Top 5 real money video poker games you can play at online casinos
Online video poker is an exciting and fun game; and one of the few online casino games that can actually (under the right circumstances) can be beaten.
Most video poker machines you play at online casinos are variations of a 5-card draw. The player gets five cards and then chooses which ones to keep (the player can choose to keep the amount of cards he/she wants, from 0 to 5). New cards from the deck will replace the discarded cards, to form the final 5-card hand.
Let's take a look at the best video poker real money games you can play at online casinos.
Jacks or Better
Jacks or Better is one of the most recommended and common video poker games to play. Even though it is not the game with the best odds (unless you find a game with a 9/6 pay table, then it is probably the best game in the house), it is the foundation upon which knowledge of all other video poker games rests.
This game is pretty straightforward. Pair of jacks is the lowest-paying hand, a hand lower than that doesn't get paid. A royal flush is the highest hand, which pays off at 800 to 1 if you bet 5 coins per hand (in case you pay 4 coins or less, it only pays out 250 to 1, so you better always play the maximum amount of coins).
When this game pays off at 9 and 6, it is a game with a 99.54% RTP percentage; you won't find better odds in the house.
The strategy for this game is pretty straightforward too; you can find the charts on the internet, and they are pretty easy to learn. Another good thing about this game is that once you have learned it, you can easily play almost every other video poker game in the casino. The only video poker game that is quite different is Pick´em Poker (or Pick a Pair Poker).
Deuces Wild
This is the second most common video poker game. It is the same as Jacks or Better with the difference that all 2s in the deck function like wild cards. Meaning they can represent any card you need to fill your hand. Given that there are four of these cards in the deck, the difference in the value of your average final hand is significant.
However, this game doesn't offer the same pay table as in Jacks or Better; and it is quite logical, since the odds of getting a pair are really high due to the wild cards.
In this game, the lowest-paying hand is a 3 of a kind, and the highest is a royal flush, but it makes a distinction between a wild royal flush and a natural royal flush. A natural royal flush still pays off 800 to 1 since the odds are still the same.
Another big difference is how the pay tables are structured in this game. There aren't only 2 hands with different payoffs, instead, there are multiple hands with multiple payoffs; that is why it is a little bit harder to choose a pay table.
Double Bonus Poker
This game offers a good edge over the house, it can be up to 100.17% RTP if you find the right pay table.
In this game the payouts for the full house and the flush are even higher than in Jacks or Better, they can pay up to 10 to 1 and 7 to 1. This is possible because the payouts for 2 pairs in this game are reduced from 2 to 1 to even money (because that hand comes up once in every 8 hands), therefore, by cutting this payoff in half the casino has a lot of money to add to the other hands.
This game is hard to find, and it is even harder to find with a high pay table.
Jokers Wild (or Joker Poker)
This game is actually different from the others. Not only because it has a different pay table, but also because it is dealt from a different kind of deck (it has 53 cards instead of 52, the additional card is a joker, which acts as a wild card). Therefore, in this game there is only one wild card within 53.
The payoffs start with a pair of kings or better, the payoff for 2 pairs is reduced to even money. The natural flush pays off at 800 to 1 and the wild royal flush does at 200 to 1.
With the right pay table and strategy this game offers a 100.64% RTP.
Ace$ Bonus Poker
This game is significantly different from the others. In this game the aces are marked with the following letters: A, C, E, $.
In video poker the position of the cards is not important (A 10 J Q K is a straight, and so it is an A Q 10 J K). However, in this game, the aces have an extra designation, therefore it can pay an extra bonus on certain 4 of a kind hands. This means that if you get 4 aces in the right order (ACE$) you get an 800 to 1 payout.
Of course this hand is really hard to get, it doesn't come up very often.
