Video Poker Games

You’ll find a bewildering number of video poker games available at a casino. Most of them are variations of a couple of main games:

• Jacks or Better
• Deuces Wild

You’ll occasionally find a video poker game that’s not a variant of one of these two, but for the most part, they’re all variations on each of these two themes. We’ll start this page, appropriately enough, with an explanation of those two games. We’ll go on to list as many of the variations as we can think of.

Most of these games have individual pages, too. For more details on each individual game, just click on the link provided. These game-specific pages include details about how to play each variant, what the appropriate strategies are, and how the pay tables work.

Jacks or Better can be considered the original video poker game. It’s based mostly on five card draw, but it can also be thought of as a solitaire game based on five card draw. Here are the basics of Jacks or Better

The game is played on a video poker machine. In fact, it looks a lot like a slot machine. But instead of spinning reels with symbols on them, the screen consists of five cards.

This is a significant difference, in fact.

The random number generator in any video poker game is based on a deck of cards—in the case of Jacks or Better, it’s based on a standard 52-card deck. So the odds of getting any particular card in any particular position are known.

A slot machine, on the other hand, also has a random number generator. You know which symbols are potential results on each reel. What you don’t know is the probability of any one of those symbols coming up.

Both slot machines and video poker games have pay tables. This is a list of combinations that you can end up with paired with how much each of those combinations pays. On a slot machine, these combinations are described as symbols. But in a video poker game, these combinations are described as poker hands.

Since you know how much each hand pays, and since you can calculate the odds of getting each hand, you can calculate the overall payback percentage for a video poker game. You can’t do this with a slot machine, because you’re missing an important piece of information—the probability of getting each symbol when you play.

Jacks or Better has one more wrinkle that you don’t find on most slot machines. When you spin the reels on a slot machine, you get paid off based on the combination that shows up on the reels. But when you’re dealt a video poker hand, you get to decide whether or not you want to keep or throw away each card. If you discard cards from your hand, you get new ones.

Then you get new cards, and you get paid off based on the highest value poker hand you wind up with.

Most people know what the standard rankings of hands in poker are. The royal flush is the best possible hand, the 2nd best hand is a straight flush, the 3rd best hand is 4 of a kind, the 4th best hand is a full house, the 5th best hand is a flush, the 6th best hand is a straight, the 7th best hand is 3 of a kind, the 8th best hand is 2 pairs, and the 9th best hand is a pair.

But instead of trying to beat someone else’s hand, you’re just hoping to get a payoff based on the strength of your hand.

Here’s what the standard payout table for a full pay Jacks or Better game looks like:

An 8/5 Jacks or Better game has an overall payback percentage of 97.3%, and a 7/5 game has a payback percentage of 96.1%.

Those sound good, still, especially compared to most slot machine games. But there’s a huge difference between them, especially when you look at how much you expect to lose per hour while playing.

An average video poker player bets on 600 hands per hour. If you’ve never played before, that might sound like an inhuman pace, but veterans will know that it’s no exaggeration.

If you’re playing a quarter machine, you’re betting $1.25 per hand, because you always want to get that big payout for the royal flush. This means you’re putting $750 per hour into action.

The house edge for the full pay Jacks or Better game is 0.46%, so that’s what you can expect to lose on average per hour. In this case, 0.46% multiplied by $750 is $3.45. That’s very little money to spend on casino gambling entertainment.

But the house edge for the 8/5 game is 2.7%. $750 X 2.7% is $20.25. That’s a bigger difference than you expected, isn’t it?

But it’s still light years ahead of what you’d expect to lose at most slot machine games. According to VegasTripping.com, the payback percentage for quarter slots on the Strip averages 92.59%.

That means the house edge is 7.41%. $750 X 7.41% is a whopping $55.58 per hour that you’re expected to lose.

Many, if not most, other video poker games are based on Jacks or Better. They mix things up by offering bonus payouts on certain hands or having other game features. Toward the end of this page, we’ve included a list of games based on Jacks or Better video poker along with a brief description of each. You can click on the names of any of these games for full details.

• Full Pay Jacks or Better

Deuces Wild Video Poker Games

Deuces Wild video poker games have much in common with Jacks or Better. They still involve getting a 5 card hand and deciding which cards to keep and which ones to throw away. They also still involve getting a payout based on the strength of your hand.

In fact, some people might consider Deuces Wild so similar to Jacks or Better that it is, itself, just a variation of the original video poker game. But we had to find some way to categorize these games.

The big difference between Deuces Wild and Jacks or Better is that Deuces Wild includes wild cards. It’s still dealt from a 52-card deck, but now the deuces can be used to replace other cards needed for a hand. This enables you to end up with much stronger hands more of the time.

The pay tables change in order to reflect this.

Here’s an example of a common Deuces Wild pay table:

You’ll notice a couple of things about this pay table right off the bat. For one thing, the royal flush is still the top hand, and it still pays out a lot more if you bet max coins. Since that 4000 coin payout is on a 5 coin bet, it pays out at 800 to 1 instead of at 250 to 1, which means you should always bet max coin when playing Deuces Wild.

You’ll also notice that you need a better hand just to qualify. The payouts for 2 pairs and for a pair of Jacks or better are gone. The lowest paying hand is 3 of a kind, and it only pays out at even odds.

In fact, the entire pay table is on the top heavy side. The royal flush and the 4 deuces both have respectable pouts, but the payouts for all of the lesser hands drop dramatically. You’ll see a lot of winning hands in Deuces Wild, though—it’s just that these are going to be smaller wins than you’re used to.

Another difference between Deuces Wild and Jacks or Better is that the variations on the pay tables are dramatically different.

Remember how they only change the payouts on 2 hands in Jacks or Better?

That is not the case in Deuces Wild.

The pay table we’ve listed on this page is for so-called “not-so-ugly” Deuces Wild. It’s not a full pay game, which is almost impossible to find anyway. But the payback percentage is still excellent at 99.73%. In fact, you’ll notice that the payback percentage for this Deuces Wild pay table is actually better than the payout percentage for Jacks or Better.

One example of a different Deuces Wild pay table is sometimes referred to as “ugly” Deuces Wild. This pay table reduces the payout for 5 of a kind from 16 to 1 to 15 to 1. The straight flush pays 9 to 1 instead of 10 to 1. The payout percentage for this version of the game is 98.91%.

Bonus Poker is a variation of Jacks or Better video poker which offers bonus payouts for a 4 of a Kind. The amount of the bonus for the 4 of a Kind is based on which rank the cards are in that hand. This is one of the best video poker games to play in most casinos.

Bonus Poker is based on Jacks or Better video poker, so gameplay is similar. You start by inserting money into the Bonus Poker machine, and the screen updates to display the number of credits you have. You then decide how many coins you want to play for—1 to 5.

The computer then deals you a virtual hand of 5 cards. Video poker is based on draw poker, so you’re allowed to discard between 0 and 5 cards. The computer then deals you new cards to replace the ones you discarded. Based on the poker rank of your final hand, you get a payout, based on the pay table for the game.

The main aspect of Bonus Poker that distinguishes it from just a plain old Jacks or Better game is the bonus payout for the 4 of a Kind. Pay tables vary from machine to machine, though, and some pay tables offer better odds to the player.

Not all Bonus Poker games are created equal. Casinos and manufacturers can adjust the payouts for various hands. As with Jacks or Better, most of the variations occur with the Full House and Flush combination. The best combination here is 8/5, but you can find games with 7/5 and 6/5 payouts, too.

Bonus Poker also sees variations in the size of the bonuses for the 4 of a Kind hands. Some Bonus Poker games only pay 35 to 1 or 30 to 1 on any 4 of a Kind, regardless of the ranking. You’ll also (rarely) find a Bonus Poker game which offers INCREASED payouts for a Full House and a Flush, like 10/8.

Bonus Poker Deluxe sounds like it would be a more involved game than regular Bonus Poker, but the opposite is actually the casino—it’s a simpler version of the game.

In fact, Bonus Poker Deluxe is even more like Jacks or Better than regular ol’ Bonus Poker. That’s because the game offers a single big payout for a 4 of a kind, without differentiating between the rankings of the cards that make up that hand.

It’s probably easiest to think of Bonus Poker Deluxe as a variation of Jacks or Better, which is the most basic video poker game of them all.

In Jacks or Better and its related games, all of which have no wild cards, the lowest paying hand is a pair of jacks or higher. For purposes of this, the games include jacks, queens, kings, and aces. A single pair lower than this doesn’t pay out at all. This hand usually pays off at even odds.

In Bonus Poker Deluxe, the payoff for 2 pairs is reduced from a 2 to 1 payoff (in Jacks or Better) to even odds, just like you’d get for a single pair. But in exchange for this difference, you get an increased payoff on a 4 of a kind.

In most variations of Bonus Poker, the payoff for a 4 of a kind varies based on the ranks of the cards. 4 aces pays off the most, usually, while 2s, 3s, and 4s also have an increased payoff. With most Bonus Poker games, all other 4 of a kind hands have an even lower payoff.

But in Bonus Poker Deluxe, there’s one payoff for a 4 of a kind. So it’s basically a Jacks or Better game with 2 differences:

Since 2 pairs come up relatively often (a little more than 10% of the time), you’ll see more volatility in Bonus Poker Deluxe than you will in Jacks or Better. That’s because the increased payoff for a 4 of a kind is nice, but it doesn’t happen nearly as often as you’d probably enjoy.

The pay table in Bonus Poker Deluxe determines the game’s payback percentage, which is the expected return. This is calculated by multiplying the chances of getting each hand by its payoff. The overall expected return is the sum of all possible hands, including those that don’t pay off, and represents the percentage the casino anticipates being paid back to players in the long run. Bonus Poker Deluxe typically uses the 9/6 pay structure, which has different payouts than Jacks or Better for 2 pairs and 4 of a kind.

Here’s a 9/6 Bonus Poker Deluxe pay table:

This is also a good example of one of the differences between video poker and traditional poker. In a traditional poker game, a straight flush is a better hand than 4 of a kind. But in Bonus Poker Deluxe, the payoff for 4 of a kind is significantly better.

The payback percentage for the 9/6 version of this game is 99.64%, which is marginally better than the payback percentage for 9/6 Jacks or Better (99.54%).

We could share additional pay tables for you, but the reality is that Bonus Poker Deluxe games only vary based on the payouts for those 2 hands. Below we’ve listed the payback percentages based on the payoffs for a full house and a flush:

As far as we know, these are the only pay tables available for Bonus Poker Deluxe.

Deuces Wild Bonus Poker is also sometimes called Bonus Deuces Wild. Like many video poker variations, it can be thought of as a bit of a hybrid. Bonus Poker is normally considered a variation of Jacks or Better with bonus payouts for various 4 of a kind hands. Bonus Deuces Wild is the same thing, only instead of having Jacks or Better as its base game, it has Deuces Wild as its base game.

The gameplay in Deuces Wild Bonus Poker is no different than it is in any other video poker game. You start by deciding how many coins you want to bet. As with most VP games, you can choose to play for anywhere between 1 and 5 coins.

But you should always bet 5 coins, no matter what.

Here’s why:

In the game, the royal flush pays off at 800 to 1 if you’ve made the max coin bet, and it only shows up once every 40,000 hands, making a noticeable difference in your overall payback percentage. While playing Deuces Wild Bonus Poker, you’re dealt a hand of 5 cards, with the use of a deck of cards being one of the big differences between video poker and slot machines.

Here’s why that’s important:

On a slot machine, you get paid off based on what combination of symbols appear on the screen. But you have no way to know what the odds of getting a particular symbol are. You also have no decisions to make which can affect your odds.

But a video poker machine, on the other hand, bases its symbols on playing cards. And they base the probability of getting any of those symbols on a deck of playing cards, too. Any particular card has a probability of 1/52 of showing up.

The pay table for Deuces Wild Bonus Poker will be familiar to anyone who’s played Deuces Wild and also to anyone who’s played Bonus Poker. Here’s an example of one of the best versions of this game:

In Deuces Wild Bonus Poker, the bonus payoffs are for 5 of a kind hands. And that makes sense, since there are so many wild cards. The 4 of a kind comes up at least 6% of the time, or about once every 16 or 17 hands, so it wouldn’t make the casino much sense to provide a bonus payout for that.

The pay table listed above has a payback percentage of 99.86% when played with optimal strategy.

Other pay tables are less generous and have lower payback percentages. Here’s an example of a pay table with a 98.8% payback percentage:

You’ll notice only 2 changes to this pay table, actually. The payout for a straight flush is increased to 13 to 1, which seems really generous. But the payout for a full house is reduced from 4 to 1 to 3 to 1. That’s enough to compensate for the bigger straight flush payoff AND increase the overall house edge.

Double Bonus Poker is basically a variation of Bonus Poker, which is, in turn, a variation of Jacks or Better. The reason the word “bonus” is added to the name of the game is because of the extra-high payouts for the 4 of a kind hand in the game.

With the right pay table, Double Bonus Poker can offer the smart player a small edge over the house. Even some of the less optimal pay tables make for a great video poker game, though.

Video poker games differ from slot machines as they use playing cards, and the payoffs are based on poker hand rankings with known odds. Players have the opportunity to make decisions that can affect their outcomes by discarding between 0 and 5 cards to improve their hand, with the right strategy minimizing the house edge and providing a payback percentage of at least 95%. To get the maximum payout of 800 to 1 for a royal flush, players must bet the maximum of 5 coins. If you’re betting 4 coins or fewer, it only pays off at 250 to 1.

is a chart that shows a list of hands, from best to worst, along with the payoffs for winding up with each of those hands. On almost all games, the royal flush is the highest-paying hand, with a payoff of 800 to 1. The lowest paying hand is usually a pair of jacks or higher, although in some wild card games, payoffs start with a lowest hand of 3 of a kind.

are the same thing. This is a mathematical prediction of how much of each bet gets paid back to the player in winnings over time. This is a long term expectation, so in the short run, you’ll see almost any kind of result here.

is the opposite of the payback percentage. This is the amount the casino expects to win on every bet. If you subtract the payback percentage from 100%, you’re left with the house edge. In the case of the Jacks or Better game we used in our example, the house edge is only 0.46%.

By the way, if the house edge is negative, that means the player has an advantage over the house. With some Double Bonus Poker games this is possible. A full pay Double Bonus Poker game offers a payback percentage of 100.17% when played with perfect strategy.

Here’s the pay table for that version of Double Bonus Poker:

This would be referred to as a 10/7 Double Bonus game, because the payoff for a full house is 10 to 1 and the payoff for a flush is 7 to 1.

Double Double Bonus Poker Plus is a variation of Double Bonus Poker, which is, itself, a variation of Bonus Poker. That game, in turn, is a variation of Jacks or Better. If you can find the right pay table, AND if you can play with perfect strategy, this game has a payback percentage of 99.44%.

The first thing to understand is that even though games like Double Double Bonus Poker Plus LOOK like slot machines, they’re actually quite different. Those differences come down to 2 factors:

Gameplay is simplicity itself. You input your money. You choose how many coins to bet and press deal. The machine deals you a 5 card hand on the computer monitor. You choose which cards you want to keep. Then you press the deal button again to get your replacement cards. Then the machine credits you with your winnings, if any.

The differences between almost all video poker games boil down to how the various hands payout.

We cover the payouts for Double Double Bonus Poker Plus in the next section.

Bonus Poker variations offer higher payouts for 4 of a kind hands, but reduce payouts for lower-ranked hands. In Double Bonus Poker, payouts for 4 of a kind are doubled, while Double Double Bonus Poker Plus offers even bigger payouts based on the rank of your kicker. The increased payouts increase game volatility, with reduced payouts for some hands to pay for the bigger payouts. The reduced payout on 2 pairs in Double Double Bonus Poker Plus is one example of this.

Here’s an example of a full pay table for Double Double Bonus Poker Plus:

That is an example of the best possible pay table for this game, and it has a payback percentage of 99.44%. Perceptive readers who are familiar with Jacks or Better will notice that this is actually slightly lower than the expected return on a full pay Jacks or Better game (which has a 99.54% return).

Designed by IGT, Multi Strike Poker video poker features four levels of hands and multipliers. Each time that you win, you move up a level and see your payout multiplied.

The goal is to reach the fourth level, where any win will be multiplied 8 times the standard pay table. This means that a max bet royal flush will pay 32,000 credits, rather than the standard 4,000 coins.

Another twist to this game is that you can get a Free Ride card and advance to the next level, regardless of if you win or lose.

At the bottom of the screen, you’ll see Select Hands and Bet Per Hand options.

Select Hands determines how many levels are active when you’re playing. You can select up to 4 hands, with each hand/level lighting up when you activate it.

From a strategy perspective, it’s best that you play all 4 levels because this makes you eligible for Multi Strike Poker’s maximum payback.

Bet Per Hand lets you put between 1 and 5 coins on each hand. Like with other video poker games, you must wager 5 coins per hand to play for max payback.

If you play all 4 levels and put 5 coins on each hand, this leaves you risking 20 credits per turn.

With a $0.25 coin denomination, that’s a $5.00 bet per turn. If you can find a nickel game, this lowers your total bet to $1.00, which is more reasonable for low rollers.

Once you click Deal, you’ll be dealt 5 cards on the bottom row. The other activated hands remain face down because they aren’t in play until you start winning.

When you win, credits are added to your bankroll and you move to the next level. This process continues if you win on the second and third levels, at which point you’ll reach the fourth level.

If you lose on the second or third level, you keep whatever you win from the previous hands, and the game resets to the bottom level/hand.

You’ll also notice multipliers to the left of each hand that indicate how much your wins will be multiplied by. The first level has a 1x multiplier, second level has a 2x multiplier, third level has a 4x multiplier, and the fourth level has an 8x multiplier.

A Free Ride card can randomly appear in any hand. The Free Ride card will eventually be replaced by a normal card so that you have a 5 card hand to play.

A Free Ride card advances you to the next level regardless of whether your hand wins or loses. This gives you a chance to win another hand and get a bigger multiplier.

The only catch is that your odds of getting a Free Ride card decrease as you move up the ladder. In Deuces Wild, the Free Ride card has an 8.25% chance of appearing in level 1, and a 7.8% chance in levels 2 and 3.

Even in level 12, you can only expect to get a Free Ride card in roughly 1 out of every 12 hands.

You can see the pay table for any Multi Strike Poker game by clicking the ‘See Pays’ button. Below you can see the Multi Strike Poker Jacks or Better pay table:

This is a 9 / 6 Jacks or Better pay table, otherwise known as full pay Jacks or Better because it’s the top paying version.

Full pay Jacks or Better is signified by paying 9 coins for a full house and 6 coins for a flush.

Here’s a quick look at how Multi Strike Poker raises the optimal payback for other video poker variants too:

Multi Strike Poker Ultra Deluxe has the same rules and setup as the original version.

The only difference is that a fifth level with a 16x multiplier is added to the max. This means that you have an extra chance to boost your payouts to an even higher degree.

Most video poker variants include a single special feature that distinguishes them from other games. This feature in Split Card Poker is that 2 cards can occupy a single spot on the screen. This (naturally) improves your probability of getting a good hand.

The 2 cards that occupy this individual spot are called “Split Cards”. They’re always suited, of the same rank, or of adjacent ranks. As with most of these variants, you activate this special feature by doubling the number of coins you’re betting on each hand.

Split Card Poker is a multi-play video poker game. In these games, you’re able to play multiple hands at once. The initial hand is the same on all lines, but the replacement cards are dealt independently for the additional lines. If you bet 1-5 coins, Split Card Poker machines play just like a standard game.

Betting 10 coins per line triggers the “Split Card” functionality. Your wins are still paid off as if you’d bet 5 coins, though—the extra 5 coins just trigger the bonus feature. You don’t get to choose which card becomes the Split Card, either—the computer does that for you. Here’s how that works:

The computer chooses a card at random from your initial hand or from your hand after drawing. That becomes the Split Card. The 2^nd card is in the same suit as the original card, and it’s either the same rank or an adjacent rank.

One of the other things that a lot of these newer video poker variants have in common is that they’re really just older video poker games with a bonus feature added to them. These bonus features are optional and usually require you to pony up some extra coins in order to activate them. The original game that has the extra feature added to it is called “the base game”.

Split Card Poker is available in the following base game versions:

The pay tables and returns for these games all work the same way until you factor in the Split Card. But since we don’t have detailed, accurate information about how likely it is to get a Split Card on a hand, it’s impossible to calculate how it affects the payback percentage.

Produced by IGT, Super Times Pay is a video poker machine that randomly offers you a multiplier on certain hands. The only catch is that you must make the 5 coin max bet, plus a sixth coin to activate the multiplier.

The minimum multiplier is 2 times your bet while the max is 10 times. This makes for exciting possibilities in the event that you get a large payout combined with the multiplier.

Super Times Pay is a multi-hand video poker game, meaning you can play between 3 and 10 hands per turn, depending upon the machine.

You select the number of hands, bet size, and bonus bet at the bottom of the screen.

In the case of a 3 hand game, your betting options will be as follows: 1 to 5 hands, 1 to 5 coins per hand, and 1 bonus bet per hand.

For reasons we’ll explain in the pay table section, you should make the max bet on all hands along with the bonus wager to achieve top payback. In the example above, this would be 18 total coins.

On a quarter denomination machine, this leaves you betting $6.00 per turn, which is too much for most players. If you’re a low roller, look for a nickel denomination machine to lower the cost per turn.

Other options in this game include a Max Bet button and the ability to change the game speed.

You begin by selecting the number of hands and bet size that you want. You can choose a single hand or increase the number of hands as high as the game allows.

Once you’ve picked your betting options, click Deal to receive your hand. If you play more than one hand, only the bottom hand is face up while the others remain face down.

Every card that you hold in your bottom hand is mirrored in the other active hands.

Once you finish holding cards and making discards, click Draw to complete your bottom hand and other active hands.

As mentioned before, the Super Times Pay Multiplier is activated with a sixth coin. The multiplier ranges from 2 times to 10 times any potential win.

According to the Super Times Pay help screen, a multiplier occurs roughly every 15 hands and multiplies your bet 4.05 times on average.

At this rate, you win 20.33% more when you make the multiplier bet. Considering that you only have to bet 20.0% more to use the multiplier, you should always enact the Super Times Pay feature because you’re getting 0.33% positive expected value.

Due to this effect, Super Times Pay offers more payback than what you’d normally get through video poker.

If you’re new to Super Times Pay, a good game to start with is Jacks or Better because it’s simpler than the bonus and wild card variants described above. Here’s a quick look at a 9 / 6 Jacks or Better pay table:

If you use optimal strategy on 9 / 6 Jacks or Better, you’ll achieve 99.54% payback. The numbers in front signify 9 coins for a full house and 6 coins for a flush. Anything lower than this results in less payback.

One of the most attractive qualities of Super Times Pay video poker is that you can raise payback by using the multiplier.

In the case of 9 / 6 Jacks or Better, you would actually be playing for 99.82% payback because the multiplier wager offers a positive expected value.

Here’s a look at how the Super Times Pay feature changes payback for other games:

Triple Double Bonus Poker is a video poker variation that awards large payouts for the following 4 of a kind hands:

If you’ve played Double Bonus and Double Double Bonus Poker, then you’re used to getting large payouts for 4 of a kind.

But Triple Double Bonus takes this further since you can win up to 4,000 coins through four aces + 2 4, and up to 2,000 coins for four 2s 4s + A 4.

Triple Double Bonus Poker works like standard video poker variants, where you can bet between 1 and 5 coins per hand.

In any video poker game, you must bet all 5 coins to qualify for the highest royal flush payout and top payback. But this is especially important with Triple Double Bonus since max bets can win you larger payouts with 4 of a kind.

If you’ve played any standard video poker variant, then you’ll find Triple Double Bonus to be a simple game to learn.

After selecting your bet, click Deal to receive your hand.

You then decide what cards to keep and hold, then push Draw to make discards and receive your replacement cards.

With your hand now finalized, the software will determine any potential payouts based on the Triple Double Bonus pay table.

As we’ve discussed, Triple Double Bonus offers really big payouts for specific 4 of a kind hands.

In order to get perspective on this, let’s look at how a Triple Double Bonus Poker pay table compares to Double Bonus and Double Double Bonus:

It’s imperative that you place 5 coin wagers in Triple Double Bonus because you also get a much bigger payout with four aces + 2 4. Here’s a look at what payouts you benefit from when placing max bets:

Considering the big jumps in the royal flush and 4 aces + 2 4 payouts, you get better payback when making 5 coin bets.

Developed by IGT, Triple Play Draw Poker is a machine that offers nine different video poker games in one. Triple Play Draw is also characterized by requiring you to play three hands at once.

This machine forms the basis for many of IGT’s more advanced video poker variants, which also come in multi bundle packs.

But if you’re new to video poker and / or the Triple Play concept, then Triple Play Draw Poker makes for a good introduction.

Triple Play Draw Poker has an odd betting format compared to most video poker variants. You’re forced to play all 3 hands, and the default bet is 10 coins per hand 30 total.

This differs from other Triple Play video poker machines that we’ve played, where you can choose between 1 3 hands and 1 5 coins per hand.

You can change your wager with the Bet Up and Bet Down buttons. Again, the default bet is 30 total coins, while you can wager as much as 15,000 total coins 5,000 per hand.

Considering that 30 coins per turn is already a significant amount for many players, we recommend sticking with the lowest bet.

Note that there’s no strategic advantage to betting more than the 30 coin minimum.

Once you’ve finished selecting your betting options, click Deal to receive your hand.

As in all multi hand video poker games, only the bottom hand is dealt face up while the other two hands remain face down. Any cards that you hold in the bottom hand are reflected in the two face down hands.

As mentioned before, Triple Play Draw Poker’s minimum bet is 10 coins per hand (30 total). This creates some unusual payouts as you look through the pay tables

Here are some examples using the Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, and Double Bonus pay tables:

The average video poker game only lets you bet up to 5 coins, which limits payouts. But as you can see from these pay tables, the larger bets make for big payouts.

Based on strategy, you don’t need to bet anything beyond 10 coins per hand. All payouts increase proportionately to the number of coins that you’re risking per hand.

Combining video poker and slot machines, Spin Poker is one of IGT’s most successful video poker machines in history. Triple Spin Poker takes things a step further by featuring three sets of slots reels—rather than the single set offered in Spin Poker.

This makes for additional excitement and more big payouts since you have three slot machines spinning at once.

You have three choices when selecting your betting options in Triple Spin Poker:

The number of games and pay lines that you select doesn’t have a bearing on the house edge.

But due to a favorable increase in royal flush payouts on the max bet, you should wager all 5 coins.

If you play all 5 coins and 9 pay lines on a single slot machine, that’s 45 total coins or $11.25. If you bet the max on all three games that’s 135 coins or $33.75 per turn.

A nickel denomination machine would cut the 45 coin bet to $2.25 per round, and the 135 coin wager to $6.75.

When you’ve chosen the number of games, pay lines, and coins you want to bet, click Deal/Spin to start the round. Each of the 3 slot machines are on a 5×3 grid, and you only see the middle reel spin on each of them.

When the reels quit spinning, you’ll see a 5 card hand in the middle reel, along with two face down hands in the upper and lower reels.

You choose what cards to keep in the middle reel of each game, and your selections will be copied in the other active lines.

Although Triple Spin Poker has a lot going on at once, its pay tables are the same as standard video poker variants. For the sake of discussion, we’ll look at a common Double Bonus pay table:

If you follow perfect strategy with this 9 / 7 Double Bonus game, you’ll earn 99.11% payback.

If you find a 10 / 7 Double Bonus machine, which pays 10 coins for a full house and 7 coins for a flush, you’ll earn 100.17% payback.

IGT (International Game Technology) has experienced great success with its Wheel of Fortune slot machine. And they’ve taken the same spinning wheel concept and applied it to Triple Wheel Poker.

This game sees you play a regular video poker game in Three Play, Five Play, or Ten Play format.

But the twist is that you can also activate three prize wheels by betting seven coins per hand – 5 regular + 2 bonuses. These wheels give you an opportunity to hit big payouts when you’re dealt certain hands.

You have three betting options when playing Triple Wheel Poker:

The number of hands that you can play differs depending on if it’s Triple Play 3 hands, Five Play 5 hands, or Ten Play 10 hands. But regardless of the game, you must play every hand at the max 5 credit bet to be eligible for the 3 prize wheels.

You also need to put 2 extra coins on every hand to activate the wheels. This makes for 21 total credits if you’re playing the Triple Play version.

This is $5.25 per turn on a quarter denomination machine, which is expensive for many players.

When playing multiple hands, only the bottom hand is dealt face up while the other hands remain face down. Every card that you hold in the bottom hand will be reflected in the other hands.

When you’re finished holding cards and making discards, click the Draw button to complete all of your hands. Potential payouts will be made according to the video poker variation that you’re playing.

You activate each wheel by being dealt the following hands.

The potential prizes that you stand to win increase as you move from the Bronze to Gold Wheel. The highest possible payout that you can win is 10,000 credits through the Gold Wheel.

Although the draw to Triple Wheel Poker is that you can earn special prizes through a spinning wheel, the base game works just like standard video poker.

The difference is in the 3 bonus wheels that you unlock through certain hands. Below you can see a basic pay table for 7 / 5 Bonus Poker and the three bonus wheel pay schedules:

As we covered earlier, you activate each wheel by immediately being dealt certain hands.

Ultimate X video poker is a game where you get the chance to double your bet. If you get a paying hand, you win a multiplier which will go into effect on your next hand. Ultimate X video poker is available in both a single-line and multi-line version.

Ultimate X video poker plays in a similar manner to other variations. In fact, the “Ultimate X” is an option—it’s not something that you take advantage of in every hand. If you skip that, you’re just going to be playing a regular video poker game.

The game is similar to a slot machine, but instead of having spinning reels, you have 5 spots where playing cards are dealt. It’s a video game, so those cards are just animated, but the odds of getting those cards are the same as they would be if you were playing any other card game.

Video poker games feature a pay table with payouts based on the rarity of poker hands. The only major difference between games is the payout structure and the presence or lack of wild cards. To win the highest payout for a royal flush, you must bet the maximum amount of coins. Ultimate X is an additional feature that requires a max bet of 10 coins to activate and offers a multiplier for winning hands. Without betting the max amount, the game plays like its base game without the Ultimate X feature.

Here’s an example of how that works:

You’re playing Ultimate X Jacks or Better, and you place the maximum bet. The multipliers vary based on which hand you wind up with—this can vary from machine to machine, but here’s a common example, by hand:

The multipliers in Ultimate X are applied to winnings on the next hand, and you only need to bet the max amount to activate them. The multipliers are line-specific in multi-line versions, and the odds are calculable because you know which hands create which multipliers.