Video Poker
Video Poker games allow you to enjoy all the fun of poker without the hassle of having to compete against other players. Instead, you play the game of poker on a video slots machine, and you win prizes according to the strength of your hand. The advantage of video poker over regular poker is that you can play whenever you want for as long or as little as you want – and you can win some incredible jackpots if you happen to hit a particularly lucky hand!
Video Poker games allow you to play one or several hands of poker at the same time. Playing multiple hands is more popular than playing single hands, and modern games therefore make it possible to play 25, 50 or even 100 hands at once. Of course, if you had to make separate decisions for each of those hands then each game would take a vast amount of time, so video poker machines use a ‘base hand’ approach to speed things up, as we will now explain.
You start a game of video poker by selecting your stake for each hand that you want to play, and then you press the DEAL button. A base hand of five cards will be dealt to you and you should decide which of those five cards you want to hold and which ones you want to discard.
When you have made that decision, press the DRAW button and the cards that you have elected to hold will be replicated in each hand that you want to play. New cards will then be dealt to each hand in place of the originally discarded cards. When all cards have been dealt, all of your hands will be assessed and your winnings added to you’re account.
It is perfectly possible to play 100 hands and have 100 winners – all it takes is for your base hand to be a winner, in which case you would hold the winning cards and they would be replicated in all of your other hands. For example, if you are dealt a natural flush or a straight, you could hold all of the cards and automatically win the prize for that hand 100 times over!
Before deciding which cards to hold and which ones to discard, you need to be familiar with video poker hand rankings. The following hands are presented in order of best to worst, with the Royal Flush triggering the jackpot in most games:
Royal Flush |
A-K-Q-J-10 of the same suit |
Straight Flush |
Five consecutive cards of the same suit |
Four of a Kind |
Four cards of the same rank |
Full House |
Two cards of one rank and three cards of another rank |
Flush |
Five cards of the same suit |
Straight |
Five consecutive cards |
Three of a Kind |
Three cards of the same rank |
Two Pair |
Two cards of one rank and two cards of another rank |
Pair |
Two cards of the same rank |
Although most video poker games pay cash prizes for a pair or better, there is usually a standard that needs to be met for it to qualify as a winner. Details of the variations that exist can be found in the Video Poker Variations section.
Video Poker games offer plenty of poker excitement and the chance to win some serious amounts of money. Some games offer high static jackpots and some games offer even bigger progressive jackpots, but all of our video poker games deliver a high quality poker experience that you are sure to enjoy.
Play Video Poker for FREE
You can play Video Poker for FREE by downloading the software and then selecting practice mode when you start.
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