Video Poker and Bitcoin
Video poker might be one of the most exciting and profitable games you will find in a Bitcoin casino. It is essentially a video slot but here you really need to use your brain and skills in order to win. And if you already like playing poker this for sure will be your favourite game.
As in poker you need to make the right decisions. If you manage to do that the house advantage will be as low as 1% and you can quite easily win some money. And if you are lucky enough to hit a Royal Straight Flush, video poker will start getting seriously fun!
You will find video poker slots in every Bitcoin casino but make sure to choose one with the correct payout and the right game. There are several variations out there and not all of them are worth a try if you are playing for money.
Read more in our guide below.
How to play video poker in a Bitcoin casino
There are many different variations of poker and video poker, but one thing remains the same: the hand ranking. A poker hand consists of five cards and the best hand you can get is a Royal Straight Flush (ace, king, queen, jack and 10 in the same suit). However, most of the time you just end up with a pair (two cards with the same value) or maybe even just five random cards where an ace is the best hand, known as ace high.
In video poker you are dealt five cards and then you can choose which cards you want to hold on to and which you want to discard. When you have made your decision you will be dealt cards to replace the discarded ones and then you will have your final poker hand.
If you have one of the qualifying hands will you be given a payout according to the strength of your hand. The payout is also dependent on how many coins you bet on beforehand.
The hand ranking in poker is displayed in the video poker game but it is recommendable to have a good understanding of how to make the big hands. In video poker you want to try to reach the big payouts instead of going for the small wins otherwise you will eventually go broke.
Variations of video poker
In a Bitcoin casino you will find many different types of video poker. The rules and payouts are different so make sure to check it before you start playing. Here is a quick overview of the most common variations:
Jacks or Better
This game is probably the most popular video poker game, probably because it is the variation that has most similarities to real poker. The lowest payout is a pair of jacks where you get your money back. Jacks or Better is also known as 9/6 as you should try to hit a full house (9 times payoff) or a flush (6 times payoff).
All American
The game play is very similar to Jacks or Better but the payout structure is slightly different. You get a lower payout for full houses and two pairs, but you get more for flushes, straight runs, four of a kind and straight flushes.
Bonus Poker
This is another variation of Jacks or Better, but you will get a high payout for reaching certain hands, e.g. four aces. For that reason there are many more payouts than in a normal Jacks or Better game.
Deuces Wild
In this game all 2’s are considered a wild card which you can substitute for any other card. This means it is easier to make a high hand, but in return you also need to reach at least three of a kind for the minimum payout. The highest payout is a Natural Royal Flush where you cannot use any of the Wild Deuces.
Joker’s Wild
Only one joker card is featured in this variation and it can also substitute any card. The game is also known as Joker Poker and Two Pair is usually the lowest payout hand.
Multi-hand play
Many of the video poker games mentioned above offer multi-hand play, meaning you do not only bet on one hand but several – in some games up to 100 hands! In this way you reduce the variance when drawing hands as you will sometimes be unlucky when only playing with one hand; sometimes the opposite too of course.
Winning in video poker
As mentioned earlier the house edge is very low in video poker but this is only if you make the right decisions. If you keep holding your low cards and throw away the potentially big hands will you lose your money very fast so it is important to know what you should do.
Luckily, there is an optimal strategy for all the different variations of video poker so all you have to do is look them up on the world wide web and play according to them. We will add them to our page soon, but we can start out with the optimal strategy for the most popular video poker game, Jacks or Better.
The optimal strategy basically tells you which card you should hold on to and which ones you should throw away. Go from top down to find your best hand in the list and act according to this.
See some examples below the list.
- Four of a kind, straight flush, royal flush
- 4 to a royal flush
- Full house, Flush, Straight, Three of a kind
- Four to a straight flush
- Two pair
- High pair (jacks or better)
- Three to a royal flush
- Four to a flush
- Low pair
- Four to an outside straight
- Two suited high cards
- Three to a straight flush
- Two unsuited high cards
- Suited J-T, Q-T, or K-T
- One high card
- Discard everything
Example 1: You have 7-8-9-J-K with only two cards of the same suit. Here your best hand is #13 (Two unsuited high cards) and you should discard all the other cards besides the king and the jack.
Example 2: You have 8-9-10-J-K, again with only two cards of the same suit. Here you have four cards to an outside straight (#10) as your best hand so you should only discard the king.