Video Poker seems to be one of those games that people are a little dubious about until they give it a whirl, and the concept of it being worth it, of being able to gain an advantage is the biggest cause of this dubiousness.

I was recently assured of a way of gaining the advantage in a progressive jackpot video poker game: Of course strategies vary from game to game, particularly between wild and no-wild games. However, on a machine that pays out 8-1 on a full house and 5-1 on a flush, there is, or so I’m assured, a means of gaining the advantage.

First, locate a progressive jackpot machine whose jackpot is greater that the maximum bet x 1750; the reason that this is important is because it is only once the jackpot gets this high that the game is even with the house, therefore if the game isn’t even there is no way of gaining an advantage. Now, in theory, or at least this is what I’ve been told; with each 350 x max bet addition to the jackpot, the players advantage increases by 1%. Therefore if you come across a progressive jackpot with a jackpot 2100 x the maximum bet, you have a 1% advantage; if you find one with a jackpot 2,450 x the maximum bet you have a 2% advantage.

Unfortunately, getting to this stage of play requires a lot of time and a lot of money; more of both than most people have. Therefore short of building up the advantage as suggested above, it might be best to simply be familiar with the frequency of video poker hands, and from that determine the likelihood of gaining an advantage. The following statistics were given to me a by a guy in the industry, who claims they are the average frequency of video poker hands:

A royal flush, which is of course what we all want appears once ever 32, 680 hands; a straight flush every 10, 163 hands; four of a kind every 425 hands; a full house every 87 hands; a flush every 90 hands; a straight every 89 hands; three of a kind every 14 hands; two pair every 8 hands; and a pair every 5 hands. Now, in terms of timing, based on these statistics the average video poker machine will therefore produce a royal flush ever 60 hours of constant rapid play; a straight will appear every 6 hours or so, as will a flush; whilst a 4 of a kind will pop up on a more or less hourly basis.

Therefore the majority of the time the video poker player is playing at a disadvantage, however this will be somewhat compensated for by the more regular smaller hands. Is it possible to manipulate the outcomes, to create an advantage? In all honesty probably not, but isn’t it fun trying?

All games of video poker can be played with one to five coins and as a player you have to make that choice. If you want to play with one coin click the coin symbol once, if you want to play with two coins click the coin symbol twice and so on. Some machines have a separate symbol for 5 coins that can be activated by a single click, because all good players always play with five coins.

If you look at the payout table for any video poker game you will see that it has five columns. The first column gives the payout if the player has wagered one coin; the second column gives the payout if the player has wagered two coins and so on. Let us consider a payout table for a simple video poker game called jacks or better. The payout begins with jacks or better with one coin for one coin wagered and five coins for five coins wagered. The second highest payout is for straight flush, which is fifty coins for one coin wagered and two hundred and fifty coins for five coins wagered.

The question that arises is if the payout is in proportion to the number of coins wagered how does it matter whether you wager one coin or five coins. The answer lies in the payout for the royal flush. The payout for one coin is 250 coins. In the same proportion the payout for wagering five coins should be 1250 coins. Look at the number for five coins for a royal flush. It is a whopping 4000 coins.

What do casinos gain by offering such a high payout? To understand this you must realize that video poker machines make money for the casino. Whereas individual players will win, over the day, month and year the total amount lost by players exceeds the total amount won by players. This is the reason why casinos exist. If the casino makes a net income of $X when players are wagering with 1 coin they will make $5X when players wager with 5 coins. Even after accounting for the occasional 4000 coin payouts the machine makes more money if players consistently wager with five coins. Hence the casino gives the attraction to players for always playing with 5 coins.

But why should you play with 5 coins if that makes more money for the casinos. You have nothing to lose, but something to gain. It is this high payout for a royal flush with 5 coins that gives a close to 100% return for the player. Playing with five coins instead of one will mean that your bankroll will get depleted faster. So play one-fifth the number of games and but play will five coins. Because if you hit a royal flush and you have wagered only one coin you will rue the day you were born.