- One of the biggest mistakes in video poker is not knowing the proper strategy.
- Always make sure you are playing at a trusted casino that offers good payouts.
- Jacks or Better is one of the best video poker games, especially with a wild card.
Video poker is an awesome game. It gives you a chance to win real money by doing very little work.
All you have to do is choose which hand you think you will get and hit the bet button. Not only that, it is also a lot more forgiving than other table games such as Blackjack or Baccarat.
Even if you are new to the casino, you can still figure out how to play video poker well enough to avoid looking like a complete fool after a couple of hands.
This might make you think that video poker is impossible to play badly, but you would be wrong. It is definitely possible to lose a lot of money by playing video poker without even realizing what you are doing wrong.
Today, I’m going to go through some of the most common mistakes that players consistently make when they play video poker for real money and offer some advice on how you can avoid them and become a better player overall.
1) Not Understanding Basic Video Poker Strategy
The biggest mistake that people tend to make when they decide to play video poker is not understanding basic video poker strategy. This game is unique in that there is actually a “correct” way to play every hand. If you deviate from this correct strategy, no matter how slightly, you will end up losing more money over time.
That is not to say that deviating from the strategy will definitely lose you money — you could quite easily hit a royal flush on your first try, despite having played the “incorrect” card. However, if you rely on luck to bail you out every time, you won’t be relying on skill, which is the key differentiator between professionals and amateurs.
If you want to start playing video poker, the first thing you should do is familiarize yourself with the various video poker strategies that exist.
There are several types of video poker, all of which have different optimal strategies. For example, the strategy you would use to win big bucks at All American Poker would not help you one bit if you were playing Jacks or Better.
Not only do different video poker games require different strategies, but there is usually more than one strategy you need to learn. Most video poker titles have both a high hand and a low hand version. For example, Deuces Wild and Deuces Wild Multi-Hand. You need to make sure you know the relevant strategy for the particular variant of the game you intend to play.
Furthermore, video poker strategies are always being refined and improved. New information about the math behind the game comes out all the time, meaning that strategies which were considered optimal ten years ago may now be inferior.
If you really want to win big money playing video poker, the first step you should take is tracking down the newest video poker strategy guide you can find.
2) Ignoring Bonuses and Promotions
One of the biggest mistakes in video poker is not getting the maximum value from bonuses and promotions. Casinos often offer their customers bonuses and promotions to encourage them to deposit more money and spend more time playing games on their site.
These bonuses and promotions come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes the casino will give you free chips just for signing up (this is known as a “welcome bonus.”) Other times, they may give you bonuses for making larger deposits or deposits using certain payment methods.
Promotions are usually tied into specific games, which means you might be able to get more bankroll for your buck when playing video poker.
Some promotions will reward you for reaching certain milestones while playing games on the site, such as winning a certain number of hands of Texas Hold’em or spinning a certain combination of symbols on a slots machine. Others will give you bonuses for bringing friends to the site or for taking part in tournaments.
Whatever form they take, bonuses and promotions are essentially “free” money that you can use to extend your play sessions or to try out some new strategies without having to worry about running out of funds.
Unfortunately, not all bonuses and promotions are created equal. Some of them come with ridiculous wagering requirements that mean you would have to play for hours just to clear the bonus, let alone make a profit.
It is important, therefore, that you read the terms and conditions of any bonus or promotion before you accept it. Different sites will have different rules regarding how you must wager the bonus, such as how many times you need to wager it before you can withdraw your winnings or how long you have to clear it.
You should aim to find bonuses and promotions that are suitable for playing video poker. Some bonuses may only be available for slot machines – so read the fine print!
TrustDice – The Best Site for Crypto Gambling Bonuses
When it comes finding a great site with solid promotions for video poker, few compare to TrustDice.
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3) Playing at Bad Machines
Another common error is playing at bad machines.
Most people who enter a casino are under the impression that every machine is set up the same way – that land-based casinos set the RTP for video poker machines. Unfortunately, this simply isn’t true.
Each individual casino has the ability to set the payout tables for their video poker machines. This means that instead of the typical 98% RTP, a casino could decide to lower it to 95%, or even 90%. There is nothing you can do about this – the paytable is hardcoded into the machine itself and there is no way to change it once the casino has made their decision.
To maximize your wins and minimize your losses, it is important that you seek out the machines with the best payouts. Generally, airports and hotels will have the worst payouts since they are catering towards people who do not mind spending more money in order to pass the time. If you want to get the best returns for your investment, head to the main casino floor.
Casino managers will often place the best-paying machines towards the back of the room, in the hope that customers will become distracted by the flashing lights and exciting music and end up playing worse games deeper into the casino.
I strongly recommend using a paytable comparision site before you go to the casino. These websites list the video poker paytables for each individual machine, allowing you to plan your route around the casino and avoid the bad machines altogether.
Real Money Casinos You Can Play Online for FreeIf you are lucky enough to live in a state that allows you to play video poker from home, then you will have even more choice when it comes to finding the best paying machines!
Since anyone in the world can play at online casinos, payouts are a level playing field here. Any reputable casino will provide a full paytable for you to examine before you sign up, enabling you to choose the casino that offers the best returns.
I highly recommend only playing at online casinos that have a high Return to Player ratio. Anything less than 98% is a waste of time, in my opinion.
There are a select few that sit a lot higher, with some offering close to 1001%. Check out these .
Jacksonville Hard Rock Casino – Worst Video Poker Payments
Interestingly, brick and mortar casinos aren’t consistent with which video poker games they offer and how much they payout. One casino may offer amazing payouts for Jacks or Better, but none for Aces and Eights.
The Jacksonville Hard Rock Casino is known for having some of the worst payouts for video poker. Their Jacks or Better and Bonus Poker both only offer 94.23% RTP, which is abysmal for both games. Meanwhile Aces and Eights sits at 96.79%, which is better but nowhere near the industry average.
Basically, if you want to play video poker at the Jacksonville Hard Rock Casino, I’d stick to the Aces and Eights game.
If you live in the Jacksonville area, I suggest checking out the Best Casino Payouts in Jacksonville, FL for where to go next.
4) Being Too Superstitious
“I’ve been playing for an hour and I’m down $200 – maybe I should buy more chips to turn things around!”
How does this logic work? By magically having more chips, the laws of probability will suddenly change and you will start hitting Royal Flushes left, right, and center!
Unfortunately, no matter how many chips you have in front of you, the chances of drawing a Royal Flush on the final draw remain completely unchanged. In fact, the only thing that buying more chips will achieve is forcing you to quit sooner – now you need to win back the money you sunk, as well as the money you came in with!
This kind of superstition is one of the biggest killers in video poker. People see a pattern emerging – perhaps they haven’t drawn any winners in the last hour, for example, so they assume that they are “due” a big hand.
You need to understand that every hand you play at video poker is entirely independent of every other hand. What happened on the previous hand has absolutely no bearing on what is going to happen on the current hand.
Every single hand is a new opportunity, and nothing that happened in any of the previous hands should affect the way you play this one.
If you find yourself starting to get superstitious, the best thing to do is take a break. Go for a walk, grab a drink, or stretch your legs. Sometimes getting away from the machines for five or ten minutes can be enough to clear your head and help you approach the game with a fresh pair of eyes.
5) Using the Money Intended for Drinks to Play Video Poker
This mistake tends to happen more frequently in land-based casinos, although I have seen relatively new online casinos utilize this trap as well.
In most jurisdictions, drinks service is free in the casino. Now, I don’t know about you, but I like to indulge a little when I am at the casino. A few cocktails never hurt anybody, after all!
The problem arises when you stop to consider how casinos make their free drinks possible. Hint: it doesn’t come out of the kindness of their owner’s heart.
The casino makes its money from the games dotted around the room. When you play a game like roulette or craps, it is relatively easy for the house to determine how much money you are putting through its doors – you feed it directly.
With video poker and slots, however, things are a little trickier. A person could put $5 into a slots machine and hit the jackpot after two spins, walking off with a million dollars. If the casino charged that person $5 for their drink, they would be incredibly upset!
To account for this, casinos will often hand out “complimentary drinks” to people playing video poker and slots. At face value, this is a great deal – free booze while you gamble! What they don’t tell you, however, is that the money you lost into the machine was swapped for those drinks. Essentially, you traded $20 for 20 cocktails. It’s a good deal unless you like cocktails.
My advice? Limit your intake. Or play video poker sober and treat yourself to a couple of drinks later in the evening.
5 More Tips To Help You Win at Video Poker
Now that we covered the 5 biggest mistakes you can make when playing video poker, let’s dive into 5 more tips to help you dominate the game.
1. Know the Difference Between Jacks or Better and Deuces Wild
The biggest difference when it comes to the various forms of video poker is whether or not the game features wild cards.
A “wild card” is a symbol or card that can count as any other card in the deck. For example, in Deuce’s Wild, all twos are wild. If you are dealt AC-2H-KH-QS-4H, then you have a flush royal straight, which is the second highest possible hand in the game.
Best Free Spins Slots Online (Updated for 2023) | Top Sites & GamesIntroducing wild cards changes the entire dynamic of the game. With no wild cards, your goal is to make strong “held” hands – pairs, two-pairs, and so on. With wild cards, your goal is to make the best possible “discard” hand. Since almost every discard hand will be a winner, the real skill in games like Deuces Wild lies in knowing which cards to hold.
Jacks or Better is a game focused around held hands. As the name suggests, you need to be dealt a pair of jacks or better to win anything at all. From there, things get pretty standard. Two pairs will beat a single pair, three pairs will beat two pairs, and so on.
The biggest decision you will ever have to make in this type of video poker is whether or not you want to hold a low pair instead of trying to chase a higher pair. Usually, it is correct to wait for a better pair rather than settling for the low one.
However, there are exceptions to this rule, particularly towards the end of a game where you might need a single coin to qualify for a bonus or jackpot.
All American is another popular variant of video poker based on held hands. The main difference between the two games is that All American pays out higher amounts for royal flushes and straights. As a result, it is less profitable in the long run.
Deuces Wild, meanwhile, is based entirely around the discards. Rather than having multiple strong held cards, you want to create strong hands by selecting the correct cards to keep and throwing away the rest. In this version of the game, every deuce (any card with a face value of two) can be treated as any other card in the deck.
For example, if you are dealt the following cards:
AC 2H KH QS 4D 9C 3S AS
You have several options. If you hold the ace, two, four, and kicker, you will end up with a straight: A-K-Q-J-T of clubs or spades.
Alternatively, if you hold the ace, two, king, queen, and four, you will end up with a flush straight: A-5 of clubs or spades.
Since a flush straight is strictly better than a regular straight, this is almost always going to be the correct option, regardless of what the computer tells you.
Meanwhile, holding the ace, two, kicker, and discarding the king and queen will result in you missing your straight and ending up with just a high card.
Finally, you could try to chase a royal flush by holding the ace, king, queen, four, and discarding the deuced twos and three. Without a wild card, your odds of drawing to a royal flush are roughly 40,000-1. With a wild card, your odds improve dramatically – although they are still pretty poor!
As a general rule of thumb, chasing a royal flush is a bad idea unless you are very close. By “very close,” I mean something like one high card. If you need, for example, the ten of spades to complete your royal flush, you are almost certainly better off going for a lower prize.
Casinos in Connecticut, United StatesWhile it varies between different versions of video poker, having a high straight or flush is generally not enough to justify discarding a card you will need to make a royal flush.
For example, in Deuces Wild, a flush straight is the second-highest hand, beating all other flushes straight or otherwise, but losing to all royal flushes. If you flip a coin and double up all the way to a royal flush delivers roughly 350x your initial stake, you will only get approximately 160x for that flush straight.
Sure, you will win the hand more often, but when you win less money, you cancel out some of the advantage gained from having more wins. Trying for a royal flush is a numbers game – without a high card, the odds are simply not in your favor.
2. Learn the Proper Video Poker Strategy for the Game You Are Playing
This point cannot be stressed enough: you must know the proper strategy for the game you are playing. Even minor deviations from the “optimal” strategy can cost you thousands of dollars over the lifetime of your account.
What is “the proper strategy?” Well, that depends on the game you are playing. Different versions of video poker have different optimal strategies. For example, in Jacks or Better, you should hold onto a pair of jacks or better, whereas in Deuces Wild, you should hold any deuced card.
The strategy for each game consists of a series of decisions that detail exactly what action you should take in any given situation. This includes things like what cards you should hold in various hands, whether or not you should try and chase certain combinations, and even things like how many coins you should bet depending on your cards.
It seems like a lot to remember, and it is! Thankfully, there are handy charts and guides floating around the internet that will give you the information you need for whatever game you intend to play.
Be warned, though: these strategies are constantly evolving as new mathematics are discovered and new video poker titles are released! Just because a chart says something is the optimal move, that does not mean the developers haven’t made a mistake. Always use multiple resources to cross-reference the information you are given.
It’s also important that you know the limitations of the strategy. Being a few inches off is still pretty damn close, but it can make a huge difference.
Let me show you an example.
In Deuces Wild, the optimal strategy dictates whether or not you should go for a royal flush if you are one card short. Specifically, if you need the ace of spades, should you go for the royal or is it better to try and hit a lower prize?
According to the math, flipping a coin all the way to getting the ace of spades delivers roughly 350x your initial stake. This is a considerable sum of money – especially if you are playing with max bets – so it had better be worth it!
Best PA Online Casinos ️- Top PA Casino Sites (2023)Luckily, in Deuces Wild, a high spade-containing hand will deliver a similarly large sum of cash. Although a royal flush is strictly better than any other spade-containing hand, they both offer identical rewards.
Compare this to another game, such as Joker’s Wild. In this version of the game, delivered by a royal flush, while a straight flush made with wild cards only pays half that amount.
Given the different odds and payouts, the correct strategy in Joker’s Wild is to take the slight odds increase offered by trying for the royal flush. However, this is not the case in Deuces Wild – once you have a high spade, there is little to be gained by continuing to play.
Of course, these are extremely complex games with a lot of mathematical nuance. I wouldn’t expect you to be able to look at your cards and instantly know the correct strategy based solely on your experience playing the game.
This is why it is so important to study the relevant strategy guide before you sit down to play.
High vs Low Cards – Which Is Better in Video Poker?
This is an interesting question with a complicated answer.
Generally speaking, it is better to hold high cards than low cards – a pair of aces is almost always going to be stronger than a pair of deuces, for example.
However, there are some video poker variants that explicitly feature wild cards. In these games, the usual rules of card values no longer apply – a pair of deuces is the strongest hand possible, for instance.
But what if we’re talking about a game without wild cards? Let’s use Jacks or Better as our base example – the most popular variant of the game aside from the plain “9-6” version.
So, high cards vs. low cards. Which is better?
Well, it depends on the specific circumstances.
Just look at the hand above. On paper, the second hand – a lone king – is weaker than the first hand, a pair of kings. But would you rather have a single high card, or a low pair?
This is an easy question to answer: the pair beats any single card, so logically, it is the stronger hand.
Where things get tricky is when you introduce future knowledge into the equation. Specifically, the chance that you can improve your hand.
In video poker, your goal is not necessarily to be dealt the best possible hand. That sounds crazy, but stick with me.
Think of it like this: would you rather have a 40% chance at a boat, or a 10% chance at a royal flush?
Assuming the Math Works Out … a royal flush will always beat a straight. That’s just how poker hands work. So, isn’t it obvious that the second option is preferable?
Not necessarily—it depends on how likely each scenario is. Sure, a royal flush is stronger than a straight, but your chance of actually getting a royal flush is much slimmer than your odds of hitting that vessel.
caesars casino illinoisSo, back to the original question. Which is better: the lone king, or the pair of kings?
Well, if you believe that you can improve either hand to something better, you need to consider which hand gives you the best chance at success.
In this hypothetical scenario, let’s say that there is a 20% chance you can hit a flush if you hold four cards including the king, but only a 10% chance of improving the lone king. Likewise, there’s a 1% chance you can hit a royal if you hold four cards including the pair of kings, but it’s completely unlikely that you can hit a royal with just the single king.
In this strange world filled with made-up statistics, holding the pair of kings gives you a better overall chance at winning big. Of course, in reality, it is much easier to hit a flush than a royal flush, so in practice, the lone king would probably be the better option.
The lesson? Context matters. It’s not enough to look at your hand in a vacuum – you need to analyze the potential outcomes of holding or discarding certain cards. Can you draw to a bigger hand? If so, is it more likely than forming a smaller hand?
High cards are great, but sometimes a low hand gives you better overall odds.
3. Play All Max Bet
One of the cornerstone video poker strategies is to always play max bet.
This does not mean betting $200 on a $1 machine – that would be silly. Instead, it refers to betting the maximum number of coins for a given machine.
Why is this important? Well, taking the Jacks or Better vs All American example, if you only bet one coin and are dealt a straight, you will only receive a payment of two coins. Contrast this with a pair of jacks, which gets you six coins.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Duuude, six coins isn’t six dollars, so what’s your point?”
Actual coins used in video poker games.
Actually, video poker does use real money! Believe it or not, each coin represents the same multiple of your initial bet as the coins above it. In other words, four coins of a dollar each is the same as a single bet of four dollars.
Confused? Don’t be. Think of it like this: each coin multiplies your eventual payout by the same amount as your initial bet.
- Initial Bet: $1
- Coins: 4
- Max Bet: $5
- Pay Table
- Single coin bet: [$1\ x) 2 coins = $2
- Two coin bet: [$1\ x) 4 coins = $4
- Three coin bet: [$1\ x) 6 coins = $6
- Four coin max bet: [$1\ x) 8 coins = $8
As you can see, moving from one coin to two coins has doubled both your bet and your reward. This continues linearly up to the maximum bet, which in this example would be eight times both your initial bet and your rewards.
Failing to bet max coins is one of the quickest ways to lose a ton of money in video poker.
Take a look at the pay table above. If you bet one coin and are dealt the winning hand of a straight, you will only receive two coins in return. Contrast this with the paying off of eight coins for a pair of jacks or better.
Now, the chance of being dealt a pair of jacks or better is greater than the chance of being dealt a simple high vintage. However, the difference is not that great – certainly not great enough to warrant accepting a significantly reduced payout.
In addition to the multiplier effect, playing max coins is usually necessary to qualify for the progressive jackpot. While it varies between games, most video poker progressives will only trigger if you are playing the maximum number of coins.
Do not skimp on the max bet! It could literally be the difference between winning and losing.
4. Set Aside Money Specifically for Video Poker
One of the greatest threats to your video poker profits is the house edge of the casino.
Wait, what? Didn’t I say video poker was one of the better games because it has a low house edge?
Yes, you did. And you’d be correct. However, the house edge only becomes relevant once you start creeping closer to perfection.
Video poker, more than any other casino game, rewards perfect play. Make the correct decisions every time, and you can cut the house edge down to almost nothing. Misplay a few hands, however, and the casino starts taking a chunk out of your profits.
Best Free Play Online Casinos in the USA (2023)The best way to limit the damage caused by imperfect play is to have a video poker fund specifically set aside for that purpose.
Essentially, the concept is simple: you have two bankrolls. One is your “main” bankroll that you use for everything except video poker. Whenever you sit down at a video poker machine, you open another tab in your brain and transfer an equivalent amount of money to that tab.
This is your video poker bankroll, and it should only ever be used for video poker.
So, what is the benefit of this system? Simply put, it limits the amount of damage you can do to your main bankroll.
Let’s say your main bankroll is $5,000, and you feel comfortable taking $200 out to mess around on the slots for an hour. During that hour, luck is not on your side, and you lose $800. Ouch. Your bankroll is now $4,200.
Contrast this with the two-bankroll system. Your main bankroll is $5,000, and your video poker bankroll is $500. You take $100 out of each bankroll to gamble on the slots/video poker machines.
Things are not going well on the VP machines, and you fail to turn things around before burning through the $500. Now, your VP bankroll is $0. Big deal; you still have $5,000 waiting back at the table.
See the benefit now? By keeping your video poker funds separate, you insulate the rest of your bankroll from the inevitable swings of variance.
5. Don’t Chase Your Losses
This tip is the most important piece of advice in this entire article.
Georgia Lottery Winners Who Never Knew Their LuckChasing your losses is the fastest way to go broke. Do not do it!
First things first: loss chasing is when you continue to bet money because you think you can “make back” what you have already lost.
Let’s say you show up to the casino with $500 and promptly lose it all playing blackjack. Now, you have $0 in your wallet and the urge to “chase your losses” by heading over to the roulette table.
From this point, there are three broad outcomes:
- You win: Great! You’re back in the black, baby! Time to pack up and head home, right? Wrong. Remember all the money you won? Yeah, guess what happens when you give your wife her half plus a little extra for “tipping well?” That’s right; you’re now poorer than you were before you went to the casino. Loss chasing never ends.
- You lose more: Oof. Okay, now you’re really in the hole. But don’t worry; one big score will fix everything, right? …Yeah, about that…
- You break even: Hooray! You’re even with where you started. Should you leave now? Of course not; you’re on a roll! Keep going until you’re up a hundred bucks, right? …Yep, you know the drill by now.
Never chase your losses! Never. Ever.
The reason chasing losses never works is that it is based on a false premise: that you deserve to win.
Nobody “deserves” to win or lose at the casino. Strip away all the fancy graphics and catchy sound effects, and a casino is just a business. They sell games. Some of those games have positive expected value, and some of them don’t. It’s really that simple.
By chasing losses, you are admitting that the casino owes you something. It doesn’t. Every spin of the roulette wheel, every flip of the card, every spin and beep of the slot machines – every one of those events are completely independent. There is no link between what happened last, and what is going to happen next. Each outcome has an equal chance of occurring, regardless of what happened before.
You know that old saying, “When it rains, it pours?” Well, that’s not really true. Yes, it’s true that statistically, when it does rain, there is a greater likelihood that it will keep raining for a little while. However, at no point does it become guaranteed to rain. In fact, the exact opposite is true – at some point, it has to bloody well stop and be replaced by sunshine!
Think of the casino as rain. Losing streaks are not streaks at all; they are completely normal variations in results. Yes, the law of large numbers states that if you flip a coin 100 times, 50 of those flips will yield heads, and 49 will yield tails.
But would you like to guess how many actual heads you will see before you see 49 tails?
Go ahead; guess away. I’ll wait.
If you guessed anywhere from 45 to 55 heads, you’re within the statistical margin of error. Yep, that’s right: there is a very real chance that the number of heads you see before an equal number of tails will be on the wrong side of 50. Worse yet, there is no way to predict when the switch will occur.
Want to know something truly terrifying? That applies to every flip of that fair coin. There is always a 50/50 split, but there is no way to predict on which side the coin will land. None.
No Deposit Bonus Codes That Let You Win Real Money From HomeThat, ladies and gentlemen, is the nature of pure randomness. It looks ordered, but it is utterly chaotic and unpredictable.
You cannot predict when a flip of a fair coin will yield heads or tails.
You cannot predict when a winning hand is “due.” Each hand is completely independent. There is no memory in a random event generator. That’s why it’s called random.
Loss chasing is built on the faulty foundation of cause and effect. “I lost 20 units, so I am due 20 units.” No, you’re not. And wanting something very badly does not alter the fundamental odds of the game. Sadly, desire and reality do not occupy the same space.
Remember this: the casino is a business. It is not sentient. It does not care about you. It does not know or care that you have lost money. To the casino, you are just another unit. You press the button, and the RNG spits out a number. Repeat ad infinitum. That’s it. That’s all it is.
The Best Video Poker Games Available Online
In this section of our video poker guide, I will discuss my personal favorite video poker games. There are literally hundreds of different versions of video poker available online, from all manner of software developers.
Separating the wheat from the chaff can be difficult, which is why I reached out to my contacts in the industry to get their opinions on the subject. After comparing notes, we settled on three video poker games that we believe are among the best you’ll find online today.
For reference, I’ll be reviewing the following video poker games in this section of our guide.
Jacks or Better
Jacks or Better is widely regarded as the most popular video poker variation online. Also known as “nine-six” video poker (nine coins max bet, six coins payout for a full house), this is the base game for countless other variants featuring a variety of different wild cards.
From a purely theoretical perspective, Jacks or Better has a fairly low RTP when compared to some of the other variations out there. Despite this, it remains the gold standard for video poker titles – but why?
To understand the appeal of Jacks or Better, you need to try it for yourself.
There’s just something special about combing through your hand, desperately searching for a winning combination. Unlike the more complex video poker titles, JOB is straightforward enough to play without becoming bored, but nuanced enough to reward years of experience.
Casino Apps That Accept Real Money (2023)Perhaps the biggest selling point of Jacks or Better is the wide range of banks and land-based casinos that support the game. Given the ubiquity of JOB, it is rare to find yourself disconnected during a session – a nightmare scenario for any video poker fan.
Another major plus for Jacks or Better is the wide range of strategy guides and charts available online. Because it is such a popular game, virtually every video poker strategy ever written will cover JOB – and most of those guides are excellent.
Personally, I like Jacks or Better because it reminds me of home. Growing up in Las Vegas, I spent a lot of time sitting with my grandfather at various casinos, watching him play video poker. Nine times out of ten, he was playing JOKER. His favorite machine was a 9/6 Jacks or Better game, which he claimed offered “the best odds around.”
At the time, I didn’t quite understand what he meant. These days, though, I get it. My grandpa wasn’t some kind of mathematical genius; he just liked video poker. Still, his old machines offered some of the best
