Video poker often offers the best chances of winning in a casino. That is because of its low house advantage. It also offers low minimum bets.
Traditional video poker games mimic five-card draw on a single line. New variants involve multi-hand games. The options are usually Triple Play, Five Play, and Ten Play.
In these games, a player is dealt five cards. The ones the players want to keep are picked. These are held across all hands. New cards fill in every discard, which are reshuffled between every hand, making it possible to draw the same live card or cards between them. If you hold four to a royal flush, you have a chance to catch the fifth card to it on every hand, not just one.
All these games may be played as standard video poker by not paying the additional coins for the bonus feature. However, players are likely better off on standard multi-hand machines as the paytables on these games may be poor without the multipliers, free hands, and wheel spins.
All popular video poker games are available in these new variants. The most common are Jacks or Better, Bonus Poker, Double Bonus Poker, Double Double Bonus Poker, Triple Double Bonus Poker, Deuces Wild, and Deuces Wild Bonus.
Wild! Wild! Wild!
Wild! Wild! Wild! is a new video poker variant that allows players to receive up to three wild cards in a hand. These play as the best possible card, meaning in wild card games, it can complete a natural royal flush for the jackpot. Five of a kind is possible in non-wild card games due to this feature, which occurs on 60% of hands. About 20% of the time, the deck has three wild cards. Also, 20% of the time, two wild cards are available. One wild card enters the deck about 20% of the time. No wild cards are available 40% of the time.
Wilds are yellow. This prevents confusion, especially during Deuces Wild and Deuces Wild Bonus games. Five additional credits are required per hand, meaning 10 credits must be bet to trigger the bonus feature. It otherwise plays like a normal Triple Play, Five Play, or Ten Play game.
Major Multipiers
Another new video poker game is called Major Multipliers. It is dealt in Triple Play, Five Play, and Ten Play. Like most multiplier games, it requires a five-coin bet in addition to the standard one that is in play. Players dealt a pair of jacks or better, two pair, or three of a kind in non-wild card games receive multipliers on hands that are improved on the draw. In Deuces Wild games, a dealt three of a kind triggers the bonus feature.
In non-wild card games, players receive multipliers when improving the dealt hand to two pair, three of a kind, a full house, or four of a kind. Hands that are impossible to hit still receive multipliers. For example, a player dealt three fives in Double Double Bonus will be offered multipliers on four twos, threes, fours, and aces, even though those are only possible by throwing the winner away.
In Deuces Wild games, the three of a kind hand wins a bonus multiplier if it improves to a full house, four of a kind, or five of a kind. Multipliers are random, regardless of the dealt hand. It may be larger on small or big hands. Multipliers run from 2x to 100x.
Pick A Multiplier
Pick A Multiplier takes the randomness out of the bonus feature. The player chooses how often they want the multiplier to appear. The options are 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 6x, 7x, 8x, 9x, and 10x. The player bets five additional coins to receive this feature. The multiplier comes one hand less than the multiplier. The 2x is odd as it is the same as playing a higher denomination. For example, if you play 2x on nickels, it would be the same as playing the dime denomination on a standard multi-hand machine. Every hand is a 2x multiplier. The 3x happens every other hand. The 4x is every three hands, and so on, until the 10x multiplier occurs every nine hands. Ensure you have enough money to play up to the multiplier game on Pick A Multiplier.
Wheel of Fortune Video Poker
Wheel of Fortune video poker is based on the same concept as the slot game. When a player is dealt a winner, a random number generator determines if a puzzle appears. If it does, which occurs about one in ten times, it is either automatically solved or lost. The player has no control over whether the puzzle is solved or not. If it is, the wheel spins. The number of coins on the wheel slice that lands at the top is paid to the player. Wheel of Fortune video poker requires five additional coins per hand to play the bonus feature.
Xtra Card
While the first four games are all on IGT machines, Aristocrat Gaming offers Xtra Card. It is available in single and three-hand versions. Xtra Card offers two bonus features when an additional five coins are wagered. One is the possibility of receiving one or two extra hands. The odds of this happening increase with every discard. Extra hands are more likely when throwing all five cards away than when holding some. Extra hands are not possible when holding all five cards. The next least likely time to get extra hands is when the player holds four cards.
Xtra Card also offers multipliers. These appear on the dealt hand and any extra ones. The range from 2x up to 10x. This occurs about one in every three times the Xtra Card feature triggers.
