Video Poker: Winning Strategies and Top Tips
Video Poker Strategy: What You Need to Know
- Understanding Pay Tables: Different video poker games have different pay tables. Learn to identify games that offer the best returns to increase your winning chances.
- Choosing the Right Game: Decide which video poker variant suits your style and strategy. Popular variants include Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, and Double Bonus Poker.
- Bet Max Credits: Most video poker machines reward betting the max credits with a significantly higher return on a Royal Flush, a crucial aspect of video poker strategy.
- Strategy Charts: Use strategy charts specific to the video poker variant you’re playing. They tell you the best action for every possible hand.
- Practice Makes Perfect: Free video poker games are a great way to practice your strategy before you start betting real money. This can also help you get a feel for the game.
When it comes to video poker strategy, it’s important to remember that a video poker machine is NOT a slot machine. In video poker, there is an element of skill as well as chance. The choices you make will increase (or decrease) your odds of winning.
As such, video poker rewards knowledge and skill: If you find the right machine, use the right strategy, and have the right bankroll, it’s possible to play near-even with the house or perhaps be a long-term winner. In this article, we will focus on the Jacks or Better variation, which is the bread-and-butter game among video poker offerings.
How Does Video Poker Work?
Video poker is the thinking person’s slot machine. Let’s learn the basics of how to play video poker.
What Is Video Poker?
There are many variations of casino video poker, but most machines are based on the classic poker game of five-card draw. The gameplay is simple. You are dealt five random cards from a 52-card deck. You get one opportunity to improve your hand by drawing cards.
You decide which of the five cards you want to keep and are dealt random replacement cards for those you choose to discard. Check out our how to play poker article for a more detailed explanation of the play mechanics and poker hand rankings.
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The Pay Table
The key to decoding a video poker machine is its pay table. The pay table below is for a classic game of Jacks or Better, where one must have at least a pair of jacks to get paid. The pay table shows how many credits you’ll receive for winning hands.
| HAND | 1st CREDIT | 2nd CREDIT | 3rd CREDIT | 4th CREDIT | 5th CREDIT |
| Royal flush | 250 | 500 | 750 | 1000 | 4000 |
| Straight flush | 50 | 100 | 150 | 200 | 250 |
| Four of a kind | 25 | 50 | 75 | 100 | 125 |
| Full house | 9 | 18 | 27 | 36 | 45 |
| Flush | 6 | 12 | 18 | 24 | 30 |
| Straight | 4 | 8 | 12 | 16 | 20 |
| Three of a kind | 3 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 15 |
| Two pair | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 |
| Pair of jacks or better | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
As you can see, the number of credits you play acts as a multiplier of the payoff for a winning hand. Throughout the pay table, a flush, for example , will pay six credits per credit played. There is one exception—notice that the royal flush payout takes a big leap on the fifth credit played.
Instead of winning 250 credits for each credit played, you receive 800 credits (4,000 ÷ 5 = 800). This sort of bonus on the highest hand is typical in video poker. That’s why the standard advice is to play five credits. (There is a counterargument that you’ll lose less money playing only one credit but we’ll save that for another article.)
From Pay Table to Payback
The pay table doesn’t just tell you what hands you’re hoping for as you play. It reveals how much a game pays back if played perfectly; this is known as “return to player” (RTP), “payback percentage,” or “expected return.” However, this information isn’t printed explicitly on the pay table.
You’ll know it either through what you’ve read or through analyzing the pay table on video poker software or calculators (see resources below). This is critical to being able to compare the multitude of different games with different pay tables. If you play the best machines with expert play, you will give yourself the best chance to come out ahead.
The Jacks or Better pay table here has an RTP of 99.54% with optimal play at five credits. That’s one of the best deals you’ll find in the casino. This is known as a “full pay” Jacks or Better game. In video poker jargon, full pay means that you are getting the highest standard pay table for a particular machine.
In other words, alterations haven’t been made in the payoffs that would shortchange you and lower your overall expectation for the game. When examining the Jacks or Better pay table, the area you should concentrate on is the payoff for the full house and the flush. For one credit played, full-pay machines return 9 credits on a full house and 6 credits on the flush. Thus, these machines are known as 9/6 machines.
Key Strategies to Improve Your Video Poker Game
Now that we’ve met the machine and its pay table, let’s turn our attention to strategy and applying that strategy to the game of Jacks or Better.
From Pay Table to Strategy
The pay table is the heart of a video poker game: It doesn’t only tell you the RTP percentage, it also provides the blueprint for the best strategy. To a certain extent, the pay table lets us take control of our gambling destiny; it allows us to know what the smart choices are for every hand that’s dealt out. Video poker experts have created strategy charts to guide those choices.
The Strategy Chart
Plenty of video poker machines have only a 0.5% to 1.5% house edge, putting them among the best bets in the casino. However, you need to play with the correct strategy to take advantage of those low house edges. Strategy charts incorporate the correct choices that maximize expected return in as general a way as possible.
Some of the computer perfect exactitude is sacrificed for more manageable and enjoyable play. Using a strategy chart (or “strategy card”) for your game of choice is indispensable, giving clear guidance on your decisions and preventing you from making costly mistakes.
Jacks or Better Strategy Chart
The best place to start your video poker conquest is with the Jacks or Better game. It has a low house edge and is particularly good for beginners because of its easily understandable strategy.
Use our video poker strategy chart as a simple strategy for Jacks or Better and you’ll be playing close to optimally.
To use the strategy chart, work from the top down until you find the first description that matches your hand. Once you find a match, keep the combination of cards that matches the strategy listing and discard the rest.
More Tips for Jacks or Better
- Never keep a “kicker”—an extra high card along with a pair.
- You never keep three cards to a straight or flush, though you do keep three cards to a straight flush in some circumstances.
- When you use the strategy chart, take it at its word. Don’t defy the chart because you want to hit a “big” hand. Don’t break up a full house or two pair because you’re eager for a four of a kind.
- You can “expect” to get a royal flush only once every 40,391 hands. However, the royal accounts for nearly 2% of the machine’s total return. Without hitting the royal, the machine pays back only 97.5%. (This is still better than most slot machines.)
- Nearly 55% of the hands you play will produce nothing. You can’t expect to win all the time. On the contrary, you’ll lose most often.
- A pair of jacks or better accounts for over 21% of the game’s return. Even though this hand is a push (you only get your bet back), it is essential to keeping your bankroll going as you pursue the bigger payoffs.
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Video Poker Variety
You won’t lack for variety if you become a video poker player. We’ve already become acquainted with classic “vanilla” Jacks or Better. Here’s a sampling of some other options.
Deuces Wild
In Deuces Wild, all the twos (“deuces”) are “wild,” which means they can substitute for whatever card is most favorable to your hand. The game has great appeal because the wild cards make each hand feel promising. Players also like that they can receive a sizable mini-jackpot by hitting four deuces, which occurs about eight times more frequently than a royal flush.
However, the game has a more involved strategy than Jacks or Better and it’s more volatile (i.e., there are bigger swings in your bankroll). Keep in mind that hand frequencies in Deuces Wild are not what you’re accustomed to from non-wild poker.
Four of a kinds are a lot more common than either full houses or flushes. It once boasted a full-pay version with an RTP of over 100%, but now the best version offers a lesser but still impressive 99.73%.
Double Bonus Poker
Bonus games are popular because they offer bigger payoffs for various four of a kinds, particularly four aces or four of a kind with certain kickers. The playing strategy on Double Bonus (or Double Double Bonus) games can be quite complex because of lots of special exceptions.
For instance, in a Double Bonus game, you’ll break up a full house that included three aces. That’s because the bonuses for getting four aces are so high. Take note that two pair only returns one credit. This, plus the big payouts being concentrated in rare hands, makes for a very volatile game. The best Double Bonus pay table has an RTP of 99.11%.
Joker Poker
Joker Poker games (also called Joker’s Wild) insert a joker into the mix as a wild card (thus making a 53-card deck). Because of this alteration, most machines have a pair of kings the lowest winning hand. The game has its fans, though it’s more volatile than Jacks or Better and harder to learn the correct strategy. Machines with an RTP of 99.29% are available in casinos.
“Gimmick” Games
There are plenty of video poker games that come with bells and whistles: multiple lines, multipliers, special bonuses, etc. These games can be quite fun and many don’t require a different strategy than the base game.
However, they all require larger base bets and are generally more volatile, so your bankroll will be under additional pressure. I would not recommend starting off on these games. Wait until you’ve increased your video poker skills—and, hopefully, your bankroll.
Choosing the Right Video Poker Machine
When it comes to video poker, you want to be an educated consumer. Let’s see how to achieve that.
Evaluating Pay Tables
When analyzing pay tables, you’ll soon discover that every coin counts. Let’s consider Jacks or Better. The 9/6 full-pay version has an enticing payback of 99.54% with expert play. Knock one credit off the full house and flush payouts, bringing the machine down to 8/5, and the best you can do is a 97.30% payback. It gets worse: Plenty of casinos have 7/5 machines (96.15%) or 6/5 machines (95.00%) out on the floor. Always comparison shop among games.
Most video poker machines offer multiple games at multiple denominations. Pay tables will obviously change based on the game but may also change based on the denomination. Before starting, double check that you’re getting the payouts you expected—and that you’re playing the game you intended!
By the same token—realize that the pay table is what determines RTP percentage, not the denomination. A quarter machine with the same pay table as a dollar machine has the exact same theoretical percent return.
Casinos have no qualms about setting payoffs on certain hands lower than the “standard” full pay, and the change can come anywhere on the pay table. So read what’s in front of you. Once you’re familiar with a certain family of games (Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, etc.), you’ll be able to spot alterations to the pay tables that are either favorable or unfavorable.
The Importance of Comparison Shopping
Stick to games you have strategies for, and make sure the strategy was created for the specific pay table. Don’t judge the quality of a game by its name. A Triple Bonus game may have a worse RTP than a Double Bonus one. Proper analysis of a game’s pay table will give you the bottom line.
In brick-and-mortar casinos, compare pay tables to make sure you’re playing the best version of the machine you like. They can vary in different areas of the casino or even in neighboring machines.
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Video Poker Resources
With the right tools, you can be a video poker maven in no time. Use the resources below to analyze pay tables, learn strategies, and master games.
Video Poker Calculators, Analyzers, and Strategy Generators
There are several free resources for finding out the RTP percentage on a machine. You can go the Wizard of Odds calculator and input most pay tables and the site also offers a free strategy generator. vpFREE2 provides a database of most games, complete with pay tables, payback percentage, and casino availability in the United States and Canada.
WinPoker set the standard for analyzing games and training players. You can download a limited shareware version from their website. Zamzone also sells Video Poker Strategy Master software which solely serves to generate strategy tables specific to whatever pay table you put in.
Practice Tools and Free Versions
Videopoker.com does a good job of offering realistic versions of the current roster of video poker games. You can join and play for free, though you need a paid membership to get strategy advice, which is available for most but not all games. The Wizard of Odds has a small selection of free games to play. The paid version of WinPoker is an excellent video poker training tool. It’s also available as an iPhone app.
Top Tips for Playing Winning Video Poker
Let’s boil things down to an essential checklist for maximizing your enjoyment and your bankroll while playing video poker.
- Learn which machines have the highest mathematical payback. You should be able to find pay tables that shave the house edge down to one percent or less.
- Learn the strategy of the machine you wish to play. (See resources above.) For popular games, you can get in plenty of practice for free.
- When you’re starting out, it’s best to stick to one kind of game. By specializing, you’ll master the game faster and you won’t be confused by the strategies of other games. 9/6 Jacks or Better is an excellent game for beginners (and veterans!).
- Start on lower-denomination machines while you’re still mastering a strategy—as long as those machines have a quality pay table.
- When you go to play, bring your strategy aids with you—phone apps, charts, your own personal notes, whatever.
- The first thing to do as you sit down is to insert your player’s card in the machine. This is vital in video poker for ensuring that you get every possible comp and bonus you’re entitled to.
- You don’t have to have to achieve computer-like perfection to do very well. Remember to enjoy yourself.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
Watch out for these video poker newbie missteps.
- Before you bet anything, always double check that you’re playing the game and denomination you intended to play!
- Don’t forget that the payoffs are in terms of “credits,” not dollars. These credits are the denomination of the machine you’re playing on.
- Remember that video poker is not real poker. In real poker, your playing decisions and success are relative to other players. In video poker, your success is all relative to the pay table you’ve chosen and your adherence to the strategy charts. The only thing to carry over from the poker table is a knowledge of the hand rankings.
- In many video poker games, the ace is not the best card in the deck. The best card (if you don’t have wild cards) is the lowest card that qualifies for a winning pair. For instance, in Jacks or Better games that card is the jack. Why? The lower the “high” card is, the more ways it can be used as part of a straight. A jack can be used in any straight from 7–8–9–10–J up to 10–J–Q–K–A. An ace can be used in only two straights: A–2–3–4–5 and 10–J–Q–K–A. Striking as a pair of aces may look, it doesn’t pay any more than a pair of humble jacks.
- In regular poker, you would never think of two or three cards to a royal flush as having any meaning. Learning how to value these holdings in video poker is essential for success. How and when you pursue the royal takes up a decent portion of the video poker player’s brain.
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Video Poker Strategy FAQs
Is video poker a game of luck or skill?
It’s both! When you have a random element – the dealing of the cards – there will always be random outcomes (aka “luck”). However, you use skill and strategy in selecting what cards to hold or discard, which will lead to better results in the long run.
I should always bet max credits in order to get the extra payout on the royal flush, right?
Most video poker experts would say yes because you want the highest payback percentage. However, the actual answer is a bit more nuanced than that. If you’re not playing with an advantage, you’ll save money by betting less, even if it’s at a lower RTP. We can dive into the details in a future article, but suffice to say, you should either bet one credit (save money) or five credits (maximize your jackpot)—there is no benefit to anything in between.
Do the machines really provide a random deal?
Yes, any machine that represents a card game must be completely random. All cards must have the same probability of appearing. In other words, you get a fair deal.
If I manage to find a positive expectation machine and play it expertly, I’ll win every time?
Unfortunately, no. Video poker pros lose more sessions than they win. In the long run, assuming you’re playing a positive expectation game properly, you would expect the smaller number of big winning sessions to earn you more than the more frequent losing sessions. But that’s the long run.
