How to Play Video Poker – Rules 2023

There’s nothing quite like hitting a fantastic hand in a game of video poker, something that we’ve all done before. If you haven’t, then you should! Sometimes it can be a little difficult to play video poker though because at a land-based casino, there aren’t many machines and the game is so popular, it’s almost always full.

This is one of the reasons why online video poker exists. There are no queues, ever. You’ll get to play the exact right version of video poker that you want to play, in the comfort of your own home. That’s what we’re talking about!

With Veritop, you’ll get to find some of the most popular and trustworthy online casinos that offer video poker. You’ll also get to learn how to play video poker, understand the rules, the pay tables and the rankings of each and every hand. We like to ensure that all of the players who visit our site have gotten the most they can in understand the game we discuss. There’s a reason why people flock to online video poker, whether it’s just for the fun of it, or the insane winnings when you land something big. The game has a high RTP and it shows. Welcome to the world of online video poker!

What is Online Video Poker?

Online video poker is a computerized version of draw poker where players will get five cards. What you’ll do, is put your money into the machine or on your online casino account, then place a wager on the hand. The player will then get five cards and will have the option to hold however many they’d like, and then have those not held be replaced.

Players will usually have to get a better hand than a pair of Jacks in order to win, so any kind of high card or pair less than Jacks won’t help the player at all. After this round of card exchanging is done, the player will either win or lose based on the paytable. That’s pretty much it! Online video poker is hugely popular, as is regular video poker, although with the online version there’s no waiting for an empty machine, and there are plenty of different variations of the game to play.

The Rules

When we mention rules, it’s not exactly the same type of rules that players may be used to. The objective of the game is to try and get a set of cards that offers a payout. Anyone familiar with poker, any kind of poker actually, will be able to play the game. Although those with five card draw poker will feel a little more at home.

The rules are pretty straight forward. You’re only allowed to exchange a single set of cards, whether it’s one or five cards, you’re only allowed to do it once. In doing so, you can’t take any cards back.

The Pay Table for Video Poker

For the most part, the best hand will always pay out the most. Having said that, usually when a player lands a Royal Flush, something which doesn’t happen often at all, they’ll get paid out a lot of money. The ratio for being paid out is far better if the player is using as many coins as possible. If the machine takes 5 coins, then it’s definitely the best option to play 5 coins. The reason being, is that if you land something pretty common like two pair, with a single coin, you’ll only get a payout of 2 coins, but if you did the same with 5 coins, you’d win 10 back!

It’s pretty obvious that the more you play, the more you’ll win, but if you do happen to get a Royal Flush at some point and you’re only playing 1 coin, you’ll be kicking yourself because a winner like that with 5 coins can often net over 4,000 coins.

It’s of the utmost importance for players to examine the pay table and ensure that they know and understand it. As straightforward as our examples have been, there are a lot of complication options that can be paid out depending on the type of video poker game that is played. Some may pay out less if players happen to have a wild card or something similar, while others might pay out a little more with higher pairs.

Poker Hand Rankings

The poker hand rankings for video poker are exactly the same as you would get in regular poker. There’s no difference in that way. Poker hand rankings are as follows, from best to worst:

• Royal Flush
• Straight Flush
• 4 of a Kind
• Full House
• Flush
• Straight
• 3 of a Kind
• Two Pair

While it’s great to be aiming for a royal flush each time, it’s really unlikely. Video poker has one of the best RTP percentages of all online casino games and measures up to around 99.5% but getting a royal flush in online video poker is essentially a 0% chance. Your chances are 1 in 649,740. It’s almost as good as your chance of being struck by lightning in a year. The fact that your chances are 1 in 3,000 of getting hit by lightning in your lifetime tells you how bad the odds are here.

Making a Video Poker Account

All that a player needs to do in order to start playing online video poker today is to sign up to an account of his or her choice. What players should be doing though, is taking recommendations on what the best online casinos are and then playing there. It also helps to try and get a bonus in order to increase your initial bankroll to make your online casino adventure a long-lasting one.

Bankroll

Managing a bankroll is quite important with video poker. The longer you can play, the more fun you’ll have. It may also take some time to get into the groove of the game too. If any player does decide to play, as we’ve mentioned, we like to see players using multi-coin wagers, playing the maximum where possible. Work out how much you’re depositing, how much you want to play and how many games you’ll have based on that.

Betting What You Can

It’s another essential thing not to feel pressured into betting more than you can afford. We do say that playing the most amount of coins is the best for you because it offers the best payout ratio, but if you can’t afford to do so, the wins will be just as good in terms of feeling when you win on a single coin. The best thing that a player can do is play the maximum, the second-best thing is just playing at all.

Picking the Right Game

It’s important to play the right kind of video poker game, one that suits you and one that you enjoy playing. The most stock-standard video poker game is Jacks or Better but playing Jokers Wild is another fun one. The games will differ slightly but playing games that offer wild cards can be very entertaining. In these games, a wild is a card that fulfills the value of another card to make up a hand.

Bonuses in Video Poker

Getting a bonus in video poker is something that is a lot of fun and perhaps a necessity if you do decide that you’re going to playing a while. The reason for this is that bonuses can boost your bankroll substantially, giving you a longer time to play. The downside to a bonus is that when a player claims one, they’ll be subject to a wagering requirement that will need to be fulfilled before they’re able to pull their real money winnings out.