Beginners

How to play video poker

Video poker is five-card draw poker against a pay table, not other players. It is a game of skill: your hold decisions decide your return, and the best machines pay back over 99 percent with correct play.

A hand, step by step

1. Bet. Choose one to five coins. Always bet five, the maximum, because the royal flush pays a big bonus only on the fifth coin.
2. Deal. You get five cards from a standard 52-card deck.
3. Hold. Decide which cards to keep. You can hold all five, some, or none.
4. Draw. The cards you did not hold are replaced from the same deck.
5. Get paid. If your final hand is a paying hand, the pay table pays you.

That single decision, which cards to hold, is the entire game. There is a mathematically best hold for every dealt hand, and that is what strategy tells you.

What counts as a paying hand

In the most common game, Jacks or Better, the lowest paying hand is a pair of jacks. Anything from a pair of jacks up through the royal flush pays; a lower pair or a busted hand pays nothing. See the full hand rankings.

Why always bet max coins

The royal flush pays 250 per coin on one to four coins, then jumps to 800 per coin, 4,000 total, on the fifth coin. Betting fewer than five coins throws away that bonus and drops your return by about 1.5 percent. If five coins is too much for your bankroll, drop to a lower denomination and still bet five coins.

Why video poker rewards skill

Unlike slots, video poker shows you the pay table and gives you a real decision. Good full-pay games like 9/6 Jacks or Better return 99.54 percent with perfect play, among the lowest house edges in the casino. But the return assumes you play every hand correctly. That is what the trainer builds.

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