Are you a casino player who has been on the lookout for a game where you have a big chance of winning? The truth is that most games can hardly be beat, but video poker is the one game that actually gives players plenty of chances to win. If you are anxious to learn how to win at video poker, you have come to the right place.

This guide to beating video poker explains in lots of detail how you can increase the chance of beating the game of video poker in simple and easy to follow steps. You will not need to learn complex strategies or advanced mathematical models to win, simply follow the steps and keep it simple.

If you are an avid video poker enthusiast or if you are hoping to boost your video poker winning odds, this guide will teach you:

• How to increase your video poker winning odds
• How to choose your video poker variant
• How to devise your video poker strategy
• How to actually play wise and win big

The time could not be better to learn how to win at video poker and what strategies to apply in the game. With online casinos offering so many different variations of video poker nowadays, you could be on your way to making some serious money with one of the most popular gambling games of all time.

1. Choose the Legitimate, Regulated and Fully Licensed Casino 

Before you actually start playing your video poker game, you need to invest some time and efforts into choosing the right casino. As you probably already know, this industry is one of the most competitive industries with hundreds of different venues both online and land-based offering their services and products to worldwide players. In a sea of hundreds of different casinos, it can be extremely challenging to choose the right casino.

When we say right, we mean the casino which is fully regulated, offering reliable and trustworthy customer support, offering a variety of deposit and withdrawal methods. The truth is that new casino players are often times are completely overwhelmed by the great range of different online casinos operating in the industry and choosing the right casino means you need to pay attention to several different things.

First of all, make sure you research your chosen casino well. This means that you need to learn about your chosen casino’s reputation among other players, its history, licensing and of course ownership.

In spite of doing so, you can easily find everything you need to know about your chosen casino by interacting with its already registered players simply by joining one of the hundreds of online forums.

Even though you cannot judge casinos’ purely based on what other players say, you can definitely gain a better look at casinos’ operations and services provided.

• Be sure that your chosen casino is fully licensed and regulated
• Make sure that you check the casino’s reputation among its already registered players
• Be sure to check the casino’s customer support and banking methods offered

2. Choose the Casino with the Best Payout Percentage

When choosing the right casino for you, in addition to paying attention to the casino’s reputation among other players, its licensing and regulatory measures, make sure you check the casino’s payout percentage as well. When learning how to win at video poker, you need to take a look at the game’s payout percentage offered at your chosen casino.

The payout percentage refers to the amount of wagered money that the casino actually returns to its players as their winnings. Boosting your video poker winning odds means you need to choose the casino offering the best payout percentage.

If your chosen casino offers high payout percentages, it indeed means that the casino returns larger amounts of money to its players as their winnings. It should be noted that some casino venues tend to silent when it comes to their payout percentages.

You should probably avoid these casinos and register at a casino which clearly displays its payout percentages somewhere on its website.

As soon as you have found that your casino offers the best payout percentage, you can rest assured that you are about to hop on a lucrative gambling adventure completely worry-free. In addition to checking your chosen casino’s payout percentage, make sure you also check if it accepts players from your country as there may be some geographical restrictions in place you want to know about.

• Check your casino’s payout percentage
• Choose a casino which clearly displays all payout percentage info on its website
• Aim for higher payout percentage for boosting your winnings

3. Check the Casino’s Reliability and Trustworthiness 

Choosing the right casino can be more challenging as you may think. In addition to checking your chosen casino’s regulatory and licensing measures, you want to check its gaming environment reliability and trustworthiness.

You want to play your games at an online casino using the latest SSL encryption technology in order to make sure that your personal and transactional data is safe and secure. Moreover, you also want to check if your chosen casino has an eCORGA certificate. eCORGA is one of the most prominent organizations helping with the regulation of the entire industry.

If your casino has this type of certification which is clearly visible on its website, it definitely assures you of your casino’s trustworthiness and reliability. In addition to checking this, you should also check the casino’s device support and whether it offers mobile games or only instant play.

It should be noted that different casinos offer different gaming libraries and you definitely want to make sure that your chosen casino offers video poker games. While video poker is extremely popular among online casino players, not all casinos offer the games.

Before registering, you definitely want to check the casino’s gaming library to see what it offers and whether they are video poker games offered or not.

• Check the casino’s eCORGA certification
• Be sure that the casino uses the latest SSL encryption technology
• Be sure that the casino offers video poker games before registering

4. Learn the Game’s Rules

Once you have found the right casino for you which is fully regulated, licensed with a great customer support department and preferably with a great payout ratio close to 100%, the next step requires from you mastering video poker rules. As mentioned at the beginning of the article, video poker is one of the simplest games around with fairly simple rules to follow.

The best idea is to start with playing Jacks or Better which is among the simplest video poker variants. First, you need to choose your coin limits. Video poker games usually allow wagers anywhere between one up to five coins per hand. One tip is to play the maximum bet when possible as it gives you better-winning chances at hitting great cash prizes.

Once you are all set, you start the game by pressing the Deal button. Initially, you receive five cards which are facing up. Before you decide which cards you want to hold or keep and which cards you want to be re-drawn, you need to carefully examine your cards.

Those cards you want to be re-drawn you simply change by clicking on them. Players who have players Five-Card Draw Poker will surely recognize the game’s rules from now one. After keeping the cards you want to keep and after changing the cards, you simply need to make the highest-valued five-card poker hand out of cards you have.

Depending on what you have in your hand, you are paid accordingly. When playing video poker you actually use your standard poker hands knowledge to make the best out of your cards.

• Be sure to know the game’s rules
• Use your knowledge of standard poker hands standing
• Start with something simple such as Jacks or Better

5. Understand the Coins and Coin Sizes 

The very first major decision you need to make when playing your video poker game is to actually decide how much money you want to wager on your hands. It should be noted that there are two different elements involved in playing bets including choosing the number of coins you want to bet and choosing the coin size.

Both of these you adjust at the beginning of your game. Keep in mind that every hand you play actually costs you determine bet amount you can calculate easily by multiplying the number of coins by the coin size and you get your actual bet placed.

Keep in mind that different video poker games come with different coin sizes which usually range from only one cent up to ten dollars depending on where you play. Keep in mind that the actual coin sizes range available to you is one of the most important factors you need to take into account when choosing your video poker game.

On every deal, you usually can choose to wager from one up to five coins. Since the biggest payout comes from having a Royal Flush when playing with five coins, the best options are to actually play the maximum or play with those five coins.

For this reason, make sure you choose your video poker table wisely according to your budget and your preferences. While it does not make any sense playing a ten dollar coin if your budget does not fit, but lowering your stakes and betting the maximum per hand makes sense.

• Check the game’s available coin sizes and number of coins
• Choose the table according to your playing budget
• When possible play the maximum number of coins per hand

6. Learn the Paytable

As mentioned in the previous section of the article, winning hands are paid according to the video poker paytable and as usual, the higher-valued hand brings the higher payout. When boosting your how to win at video poker winning odds, in addition to learning the rules of the games and exploring the coin sizes, you also need to examine the game’s paytable.

There are nine qualifying hands including Jacks or Better, Two Pairs, Three of a Kind, Straight, Flush, Full House, Four of a Kind, Straight Flush and Royal Flush from the lowest to the highest. As with standard poker games, the highest-valued poker hand is the Royal Flush including A, K, Q, K and 10 comprised of the same suit.

As expected, different poker hands pay differently starting with the Royal Flush paying the biggest amount when playing the maximum of 4000 coins while the Royal Flush playing at lower than the maximum brings 250, 500, 750 and 1.000 coins. The next highest-valued payout comes from the Straight Flush offering 250 coins when playing at the maximum.

The Straight Flush is followed by the Four of Kind playing maximum of 125 coins, Full House paying maximum of 45 coins, Flush paying maximum of 30 coins, Straight paying maximum 20 coin, Three of a Kind paying maximum 15 coins,

Two Pair paying maximum 10 coins and Jacks or Better paying maximum 5 coins. When playing Jacks or Better, the minimum qualifying hand is Pair of Jacks or Better worth up to 5 coins.

It should be noted that these poker hand rankings usually remain the same across different video poker games even though they may be some subtle changes depending on where you play. It should be noted that some video poker games also offer the Sequential Royal Flush payouts offering 10.000 coins when playing at the maximum.

The Sequential Royal Flush is a Royal Flush which goes across the screen starting from left to right such as spades of 10, J, Q, K, and A. Moreover, some games also include Reverse Sequential Royal Flushes that go from right to left.

• Be sure to examine the game’s paytable
• Start with Jacks or Better with the minimum qualifying hand of Pair of Jacks or Better
• Take advantage of the Sequential Royal Flush

7. Explore Different Video Poker Variants

As previously mentioned in the article, there are different video poker variants offering different winning odds. One of the most popular as well as the simplest video poker games to learn is Jacks or Better followed by other video poker variants such as Tens or Better, Deuces Wild, Joker Poker, 2 Ways Royals, Aces and Faces and several other exciting variants.

Beginner players are suggested to start with Jacks or Better, and then move onto other video poker games. As expected different video poker games come with slightly differing rules.

In Tens of Better, players win when having a pair of tens or higher while in Aces and Faces, players have qualifying hands with higher payouts for having any Four of a Kind hand comprised of Kings, Queens or Jacks and they receive even bigger payouts for having hands of four Aces.

When it comes to playing Deuces Wilds, two are always wild which can be replaced by any other card within winning hands. Then, there is Joker Poker which is another exciting video poker variant with one Joker added to the standard-card deck that can be replaced by any other card in favor of forming winning hands.

It should be noted that this video poker variant also allows hand of Five of a Kind. 2 Ways Royals is another exciting game offering players two different ways for making Royal Flushed in favor of claiming the biggest payout including A, K, Q, J and 10 as well as 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.

• Start with the simplest game Jacks or Better and later on try other variants
• Learn the rules of other video poker games
• Take advantage of the features offered by more exotic video poker games

8. Get Familiar with the Payback Percentage of Different Video Poker Games 

Even though the majority of players fail to realize the importance of the payback percentage related to each video poker games, devising how to win at video poker strategy means getting familiar with each payback percentage. Fortunately for players, each video poker games clearly displays their payback percentages in the game.

This is extremely useful not for only beginner players, but also for veteran players when boosting their winning odds. Being able to see the paytable during the gameplay is definitely one of the biggest advantages of playing video poker in general.

You can see the actual financial return or price you can expect during the gameplay. Keep in mind that Three of a Kind, Straights, Full House and Royal Flush hands usually vary from one game to another. On the other hand, in the majority of games, the Flush and Full House numbers are the most important indicators of the game’s actual payback percentage as well as your key to exploring whether the game is the one you can actually exploit.

When looking for your game, you definitely want to find the game with the best payback returns so you get more for your money. In order to understand this better, imagine playing Bonus Poker game which pays 10 coins for a Full House when betting one coin while Straight hands pay 5 coins for the same bet.

This video poker game is usually considered as a 10/8/5 with the actual payback return around 94.18%- This means that Bonus Poker is one of lower-returning video poker games. Depending on your preferences, you choose your game.

If you want to play for longer, the best option to go with is Jacks or Better while if you want your shot at more generous jackpots, the best option is to go with Double Double Bonus Poker.

Moreover, when deciding which game you want to play, you have to actually weigh the gaming experience you are looking for and the actual value of the payback percentage offered by the games.

Depending on what game you choose, you can expect payback percentage to be between 95.36% and 99.64% on Bonus Poker Deluxe, between 95.34% and 99.45% on Deuces Wild Bonus Poker, between 97.68% and 99.81% on Double Bonus Deuces Wild and between 95.00% and 99.54% when playing Jacks or better. No matter which game you choose, you can examine the payback percentage at any time.

• Be sure to examine the payback percentage of the game you want to play
• When choosing your game examine your playing preferences and goals
• Before playing, weigh the playing experience you want and the value of the payback return

9. Try Multi-Hand Video Poker

When learning how to win at video poker, you have several rules to remember, explore the games’ paytables, examine the game’s payback return and finally try different exciting variants to see what fits your preferences the best. In addition to regular video poker variants, multi-hand video poker surely offers more fun and excitement simply because the game allows betting on multiple lines at the same time.

As different video poker games have grown in their popularity, casinos decided to add more fun and engagement to every single bet placed by introducing multi-hand video poker where every guaranteed winning actually counts on all lines.

Depending on where you play multi-hand video poker, the number of lines players get to back range from four, ten, twenty-five, fifty and all the way up to hundred lines.

It should be noted that multi-hand video poker games feature the exact same mechanics as single video poker games. Since wagering decisions you make affect all lines you bet, you are offered an amazing way to indeed maximize your winning opportunities.

Another thing to be noted is that every line when playing multi-hand video poker is treated as an independent bet. Moreover, since cards which are dealt from one individual card deck, one per each line, players can receive the same card in multiple hands.

• Explore multi-hand video poker games for more winning opportunities
• Be sure to carefully manage your bankroll as each bet cost you more
• When possible play with fifty or more possible lines

10. Devise Your Basic Video Poker Strategy

When it comes to devising your video poker strategy, it surely depends on learning some fundamental rules and being extremely strict when applying them. This may seem a bit challenging since some of the basic video poker strategy rules may go against your standard poker instinct.

However, with video poker there is no any psychology involved, only math you do and numbers you have as the game is all about probability. One of the most important rules when working on how to win at video poker is playing maximum coins when possible.

This one should be applied no matter which video poker game you play and no matter your video poker strategy. Keep in mind that the highest payouts come when playing maximum coins and the difference in payouts between four and five played coins is extreme.

When it comes to keeping re-drawing cards, keep in mind that having a pair is better than having two high cards even though they are connected and suited.

In those cases when you do not have any pair, be sure to hold up to two high cards at maximum ranked from low to high unless you have three or two suited high cards. Holding one high card and a pair is also not advised as well as playing with two suited and connected cards.

When it comes to three-card hands, you should hold three connected and suited high cards except when you also have a high pair. Moreover, you should not hold three suited connected, suited or low cards in hope of hitting a Royal Flush or when you have a pair either low or high.

What is important to remember is that the game is all about math and probability. Before actually starting to play, you need to have some winning strategy. You do not have to devise one on your own, but simply check what other people use when playing video poker.

No matter which strategy you choose, make sure you stick to it no matter your bankroll. Last, but not least, keep in mind that the game is about fun and playing, so make sure you have fun.

• Devise your winning strategy and stick to it
• Make sure you check other people’s video poker winning strategies
• Keep in mind that the game is all about math and probability and have fun