There are four major types of games available at online casinos. These include slots, video poker, table games and keno games. There are people who will claim that each of these different categories is better than the others. Table game fans will cite the lower house edge for games like Blackjack. Slots and Keno players will cite the potential for massive payouts. Video poker is unique in that it offers a low house edge and potentially large payouts. With this in mind I will be writing about video poker in this post. Surprisingly few people will tell you that video poker is the best game to play at an online casino. Even fewer people will know that in some cases the player has the advantage over the casino. CasinoChoice.co.uk has information about casinos that offer video poker but I will be focusing on the actual games.
Types Of Video Poker
Online casinos usually offer at least 10 versions of video poker and some have over 40. In most of them you will simply be playing minor variants of 5 Card Draw. The standard version is commonly known as Jacks or Better but there are also games like All American, Tens or Better, Bonus Poker and video poker games with wild cards like 2′s or Jokers.
Picking which video poker game to play is relatively unimportant. Almost every game boasts the same house edge. Standard full-pay Jacks or Better has a 0.46% house edge. Online casinos often change the payouts on their video poker games though. Some casinos have their payout percentages listed online at 3rd party web sites that test the games.
Out of all of the games at online casinos video poker is the only one that has ever had a payout percentage higher than 100%. When this happens it means that the casino is actually losing money on their video poker games, instead of winning money with a comfortable house edge.
Video Poker Basics
You do not have to be a professional poker player or math whiz to claim these great odds. Understanding the standard rankings for poker, the payouts and some basic odds is enough. For instance, on a hand like 2-3-4-6-J it would not be beneficial to draw on the Jack for the inside straight but if it was open-ended (2-3-4-5-J) it would be worthwhile.
Video poker requires only simple tactics like this. Everything else is pretty self explanatory. I mentioned earlier that it doesn’t matter which version you choose to play but this is only true most of the time. I believe that the payout percentage for video poker reaches and exceeds 100% when the game has a progressive jackpot.
If the normal payout for a Royal Flush is 1,000:1 and a progressive video poker game jackpot has reached an amount equivalent to 2,000:1 that would effectively change the house edge for the game.
There is one last video poker tip that I want to share. It is always best to wager 5 coins, especially on jackpot games. A 4 coin wager on a Royal Flush hand will usually pay 1,000:1 and 4,000:1 on a 5 coin bet. Maxing your bet doesn’t have to be more expensive because you can simply reduce the coin value.