Improving Your Chances When Playing Video Poker 

In the 1970s, primitive video poker popped up in casinos across Las Vegas, offering players a chance to enjoy a version of 5-card draw in digital form, albeit on a basic machine. Since then, video slots have evolved and are now a staple in both casinos and online casino platforms.

Video poker is one of the few casino games in which it’s possible to influence the outcome by choosing the right games and playing a solid strategy. It’s true that video poker already has a low house edge, but by making the right decisions this can sometimes be reduced to less than one percent or even so that the odds are in your favour. 

Here’s how to improve your chances when playing video poker. 

Finding the right paytables

In video poker, players are paid out based on the strength of hand that they finish with, anything from a pair to a royal flush. The rarer the hand, the higher the payout for hitting it, no matter which game you choose. 

But it’s actually down to the casino operator to set the paytables for each video poker machine. If you check the paytables you’ll find that each individual game has different payouts, some more favourable than others. 

So, if you want to improve your win rate, first you need to find a game that has a high theoretical return-to-player (RTP) percentage. At online casinos, the RTP may be stated outright. In physical casinos, it’s up to the player to find out which games pay the most by looking at the payout tables. 

This concept is known as full pay or short pay. Full pay games pay the maximum odds. For example,  Jacks or Better 9/6 is a full pay game that pays 9x the bet for full houses and 6x the bet for flushes to give a very generous RTP of 99.5 percent. 

Short pay games payout less. So, if a Jacks or Better game pays 8x for a full house and 5x for a flush, it is short pay. This doesn’t mean you have to totally avoid the game, but if you want to improve your chances it’s worth searching around for the best video poker odds. 

Jacks or Better is one of the most popular types of video poker. Another is Deuces Wild, in which deuces are wild cards that can count as anything and around a third of payouts are for making four of a kind. It’s a more complex game, but the theoretical RTP is 99.7 percent, which is even higher. In short, game selection is important in video poker.

Playing with maximum credits

In video poker, you should find a game that is the right stakes for you. That way, you can afford to lose anything that you play with and wins are a bonus. After choosing your stake, you’ll then be able to play for a minimum or maximum number of credits, usually between one and five.

If you study video poker payout tables, you’ll notice that there are usually differences depending on how many credits you wager. The payout chart scales as it should when betting between one to four credits. But there is a bonus for betting five, as payouts tend to multiply. 

This is usually the case when it comes to making a royal flush, the best hand in video poker. For example, in a typical Deuces Wild paytable, one credit will pay 300x the bet, four credits pays 1,200x the bet, but five credits pays much more, 5,000x the bet.

In a way, it’s more risky to wager five credits at once. Technically speaking, however, playing with less than the maximum increases the house edge. Playing with the maximum is the only way to get the best odds and payouts.

So, instead of playing with one credit at higher stakes, drop down to lower stakes and play with five credits. You’ll be wagering the same amount per hand, but doing so with the best odds possible. 

Playing perfect video poker strategy

Now we get to the crucial caveat. We’ve talked about game selection and wagering the maximum to get the best odds. But none of that really matters unless you can play video poker in a way that maximizes your chances. 

The main decision in video poker is which cards to hold and which to discard on each round. This can get tricky when it comes to choosing between holding on to a small hand or chasing a big payout. 

The first way to improve your strategy is by studying and applying video poker charts, which detail how to draw in particular situations based on the odds of hitting each hand and the payouts. Here are some general tips that the charts suggest:

• You should rarely give up a winning hand to try to make a stronger hand. If you already have a high pair or better, there are few situations in which you should break the pair by discarding one of them. 

• One exception is when you have three cards to a royal flush, as the prize for winning during the rare moments that you make one outweighs the risk of drawing. If you are drawing three to a straight flush, you can continue drawing but shouldn’t break a pair.

• You should usually hold pairs, even low pairs that don’t score, as they can easily improve to two pair or trips. 

• If you have four cards out of five needed for a straight or flush, draw one card to aim to complete these hands. With three cards, you should prefer to hold even small pairs.

• If you draw nothing in the first five cards, you should hold two high cards, as they can improve to at least a pair.

There’s much more to learn and the charts show you how to reach in each situation. But all in all, it’s not too complicated to learn how to play perfect video poker. By doing so, you can increase your chances dramatically and reduce the house edge.