The first and most important thing to know about video poker is that it is not standard poker, which is a peer-to-peer game. Online poker has no house advantage, as players compete against each other, and the casino cannot benefit from the outcome. Per the evolution of video poker, this does have a house advantage, as the online casino wins when the player loses.

When looking for video poker on BetMGM Online, you will not find it in the poker client. Rather, it is located in the online casino, specifically in the table games section. A search for video poker in the table games section brings up a number of results, including games like Pai Gow Poker, Three Card Poker, and even Blackjack Poker and Pairs. None of these are traditional video poker. Look for Game King Video Poker, Regal Poker, or Draw Poker for the most straightforward games.

Video Poker vs Live Poker

Video poker is based on draw poker, which offers five cards on the board. Players choose which to keep, locking it in and leaving the others to be discarded. The machine automatically replaces the discarded ones, and the final hand displays to determine the payout.

In live poker, a person wins every time. The house never wins, which means there is no house advantage. In video poker, the player can pay to play a hand and hit nothing, which means the house wins that bet. Of course, the player can also hit a strong poker hand and win a substantial payout.

Some people prefer video poker to live poker because the video format makes it a solo game. There is some strategy that makes the game more winnable, as there are statistics showing the best cards to hold based on the video poker format being played.

There are also quite a few different video poker variations from which to choose, from Deuces Wild to Double Bonus Poker, each with varying payouts and rules.

Choose Your Video Poker Game

The most common variations of video poker are as follows:

• Jacks or Better Poker
• Deuces Wild Poker
• Joker Poker
• Bonus Poker
• Aces and Faces Poker or Aces and Eights Poker

Jacks or Better is the most basic form of poker, with a pair of jacks required as the minimum hand to receive a payout. 

Deuces Wild makes deuces wild, as indicated by the name of the game, and they can replace any other cards to create a hand, though two pair are required for a payout. This also adds more hands that can be paid, such as a royal flush containing a wild. 

Double Bonus is a bonus version of Jacks or Better, which increases the payouts for four aces with deuces, treys, and fours as the fifth card for a bigger bonus. There are other versions of this as well, such as Double Double Bonus, Triple Bonus, and so on. 

Pay Attention to Payouts

At a land-based casino, one might see video poker players moving from one machine to the next, looking at the pay tables on each one. They are searching for the looser games, the ones which pay the most.

In a Bonus Poker game, for example, a full house might pay 10 coins, a flush paying eight, and a straight paying five coins. That makes it a 10/8/5 game. It is simpler to just read the full house and flush numbers and compare them across the machines. The best Bonus Poker tables often show 8/5 payouts. Double Double Bonus should be 9/6. 

No matter the game, players should always max bet. The best odds are listed for the max bet column of payouts.

Why Video Poker?

Despite the house advantage, video poker provides some of the best odds for payouts of most machines in a casino. Percentages do decrease with newer video poker variations, like Ultimate X, which require more coins to play for chances to win bigger payouts.

The best part, like blackjack, is that there are tried-and-true video poker tips and tricks to learn. Players have analyzed the game and created charts listing the outs for every possible hand combination. It is not uncommon for players to learn those strategies online, at a site like BetMGM Casino, before playing in a live casino.

Register at BetMGM to try your hand.