Video Poker is a popular game that can be bet on in casinos throughout the world, or alternatively at home on your personal computer, using a net connection. The regulations are very simple and consist of the player trying to achieve the best mixture of cards possible in order to come away with money. In this respect it’s much the same as a normal game of poker, minus the interaction with any other players. Of course, techniques used in a physical game of poker, like bluffing, will be useless in Video Poker.
The game of Video Poker begins when the player inserts credits (either tokens, tickets or cash) into the machine and presses the deal button. A hand of 5 cards will then be "given out" on the video screen.
The Electronic Poker game also has buttons with ‘hold’ printed on them, and gamblers will need to now choose which cards to hold and which to throw away. For the cards the bettor wishes to keep, the ‘hold’ buttons need to be pressed so that they light up. The player can choose to keep any number of cards they wish, whether it is all or none.
After the enthusiast has chosen which cards she wishes to keep, they should press ‘draw’, at which point any new cards will be needed they will be handed out. The game is now completed, with the Video Poker machine scanning the hand to see if it matches any of the winning hands printed on the payment schedule.
Normally, the minimum succeeding hand on an Electronic Poker machine is a pair of jacks with the prize money increasing for each better hand. A list of common winning hands begins with jacks or better, moving on to two pairs, three of a kinds, straights, flushes, full houses, 4 of a kinds, straight flushes and finally royal flushes. It is obvious that the payout schedule can change from machine to machine, so that knowledgeable gamblers are agile enough to pick the most money-making machine each time.
Once the initial round has finished, the player can either decide to remain on in an attempt to increase their winnings, or press the ‘collect’ button to cash out any credits that have been won. Additionally, several styles of the game give the enthusiast a chance to double their profits, in which instance another game is played. There are also differences among individual machines, with some decks of cards having wild cards and other differing aspects to enhance playability.