How to Play Video Poker Games Online

Five-Card Draw Against a Pay Table

Video poker deals five cards, lets the player keep any of them, replaces the rest from the same deck and pays the final hand according to a schedule printed on the machine. There is no dealer hand and nobody else at the table. Ontario Lottery and Gaming, the Ontario government's gaming agency, puts it as the player's only opponent being themselves, and notes that whether the final hand is high or low, all that counts is how it scores against the pay table.

The Name of the Game Is Not the Game

'Video poker' describes a format, not a set of odds. Jacks or Better, Bonus Poker, Double Bonus, Deuces Wild and Joker Poker have different paying hands and different schedules; within any one of them, two machines can post different numbers on the same lines. OLG states that video poker odds differ from version to version, and notes that some players compare pay tables from game to game by checking the menu screen before deciding which version to play. Those players are looking for differences that are real and material.

Which Lines Matter

The pay table lines that decide what a machine returns are the ones that come up. A full house and a flush are made regularly, so a single coin's difference on either changes the machine's return appreciably. The royal flush line is the largest number on the schedule and the least important to the arithmetic, because it is made so rarely. A player comparing two machines should start at the middle of the table, not the top.

Coins Staked Is Part of the Pay Table

Most schedules pay in proportion to the number of coins staked, except on the top hand, where the payout jumps at the maximum stake. That makes the number of coins the one staking choice that changes what the machine returns rather than just the amount at risk.

What Is Published, and What Is Not

Light & Wonder's iGaming catalogue publishes 99.54% for its Video Poker, game ID 950078, and the same figure for Multihand Video Poker, game ID 70421. Those figures belong to those builds. No regulator, testing laboratory or supplier publishes a return figure tied to a named pay table — the familiar way of writing one, as a pair of numbers for the full house and flush lines, is a convention of enthusiast literature rather than of any published standard. So the two certified figures above are the only published ones: the pay table decides the rest, and no other variant has a figure to give.

Skill, and Its Limit

Video poker is one of the few casino formats where the player's decision changes the result, and OLG's description of it is careful: these games can involve a bit of skill or strategy, such as knowing when to fold and the value of poker hand rankings, and despite that the randomised distribution of cards means anything can happen. The same page states that the machines operate in a random fashion and that no machine is ever due for a win. Playing the draw well and choosing a good pay table reduce what the game costs; neither turns it into a game the player is expected to win.

The Object of the Game

Video poker is five-card draw played against a pay table. There is no dealer hand and no other players — Ontario Lottery and Gaming's description is that a player's only opponent is themselves, and that whether the final hand is high or low, all that counts is how it scores against the pay table.

How a Hand Runs

1. The player sets a coin denomination and a number of coins to stake, usually between one and five.
2. Five cards are dealt.
3. The player holds any of the five and discards the rest.
4. The discards are replaced from the same deck, making the final five-card hand.
5. If the hand reaches the lowest paying rank on that machine's pay table, it is paid at the rate shown for the number of coins staked.

Hand Rankings

Video poker uses standard poker rankings — royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair — but where the paying hands start, and whether extra ranks exist, depends on the variant. Jacks or Better pays from a pair of jacks, queens, kings or aces upwards. Deuces Wild makes every two a wild card, which makes made hands far more common, so its pay table starts higher up the scale and adds ranks such as five of a kind and four deuces that cannot occur without wild cards.

The Pay Table Is the Game

Two machines running identical rules can return materially different amounts, because the only thing that differs is the schedule of payouts. OLG states it directly: video poker odds differ from version to version, and its own how-to-play page notes that some players compare pay tables from game to game by checking the menu screen before choosing a machine. Within a single variant, a difference of one coin on a frequent hand — a full house or a flush, which come up regularly — moves the return far more than a difference on the royal flush, which almost never does.

Coins Staked

Most pay tables are proportional: two coins pay twice what one coin pays, three coins three times, and so on. The exception is the top hand, where the payout usually jumps disproportionately at the maximum stake. That makes the number of coins staked the one staking decision that changes a machine's return rather than simply the size of the bet. A player wanting to stake less without giving that up lowers the coin denomination rather than the number of coins.

Hold and Draw Is the Whole Decision

Everything else about a video poker hand is fixed. Which cards to hold is the only choice, and because the replacement cards come from the same deck the decision is a question of which incomplete hands are worth drawing to. Each deal is independent: OLG states that video poker machines operate in a random fashion and that the computers inside them randomise the cards, making any deal as unpredictable as getting cards from a dealer.

Variants

Jacks or Better, Bonus Poker, Double Bonus, Deuces Wild and Joker Poker are different games rather than themes, because each has its own set of paying hands and its own pay table. Some add a joker to the deck. A return figure quoted for one of them says nothing about any of the others.

Two Things Decide What Video Poker Costs

The machine's pay table, and which cards the player holds. The first is fixed before a hand is dealt and is published on the machine; the second is the player's only decision. Both matter, and the first is the one most often ignored.

Read the Pay Table First

OLG's own page notes that some players compare pay tables from game to game by checking the menu screen before deciding which version of video poker to play, and states that video poker odds differ from version to version. The hands to look at are the common ones. A full house and a flush occur regularly enough that a single coin's difference on either changes what the machine returns over a session; the royal flush, which is where attention usually goes, occurs too rarely to be the deciding factor. Two machines with the same name and the same rules can have different schedules, and the schedule is posted.

Coins Staked, and the Cheaper Way to Play Smaller

In most pay tables the payouts scale with the coins staked except on the top hand, which jumps at the maximum. A player staking fewer than the maximum coins is giving that jump up. The way to stake less without doing so is to reduce the coin denomination rather than the number of coins.

The Draw Decision

Holding is a judgement about which incomplete hands are worth drawing to, given what the pay table pays for each of them — which is why the correct hold depends on the machine as well as the cards. No hold chart is reproduced here for any variant, because the published strategy tables for video poker come with maths that no regulator, testing laboratory or supplier publishes at all.

What Does Not Work

OLG states that video poker machines operate in a random fashion, that the computers inside them randomise the cards, and that machines are never due for a win — so playing on a hunch, or staying at one machine until it pays out, is not a strategy. Its summary of what skill can do is the accurate one: video poker can involve a bit of skill or strategy, and the randomised distribution of cards means that anything can happen and a win is never certain. Playing the draw well and choosing a good pay table reduce what the game costs. Neither makes it a game the player is expected to win.