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About Video Poker:
Video poker is a casino game based on five-card draw poker. It is played on a computerized console which is a similar size to a slot machine. Recently, online video poker has also become a very popular way to play video poker. Video Poker History: Video poker first became commercially viable when it became economical to combine a television-like monitor with a solid state central processing unit. The earliest models appeared at the same time as the first personal computers were produced, in the mid-1970s, although they were rather primitive by today's standards. Video poker became more firmly established when SIRCOMA, which stood for Si Redd's Coin Machines, and which evolved over time to become International Game Technology introduced Draw Poker in 1979. Throughout the 1980s, video poker became increasingly popular in casinos, as people found the devices less intimidating than playing table games. Today, video poker enjoys a prominent place on the gaming floors of many casinos. The game is especially popular with Las Vegas locals, who tend to patronize locals casinos off the Las Vegas Strip. These local casinos often offer lower denomination machines or better odds, although this was more common in the 1990s as casinos across the country have recently been cutting their paytables and/or only offering 25 cent machines or higher. Over the last 20 years video poker has become a huge attraction for gamblers. While the number of games in casinos has grown at a remarkable rate, there has also been a proliferation of the different types of games that are available. Multiple-game casino machines can now have as many as twelve different varieties of video poker on a single machine. In addition, numerous multiple-play models allowing for play of three, five, ten, and even fifty or more hands at a time are now available. The casinos provide any game in a variety of denominations to provide a huge array of choices for the video poker player. Add to that the explosion in online video poker game availability, and your choices are almost endless. Why all this interest in video poker? There is some evidence that players prefer playing machines in which they have some control over the result (unlike traditional slots), and that some find the variety of possible wins attractive. Whatever it is, a large number of players are attracted to the game. Video Poker Rules: Game play begins by placing a bet of one or more credits, by inserting money (or in newer machines, a barcoded paper ticket with credit) into the machine, and then pressing a "Deal" button to draw cards. The player is then given an opportunity to keep or discard one or more of the cards in exchange for a new card drawn from the same virtual deck. After the draw, the machine evaluates the hand and offers a payout if the hand matches one of the winning hands in the posted pay schedule, or payout chart. On a typical video poker machine, payouts start with a minimum hand of a pair of jacks. Pay tables allocate the payout for hands based partially upon how rare they are, and also based upon the total theoretical return the game operator chooses to offer. There are many variations of video poker, and payouts vary depending by the game and odds. Some machines offer progressive jackpots for the royal flush, (and sometimes for other rare hands as well), thereby spurring players to both play more coins and to play more frequently. Normally, the best odds are given to players who utilize the maximum bet on the machine, in turn generating higher prizes and revenue returns. Video Poker Regulation: Video poker machines operated in state-regulated jurisdictions are programmed to deal random card sequences. A series of cards is generated for each play; five dealt straight to the hand, the other five dealt in order if requested by player. This is based upon a Nevada regulation, adopted by most other states with a gaming authority, which requires dice and cards used in an electronic game to be as random as the real thing, within computational limits set by the gaming authority. Video poker machines are tested to ensure compliance with this requirement before they may be offered to the public. Video poker games in Nevada are required to simulate a 52 card deck (or a 53 card deck if using a joker). It is unclear whether all video poker machines at Indian gaming establishments are subject to the same Nevada-style regulations, as Indian casinos are located on reservations that are sovereign to the tribe which holds the gaming license. Newer versions of the software no longer deal out all 10 cards at once. They now deal out the first five cards, and then when the draw button is pressed, they generate a second set of cards based on the remaining 47 cards in the deck. This was done after players found a way to reverse engineer a random number generator's cycle from sample hands and were able to predict the hidden cards in advance. Video Poker Variations: Newer video poker machines may employ variants of the basic five-card draw. Typical variations include Deuces Wild, where a two serves as a wild card and a jackpot is paid for four deuces or a natural royal; pay schedule modification, where four aces with a five or smaller kicker pays an enhanced amount (these games usually have some adjective in the title such as "bonus", "double", or "triple"); and multi-play poker, where the player starts with a base hand of five cards, and each additional played hand draws from a different set of cards with the base hand removed. (Multi-play games are offered in "Triple Play", "Five Play", "Ten Play", "Fifty Play" and even "One Hundred Play" versions.) In the non-wild games (games which do not have a wild card) a player who plays five or six hundred hands per hour, on average, may receive the rare four-of-a-kind approximately once per hour, while a player may play for many days or weeks before receiving an extremely rare royal flush. As the interest in video poker increases, it appears that the quality of the available games is declining. For example, the original 9/6 Jacks or Better machines returned 99.5% of the coin-in to the player. Today, it is not unusual to find 6/5 Jacks or Better that return only 95%. The difference between these machines is dramatic. On average, you'll get several times the number of hands out of the same coin-in when playing a 99.5% machine versus a 95% machine. This represents many more opportunities for the player to hit the sought-after Royal Flush. Casinos offering these poor quality games should be avoided. It is reasonable to infer that a casino offering poor quality video poker is also offering poor quality slot machines. As a trap for the unwary, casinos often intermix the poor games with the better ones. For example, you'll see a bank of five Draw Poker machines, where three machines are 7/5 Jacks (96.1472%) and two are 9/6 Jacks (99.5439%). Strangely, at times players show no apparent preference -- the 7/5 Jacks machines will be full while the 9/6 machines are empty. A list of video poker variations concludes this page. Full Pay Video Poker: Full pay video poker machines are games which offer the typical maximum payback percentage for that game type. Payback percentage expresses the long-term expected value of the player's wager as a percentage. A payback percentage of 99%, for instance, indicates that for each $100 wagered, in the long run, the player would expect to lose $1. Payback percentages on full-pay games are often close to or even in excess of 100%, assuming error-free perfect play. Full-pay Jacks or Better, for example, offers a payback percentage of approximately 99.5% when played with perfect strategy. It must be remembered that winning the jackpot (royal flush) is also part of the "long run" in every variant. One should not play a "full pay" video poker game expecting not to lose, because even over many thousands of hands played, it will take a royal flush to get back "even". Casinos often place full pay machines alongside other machines with pay schedules that offer less attractive payback percentages, leaving it up to the player to identify which video poker machines offer full pay schedules. A saavy videop poker player will look at the odds table before choosing a machine, so ensure they are getting the best odds. As indicated above, most full pay machines are configured with a pay schedule that is only full pay when the maximum number of credits is bet. Each game variation is different, but normally to ensure the best odds, you must bet the maximum credits. Other Positive Expectation Games: Other kinds of video poker only have positive theoretical returns when the progressive jackpot is high enough. Many establishments advertise with a billboard when the progressive jackpot is high enough. Otherwise sub-optimal games like 8/5 jacks or better can become positive expectation when the jackpot is large enough. Locating Positive Expectation Games: Although positive expectation and full pay video poker machines are found in many "locals" casinos (located off the Strip) in the Las Vegas market (and in a few Reno casinos), most Strip casinos and casinos in other markets offer less attractive video poker pay schedules. Players' Clubs: Many casinos offer free memberships in "player's clubs" or "slot clubs", which return a small percentage of the amount of money that is bet in the form of "comps" (complimentary food, drinks, hotel rooms, or merchandise), or sometimes as cash back (sometimes with a restriction that the cash be redeemed at a later date). These clubs require that players use a card that is inserted into the video poker machine to allow the casino to track the player's "action" (how much the player bets and for how long), which is often used to establish a level of play that may make a player eligible for additional comps. Comps or cash back from these clubs can make a significant difference in the theoretical return when playing video poker over a long period of time. In some cases, usage of a club card can even add enough value to the pay schedule of a video poker game with a negative theoretical return to make that same game have a positive theoretical return. Video Poker Strategy: Where To Play Online: View and Submit Online Video Poker Casinos Where To Play Live Games: View and Submit Offline (Brick & Mortar) Video Poker Casinos Local Casinos List Of Video Poker Variations:
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