Do you want to take advantage of the best odds in a gambling site? If so then you must look for Blackjack or video poker near me. These games are the only two options you can have in the casino. When it comes to Blackjack, it is a single game with a few different rules. On the other hand, video poker can offer you a wide variety of games that you can pick from.
But which of these games offers the best odds to the player?
To begin, let us explain why video poker games are such a wonderful choice for casino gamblers. Truth is, they are much better to play than their near cousins, slot machines. The rest of this introduction will go through that. Then we will go over which games to look for and how to play them.
What is Video Poker?
Video poker is one of the few casino games with reasonable odds and is worthwhile to play for a fast buck. In slot games, the casino and the developer are the only ones who know your chances of winning.
However, video poker allows you to analyze your chances of beating the house. In addition, you can even create a strategy based on the game you’re playing. Thus, it gives you complete control over your winnings.
Video poker is a fixed-odds poker game based on a five-card draw. Wherein, you can play it at an online casino or on terminals that look like slot machines in land-based casinos. As a result, video poker machines are also commonly referred to as poker slots. However, it does differ from slot machines in one important way – you need skills to win the game.
Video poker games require you to play the hand you’ve been given in the best possible way based on the hand rankings.
Video Poker Near Me: Transparent Odds VS. Opaque Odds
If we are to compare video poker and slot machines, the first thing you should know is that video poker is more transparent. In slot machines, you already know how much the various combinations payout. Plus, you have no idea what are your chances of getting any particular symbol.
This is why no one can understand the math behind a slot machine except the casinos and the designers.
On the other hand, a video poker game employs the same probability as a 52 deck of cards. In addition, everyone is familiar with the probability associated with it. Here, you have a 1/52 chance of getting a specific card. While your chance of getting a specific ranking card is 1/13 and a specific suit card is 1/4.
Furthermore, you can calculate the game’s expected return if you also know the payoffs for the various combinations. This combination is called “hands” in video poker games.
That’s also not as difficult to figure out as you may imagine. You simply make a list of all the possible outcomes. Then, you double the chances of getting each of those outcomes by the amount it pays off. When you add all of those statistics together, you’ll get the game’s overall estimated return. This is also known as the payback percentage of the game.
Play Video Poker: The Payback Percentage VS. The House Edge
When discussing the arithmetic behind a casino table game, you normally refer to the game’s edge or house edge. However, if we will discuss the mathematics of a gambling machine, we refer to the game’s payback percentage. Both numbers are means of representing the same concept in different ways.
In addition, the house edge is the amount of money a casino anticipates winning on each bet over time. It’s a figure based on tens of thousands of wagers.
The payback percentage refers to the percentage of each bet that a casino plans to return to the player over time. It’s also based on a statistical average of tens of thousands of hands.
You can calculate the house edge by subtracting the payback percentage from 100 percent.
Here’s an example:
When you play Blackjack, the house edge can be as high as 0.5 percent. This implies that the casino expects you to lose 50 cents out of every $100 you wager over time.
The payback rate for Jacks or Better video poker could be as high as 99.54 percent. That means the casino has a mathematical expectation that for every $100 bet. Thus, you’ll win $99.54 overtime.
That 0.5 percent might be converted to a 99.5 percent payback rate. In addition, you can divide 99.54 percent by 0.46 percent to get a 0.46 percent house edge.
Both bets have comparable odds. The key distinction is how each game is played.
Are you looking for video poker near me? Decisions Matter.
The second thing you should know when looking for video poker near me is this:
Your choices have an impact.
This is a significant distinction between video poker and slot machines. With a slot machine, all you have to do is to put your money in and hope for the best.
In video poker games, you perform the same thing. Except there’s an added step:
- You need to choose which cards to keep as well as decide which cards to throw away.
- Because each hand can be played in 32 different ways, each hand presents you with a large variety of options. Only one of the options provides the best chance of success.
How does your decision affect your gameplay?
The jack of clubs, the jack of hearts, the queen of hearts, the king of hearts, and the ace of hearts are dealt with you.
So, you have a pair of jacks. If you hold those two cards, then, you’ll get an even money (1:1) payout. That’s a one-hundred percent chance of receiving a one-unit payout, or an expected value of one.
You might alternatively discard the jack of clubs and aim for a royal flush. At an odds of 800 to 1, the royal flush pays off. With a 1 in 47 chance of filling your hand, you’re looking at a 2 percent possibility of winning 800 coins. This corresponds to a predicted value of 16.
In this instance, 16 is better than 1, thus that is the correct play. That is an oversimplification of the situation, as there are a variety of different options and outcomes. However, those are the two most obvious strategies for playing the hand.
Most video poker games have strategy charts available online, including specific sections on this site. These diagrams are laid out as a series of handlists. Starting at the top and working your way down, the hands with the best-predicted return are displayed first. You keep the first hand that corresponds to the object in your hand.
Video Poker Near Me: What are the pay tables?
Finally, you should understand how a video poker game’s paytable works. Even though a game has the same name as another, the paytable may be different. The payback % varies significantly due to changes in the pay tables.
Here’s an example:
The payback percentage for a 9/6 Jacks or Better game is 99.54 percent. While, the payment for a full house and a flush is 9/6, as indicated in the game’s title. The first pays out 9 to 1 and the second pays out 6 to 1. By the way, this isn’t mentioned in the game’s title on the machine. So, you must read and study the paytable.
Compare this to an 8/5 Jacks or Better game, which pays out 97.3 percent. The 1 unit difference in payoffs between those two hands has a big impact on your chances.
What is the significance of this in video poker games?
Consider the typical hourly loss on a slot machine. You get this value by multiplying the number of hands you play every hour by the average amount you stake per hand. This is the overall amount of action you get in per hour.
- You can calculate your average projected hourly loss by multiplying the total hourly action by the house edge.
- The house edge on a full pay (or 9/6) Jacks or Better game is 100% – 99.54 percent or 0.46 percent.
- In addition, the house edge on the 8/5 Jacks or Better game is 100% – 97.3 percent or 2.7 percent.
- If you play for $5 per hand and play 600 hands per hour, you’ll be putting $3000 into play every hour.
- Your expected losses of 0.54 percent of $3000 equal $16.20 per hour. Keep in mind that this happened over tens of thousands of hands. You could be doing much better or much worse than this at any given hour. However, if you play long enough, your results should come close to this figure.
- Your expected losses of 2.7 percent of $3000 equal $81 per hour. That’s five times the amount of money in the casino’s pocket vs yours.
It’s simple to see why learning about the various pay tables and their payback percentages is important.
You don’t have to do the math with a pencil and paper every time you play, thankfully. These figures can be found on the internet. In reality, I can recommend the top ten games to look for, which is what the rest of this article is about.
Most Popular Poker Games List
Best games to Play at Casino: Jacks or Better
There are several reasons why we believe that Jack or Better is the best video poker game to play. It’s not because this game has the highest odds.
Have you found one with a 9/6 paytable?
Then, you will be playing one of the best games in the house. The reason for this is that Jacks or Better is the basis upon which all other video poker games are built.
Video Poker Near Me: What are Jacks or Better?
Based on a five-card draw, Video Poker Jacks or Better is simple. Here, you will be dealing with five cards. To win, you should choose which ones to keep and which ones to discard. With Jacks or Better, you are paid depending on the poker hand ranking of your final result.
In addition, a pair of jacks or higher is the lowest-paying hand. So, anything less than a pair of tens pays nothing. While a royal flush is the best-paying hand. You can earn 800 to 1 if you stake 5 coins every hand. This is because it only pays off 250 to 1 if you bet 4 coins or less. Therefore, you should always play the maximum coins.
What play Jacks or Better video poker near me?
Many Singaporean players enjoy this game so much because you can easily spot the better pay tables. As mentioned earlier, casinos and game designers often change the payoffs for a full house and flush in this game. When they pay off at 9 and 6, then you are looking at a game that pays out 99.54 percent of the time. Those are some of the most favorable odds available.
Another aspect of Jacks or Better that you will enjoy is that the approach is really simple. You can check out the video poker strategy chart on the website of the best online casino in Singapore. Besides, it is not difficult to understand its strategy. In reality, you can find simplified strategy charts that you can learn in a few minutes. In addition, it only gives up 0.1 percent in payback percentage.
When you’ve mastered Jacks or Better, then you can practically play every other video poker game near you. The only video poker game that does not mimic Jacks or Better is Pick’em Poker. Popularly known as Pick a Pair Poker, is a simplified version of video poker more.
Video Poker Near Me: Deuces Wild
This game is the second most popular video poker variation. Deuces Wild is essentially identical to Jacks or Better but with one major exception. In this game, all of the 2’s in the deck behave like a wild cards. It means that you can use them to fill your hand in place of any other card.
Amazing, right?
In addition, the difference in the value of your average final hand is substantial. This is because there are four of these cards in the deck.
Is this the best game to play at the casino?
Deuces Wild is probably one of the best games to play at an online casino in Singapore.
Of course, you may think that the casino would be insane to play this game because it has the same paytable as Jacks or Better. With the addition of the wild cards, the chances of getting a pair increase dramatically. In reality, they have a variety of pay tables for this game. Truth is, the lowest-paying hand in Deuces Wild is a three-of-a-kind.
A royal flush is still the highest-paying hand, but Deuces Wild distinguishes between a natural and a wild royal flush. Because the odds are still the same, a natural royal flush pays out at 800 to 1. Once every 40,000 hands or so, you’ll witness a natural royal flush.
Furthermore, the format of the pay tables is another significant distinction between Deuces Wild and Jacks or Better. So, you don’t have to keep track of only two hands with various payoffs in Deuces Wild. Multiple payoffs on multiple hands are changed up by the designers and casinos, making it a little more difficult to choose a paytable.
If you know what to look for, you can locate Deuces Wild games with better payouts than Jacks or Better.
For example, a full-pay Deuces Wild has a payback percentage of 100.76 percent. This game is called full-pay Deuces Wild. Although the payback percentage is very high, take note that it is not the easiest game to find. You can play Deuces Wild with its full pay format at several casinos along Boulder Highway in Las Vegas.
Video Poker Near Me: Can you make a living playing Deuces Wild?
But how much of a difference does 0.76 percent make? Is it possible for you to make a living playing this game? Well, it turns out that the answer is most likely no. Here’s why:
Do you remember how we compute the average hourly loss? When you have an edge, the formula for determining the average hourly win is the same. This is important when you are looking for video poker near me. In this situation, you can double the amount of hourly action by YOUR edge, which in this case is 0.76 percent.
You might be able to make a little money playing this game if you can select a game with the proper paytable. Then, play it with a great strategy.
Let’s imagine you can find a game that costs a quarter per hand, or $1.25. Remember, you’re betting 5 coins per hand. So, that’s $750 per hour in action. In this game, you are anticipating winning $5.70 per hour.
That’s a lot better than losing an average of $16 per hour, right? However, you need to struggle to make ends meet on that salary. So, if you played 40 hours per week, then you will earn less than $240 each week.
But, you might wonder, what if you came across a $1 machine.
Couldn’t you earn more than $20 per hour playing such a game?
We are pretty sure a game with this paytable won’t be offered in that denomination. Even the casinos on Boulder Highway are too sophisticated for that.
Even there, that isn’t a normal paytable.
“Not so ugly” Deuces Wild is a more common Deuces Wild paytable. The payback percentage for this game is 99.73 percent. In addition, this is still better than full-pay Jacks or Better. Moreover, the casino will benefit in the long run.
Another thing to remember about Deuces Wild is that it has a completely different playing approach than Jacks or Better. However, one part of this method is simple to recall:
A deuce should never be discarded.
Another important part of a good plan is this: Do not ever hold two pairs.
Other Poker Games:
- Bonus Poker
- Double Bonus Poker
- Loose Deuces Wild
- Double Double Bonus Poker
- Triple Bonus
- Pick’em Poker
- Jokers Wild (or Joker Poker)
- ACE$ Bonus Poker