Poker: Video Poker 101

If you have been into a casino, chances are, you have seen or played with a video poker machine. For those who do not know what video poker is or for those who haven't stepped inside a casino, video poker is one of those casino games that looks like and has a similar size like that of a slot machine. It is usually played on a computer console.

The earliest video poker machines were in the market in the mid 1970's. It is basically a combination of a monitor that resembled that much of a television and a CPU or Central Processing Unit. In 1979, video poker came into the mainstream with the introduction of "Draw Poker". Video Poker became popular in the 1980's and up to now, different video poker machines are still being played in many casinos and gaming floors.

A game of video poker begins when a player inserts money or ticket into a video poker machine as a bet of one or more credits. After this, a "deal" button found in the machine should be pressed. This action draws the cards in the video poker machine. At this point, the player has an option to keep or exchange one or more cards for a new one from the deck of cards. After this, the video poker machine evaluates the hand. A pay schedule of winning hands is usually posted. If the hand matches one of those, then the video poker will offer a payout.

A pair of jacks is usually the minimum hand when a video poker machine starts the payout. The bases of payout allocations in pay schedules are the rareness of the hand and the overall speculated return offer of the game operator. Other players play more and bet more boldly for video poker machines that offer progressive jackpots for royal flush and other rare hands.

There are many kinds of video poker machines. Most of which that were created are variants of the original 5-card draw. These video poker games can be categorized into 2 kinds. These are the standard video poker and the multi-line video poker.

Standard video poker include Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, 10's or Better, Aces & Faces, Joker Poker, Megajacks and 2 Ways Royal. These video poker games are usually characterized with the use of terms that have some adjective in the title such as "double", or "triple" or "bonus". Deuces Wild, which is the most popular among standard video poker machines, can be played where a two can substitute as a joker. In this video poker game a jackpot is paid as a natural royal or for four deuces.

Multi-play poker games, on the other hand, are video poker games where the player starts with a base hand of five cards. In this game, different set of cards with the base excluded from the set will be used to draw additional hands. Some of the multi-player video poker games offered include 4-Line Jacks or Better, 4-Line Deuces Wild, 4-Line Aces & Faces, 10-Line Jacks or Better and 25-Line Aces & Faces

The following are tips that can help you play and win in video poker games.
- For players who want to play progressive video poker, it is best to look for jackpots over 250 dollars on a nickel machine, 2,500 dollars on a quarter machine and 10,000 dollars on a dollar machine.
- you should play on a video poker machines that pay 6 coins for a flush and 9 coins for a full house
- Jacks should be reserved when playing video poker and you should remember that it is more valuable than the Ace.
- A strategy to get royal flush bonuses when playing video poker on progressive machines is to bet the maximum amount of coins.
- And lastly, like in all poker games, take your time. Study the hand dealt by the video poker machine before you act.