hi and welcome to our instructional video on video poker
my name is Steve Bourie and I'm the author of the American casino guide
which is the number one bestselling book in the US on the subject of casino
gambling and travel
and the only book that comes with more than one thousand dollars in casino
coupons
if you want to know more about me or my book just go to my website at americancasinoguide.com
As a gambling author I spend a lot of time in casinos
my favorite game to play is video poker it's really a good game for all levels
of players
and in this video I'm going to show you how video poker machines work
and how you can win on them. First of all let me ask you this
do you know the main difference between a video poker machine a slot machine?
well if you said a slot machine is a game of luck and video poker is a game of skill
then you are correct. When you play a slot machine
you put in your money and pull the handle or push that spin button
and you hope that you're lucky enough to get a winning combination
in video poker however it is your skill in playing the cards that affects the
outcome of the game
Now besides the skill factor
there is one other big difference between video poker and slot machines
that I should mention and that is you never know what percentage a slot
machine is set to pay back to the public
but you can always calculate a video poker machine's pay-back percentage
just by looking at its pay table This is a very important because it allows you
to go into a casino
and easily tell which video poker machines are programmed to pay back the
most money
So those are the two main differences between slots and video poker
and I'll return to those differences shortly but first let me give you a
brief rundown
on the basics of how to play. Video poker is similar to playing a game of five
card poker
the only difference is that you have no opponent to beat and you can't lose more
than your initial bet
first you deposit from one to five coins in the machine to make your bet
you are then shown five cards on the video screen and your goal
is to try to make the best poker hand possible from those cards
since it is a draw game you're given one opportunity to improve your hand
this is done by allowing you to discard from one
up two of five cards from your original hand Of course you don't have to discard
any if you don't want to, but usually you want to replace some cards to improve
your hand
After choosing which cards you want to keep you then push the draw button
and the machine will replace all of your discards with new cards
based on the resulting final hand the machine will then pay according to the
pay schedule posted on the machine
naturally the better your hand the higher the amount the machine will pay you
back
So those are the basics of how to play video poker
but now let's go back and talk about those two big differences between slots
and video poker
and how you can use that information to help you become a long-term winner
at video poker. If you see my how to win slots video on YouTube where I explain how
slot machines work
you know that slot machine manufacturers have a lot of flexibility when it comes
to programming their machines
if they want a machine to pay back less money to the players they simply program
in more losing combinations
and if they want a slot to pay back more money they just program in
more winning combinations The problem for you as a player
is that when you walk up to a slot machine you have no idea what it's programmed
to pay back
Fortunately when you play video poker you won't have that problem
you see with video poker machines the manufacturers can't increase or decrease
the number of winning and losing combinations they program into the machines
and the reason they can't do that is because the number of winning and losing
combinations
are all based on a 52 card deck and therefore
the number of those combinations are identical on all video poker machines
of course I'm not including games with jokers here but any video poker game
played with a 52 card deck
has exactly 2,598,960
unique five card poker hands possible
and every time you push the deal button you will be dealt
one of those hands. Now you may be wondering if the manufacturers can manipulate the
winning and losing combinations
and how can they change the payback percentages to make machines pay out
less or more
well the answer is they do that by simply paying you less
when you get a winning hand To get a better understanding in this let's take
a look at a 9/6 Jacks or Better machine
On this machine the jacks or better part refers to the fact that you won't win
anything unless you have at least a pair jacks and the 9/6 part refers to the
payback schedule
nine coins for a full house and six coins for a flush
this is one of the best games you can find in a casino
it is known as a full pay machine and the expected return on this machine when
you play the maximum five coins and use perfect strategy
is 99.54 percent. Now
when a casino wants to make more money on their video poker machines
they will offer a lower pay table and that change is almost always made in the
payoffs for the full house and the flush
For instance on one machine you may only get paid eight coins for a full
house
while another may only pay seven and another just six
on the flush pay off the only change is that they're usually reduced from six to
five
Every time one of these payoffs is reduced by one coin
the effect is that the payback percentage is reduced by about 1.1
percent
So if you had a 7/5 jacks or better machine that returned seven coins for
a full house and five coins for a flush
the expected return on that machine would be 96.15 percent
rather than the 99.54 percent on a 9/6 Jacks or Better machine
As you can see it it's always a good idea to look at the pay table at the
video poker machine to make sure you're playing the game offering the highest
return
Many times casinos will scatter higher-paying and lower-paying machines
throughout the casino
and it's up to you to spot the better ones You need to be careful however
that you are comparing the pay table on the same type machine
you can't compare a jacks or better machine to a bonus game or double bonus or
double double bonus or deuces wild
if you like to play jacks or better then just take a few minutes
to walk to the casino and look at the pay tables on all the jacks or better
machines
You'll probably find some variations on the full house and flush payoffs
just be sure to play on the machine where the payoffs are the highest for
those hands
Remember that the probability of getting a full house in all those jacks or
better machines is the exact
same so why would you want to settle for seven coins for a full house when another
machine in the same casino may offer you 8
or 9? Actually every video poker machine's payback percentage can be
mathematically calculated
but it's impossible to do that on your own You can buy a software program to do it
but it'll cost anywhere from thirty dollars to fifty dollars
another option is to just go to our website at americancasinoguide.com
and visit our video poker section In that area you'll see an article called
video poker pay tables just click on that
and it will bring up a list of the most common pay tables along with the
notation
of the payback percentage for that particular pay table
Now that you know how to find the best machines to play you'll need some help
with
the strategy It turns out that video poker is similar to blackjack in a sense
that there is a basic strategy
and there is always one best way to play your hand in any given situation
and how is that strategy determined? Well of course it's done with computers
There are 32 different ways any five card poker hand can be played
and the computer will analyze all 32 of those plays to come up with an expected
value for each play
this expected value which is referred to as EV by knowledgeable video poker
players
is the key to making your decisions and the play that delivers the highest
EV is how you should always play your hand
Let's say you're on a 9/6 Jacks or Better machine and you're dealt the following hand
which includes a pair of 10s and four hearts
Should keep the tens or go for the flush?
Well if you look at the computer analysis for this hand
you'll see that if you keep the pair of 10s the EV of that hand is a little
better than 4.1 points
but if you keep the four card flush the EV is much higher
at more than 5.7 coins, so the correct answers that you should keep the four
card flush because
that expected value is the highest
as you see just like a machine's pay back percentage can be calculated
so can the correct strategy for playing any particular hand
but once again you will need to buy a software program costing up to fifty
dollars
However there are also strategy charts you can buy
that will show you how to play your hands properly and those cost around five
dollars
Keep in mind that the strategy will change slightly whenever the pay table
is changed
so you need to make sure you are using the proper strategy for
each particular pay table If you want to get some video poker strategy charge for
free
you can do that on our website at americancasinoguide.com
just go to the video poker section and click on the article title
free video poker strategy charts You can then print out
any of those charts and bring them with you to the casino One last thing I want
to mention about video poker is thatat
unlike slot machines you can actually find machines are set to return more
than 100 percent
and how you may ask can a casino offer a game with an expected
return of more than one hundred percent? Wouldn't they lose money on that machine?
Well yes they would lose money if everyone who played that machine knew
the right strategy
but ninety-nine point nine percent of the people who play that game
don't know how to play it properly so they won't even come close to achieving
that 100 percent return
therefore the casino can still make money on that game
So there you have it hopefully I've answered most of your questions about
video poker
and the next time you visit a casino you'll be able to easily choose the best paying
machines
and use the proper strategy Thanks for watching
and best wishes for good luck on your next visit to the casino!