Video Poker Strategy

There are lots of casinos where Blackjack doesn’t count towards wagering requirements. This doesn’t mean, you shouldn’t play here. It is just a little more complicated.

For those who already have played most of the Blackjack Casinos and are still looking for bonuses, should play Video Poker.

The most common Video Poker is “Jacks or Better” and it’s varieties (e.g. Aces and Faces). Played correctly, the payout is about 99,5% but the spread is a lot bigger than in Blackjack. The correct play isn’t simple like Blackjack, but it’s fun, because you always have the chance to win a Royal Flush (wins 800 times your bet).

The bet size should be a lot fewer, because you can easily loose 50 times your bet and then have “four of a kind” or “straight flush” and end up winning.

Usually you can play with 1-5 coins and you can choose the coin size. You should always play with 5 coins and only vary the coin size because the “Royal Flush” payout is a lot higher with 5 coins. If you have less than 100$ in your casino account you shouldn’t play with more than 5 coins of 25 cent each game.

In the beginning you get 5 cards. You keep the good cards and change the rest (only once). When you have a poker hand (Two Jacks or better) you get paid. Here the most common hands:

To play perfectly it is important to keep the right cards. Using the optimal strategy you can reach an average payout of 99,54% but it is very complicated. Here I’m gonna show you a simpler strategy which still has an average payout of 99,46%.

1. Full house or better
2. 4 to a royal flush
3. Straight, three of a kind, or flush
4. 4 to a straight flush
5. Two pair
6. High pair
7. 3 to a royal flush
8. 4 to a flush
9. Low pair
10. 4 to an outside straight
11. 2 suited high cards
12. 3 to a straight flush
13. 2 unsuited high cards (if more than 2 then pick the lowest 2)
14. Suited 10/J, 10/Q, or 10/K
15. One high card
16. Nothing (Discard everything)

Go through this list from the top to the bottom and compare it with your hand. If you have one of the described hands, keep it and change all your other cards. If you have two of the described hands, keep the hand that is in a higher position in our list.

The Auto Play modus of the new Microgaming Software seems to use exactly this strategy. So you can also learn playing by just watching the software playing.

If “Jacks or Better” doesn’t count towards the wagering requirements as well, you should play Aces and Faces. The Strategy is the same, with one difference: When you have three high cards, including an Ace, you keep the Ace and discard the lowest of the three cards. (Figure 13)

And this is how it looks when you have a “Royal Flush”