create a valid hand.
• Pick ‘em Poker — You are dealt two cards, but get to pick the additional three cards.

These are just some of the variations, but they are definitely not the only ones. In fact, there are further variations with slightly different rules, such as Bonus Poker Deluxe, Double Double Jackpot Poker, Bonus Deuces Wild, Deuces & Jokers Wild, White Hot Aces and more.

Essentially, all of these titles differ a bit and this directly their odds and payouts. However, you should know that, in the end, the majority of online poker games have a similar RTP (return to player) percentage that usually goes up to 99%.

Finally, you should take into account that all of the games follow the hand rankings that are identical to all other poker games, and I will talk about that a bit later.

Video Poker Tips to Win

Video poker is a game of chance more than it is a game of skill. When compared to Texas Hold’em, video poker definitely lacks the human factor that accounts for the “skill” necessary in this game. In other words, you cannot read other players and bluff if there are no other players. Therefore, video poker relies on the element of luck, pretty much like online video slots.

However, there are still several things that you can do in order to improve your overall online poker experience. Let’s take a look at them.

Choose a Good Online Casino

There are many great online casinos out there, and some of them have a better offer of online video poker than others. Essentially, you want to choose a casino that has a great selection of video poker games and a generous bonus for new players.

Of course, you should also choose casinos that have a proven history of successful payouts, and offer various deposit and withdrawal methods, so that you can start playing video poker as soon as possible.

The list of casinos offering online video poker is long, but I narrowed it down to just a couple of them that are worth your time and money. You can find them on this page, so feel free to explore them and learn how to get the most of them.

Practice Before Playing for Real Money

Video Poker Youtube Winners

You probably wonder this — how to choose the best poker game for you if you haven’t tried them all? The good news is that you don’t have to play these games for real money at first.

As a matter of fact, the majority of online casinos offer their users to play games for free by providing fake money. Therefore, if you opt to play for free, you’ll be able to explore the game an all of its options before actually using real money for that. However, you should also take into account that there will not be real-money rewards either, as long as you play the free version.

Once you try enough types of video poker, you’ll have a general idea about all of them, and some will be more appealing to you than others. That means you’re ready to choose one type and begin mastering the game for real money.

Adopt a Bankroll Management Strategy

Video poker, just like many other casino games, require you to manage your bankroll. It means that you should always be aware how much money you’ve spent and won on playing the game. There are various strategies that are universal for all casino games and can help you manage your bankroll better.

The basic rule is to have two limits. The first limit is the one on the amount you’re willing to spend on playing video poker. Simply put, you should always determine the amount for your next session, or even for a whole week/month. That amount shouldn’t be big, and it definitely shouldn’t affect your income much. Just think of it as money you’d spend for entertainment.

The other limit is the winning limit. There’s an unspoken rule that every winning streak becomes a losing streak if you play long enough. That’s why it’s important to determine the winning cap when you play any casino game, including online video poker. Once you reach the desired amount in your session, you should quit for the day.

Video Poker Wins 2020

Bonus Hint: Don’t Use the GambleOption

Like many online video slots, some video poker games offer you to double your winnings by gambling them. You can choose this option after any winning hand and gamble your chances. It’s usually conducted by drawing a card. If you draw a higher card than the one presented, you’ll double your winnings. If you draw a lower — you’ll lose all your winnings.

The gamble option is widely regarded as negative as it impacts the RTP and increases the house edge. That’s why you should avoid gambling your winnings after a successful hand.

Video Poker Odds of Winning + Payouts

Talking about video poker odds is actually talking about poker odds in general since the odds of having a certain hand are similar in the majority of poker variations. Therefore, let’s take a quick look at the odds. Make sure to remember the following table, as it can come in hand while you play the game.

Hand	Odds
Royal Flush	649,740:1
Straight Flush	72,193:1
Four of a Kind	4,165:1
Full House	694:1
Flush	509:1
Straight	255:1
Three of a Kind	47:1
Two Pairs	21:1
Valid Pair (J, Q, K or A)	7.96:1
Any Pair	2.37:1

The chart above is for the game Jacks or Better, which is often considered a default type of video poker. In other words, you’ll receive a prize for one pair only if it’s jacks, queens, kings or aces.

Video Poker Wins 2018

What you will see below is a typical payout table for Jacks or Better. What you should take into account is that there are several types of video poker Jacks or Better games, which are basically divided by the Full House and Flush payouts. Therefore, if you play a 9/6 Jacks or Better, you’ll receive a payout that is nine times your bet if you have a full house and six times your bet if you have a flush.

Other types are 9/5, 8/6, 8/5, 7/5, and 6/5. Naturally, the one with the best odds is the 9/6 one. Here’s a short payout table overviewing the payouts for that game.

Hand	Payout
Royal Flush	800
Straight Flush	50
Four of a Kind	25
Full House	9
Flush	5
Straight	4
Three of a Kind	3
Two Pairs	2
Valid Pair (J, Q, K or A)	1

The important thing to take into account is that the payout changes depending on the type of video poker you play. Therefore, make sure to check it before you actually start to play for real money in order to have a better understanding of how it works.

Video Poker Strategy Chart – How Many Cards Should You Re-Draw?

The last thing I want to talk about in this article is the strategy for playing video poker. Once again, I’ll focus on Jacks or Better optimal strategy, but you should know that this strategy is similar to other variations of online poker.

Although there are various charts our there that can help you, I just wanted to point out this one that I deem essential for learning advanced video poker strategy. The chart below simply tells you how many cards you should drop (change) based on your starting hand. Let’s take a look.

Hand	Cards to Change
Royal Flush	0
Straight Flush	0
Four of a Kind	0
Full House	0
Four cards of Royal Flush	1
Flush	0
Straight	0
Four cards of a Stright Flush	1
Three of a Kind	2
Two Pairs	1
High Pair	3
Three cards of a Royal Flush	2
Four Cards of a Flush	1
Low Pair	3
Four cards of a Straight	1
Three cards of a Straight Flush	2
Two cards of a Royal Flush	3
Two high cards	3
One high card	4
All low unrelated cards	5