Learning how to play video poker is a piece of cake. Video poker is a unique combination of slots machines and poker. Today, you’d be very lucky to find draw poker or five card stud poker at a poker table. Most tables today offer popular poker games like Texas Holdem. You diehard draw and stud poker fans will be happy to find those games in video form at most land based and online casinos.
Casinos in Vegas collect about 60% of their earnings from slot machines and in many casinos these slots machines consist of mostly video poker machines. Most large casinos will have over 1000 video poker machines.
Video poker has a slightly different history that most casino games. It is one of the few poker games created specifically for use in casinos before it was played privately. Before the development of the Internet, anyone wanting to learn how to play video poker was largely limited to playing in land based casinos.
To play video poker, you are dealt five cards from a shuffled deck, as in live draw poker. Most video poker machines that you play will make a sound if you have drawn a hand that pays, however you do not have to hold that hand. The machine will allow you to choose which cards to hold and which to discard. Press the draw button when you have finished selecting your cards and you’ll receive new cards off the top of the deck. If the final hand that you end up with pays out, the machine will payout according to the payout schedule in either credits or coins. If your hand doesn’t make the payout schedule, you lose your bet.
Many find video poker attractive because the player’s skills face off against the machine in a quick play with a shot at a large jackpot. The game is also attractive because learning how to play video poker is a snap. For skilled players, the main appeal of video poker is that the right machine can offer a chance at long term winnings.
Video Poker consists of a considerable amount of luck and skill, as in any live poker game. However, the skill level of the player will have a tremendous affect on your status as a winner or loser when the game is over.
Some video poker machines have a potential long term payback of 100%, but you need to always hold on to the cards that provide the highest expected value (average pay back for all potential results) in every hand that you play. Some even refer to video poker as “the thinking player’s slot machine”.
How to Choose a Good Video Poker Machine
It is important to be careful when choosing a machine to play, since only a few of the great variety of games available can be beat. Often you’ll see a player playing a short pay video poker machine sitting right beside an idle full pay video poker machine. The only thing you need to remember is to find and play full pay video poker for the versions you like.
Outside of Vegas, it is rare to find games offering 100% payback, but skilled play is necessary wherever you play. If where you play doesn’t offer high paying games, an accurate playing strategy will help reduce your losses and provide you with the best chance at winning.
You may have read some books that claim to show you how to beat slots or any other game that has a negative expectation. Every game has a built in maximum payback that you can get close to but never gone beyond.
Learning how to play video poker doesn’t end here. We assume that you also would like to learn how to win at video poker. We can show you how. Click here to learn how to win at video poker.
