By: Samantha William
Jacks or Better is probably the most simple and the most popularly played variant of video poker. Essentially when you see the name you immediately know that to have a winning hand you need a pair of Jacks or better. In other words, this is the lowest hand for which a payout will be received. These video poker games offer good returns as long as the correct strategy for play is used and this can be deciphered by simply reading the pay tables.
Now take this concept a step further and think about playing video poker with bonus options. This game been expanded further so that the “four of a kind” pay line offers different bonus games and this obviously means more chances to win more money.
Microgaming is a popular video poker software design, but other software developers will also provide Bonus Video Poker. In the Microgaming version however, hit the four of a kind pay line and there is a split of three different bonus games to play, each with different, but more enhanced pay out options.
Video poker playing purists will go into the odds in-depth and tell you all about average returns to player versus casino. How reductions in some pay lines make up for the bonus amounts, but as I play video poker for fun and if I put $10 in and win $100, I am happy; I won’t go into the mathematics. Let me suffice it to say that if you play bonus video poker games you will be marginally worse off more regularly, but better off more than marginally if you can get into the bonus rounds.
Staying with the same philosophy of bonus video poker, we also find a series of games which are somewhat ingenuously called Double Bonus Poker. I see this game, I say “YAY, double bonus video poker, what a bonus!” Experts see it and say, how will you be better off marginally or otherwise. These games are simply going to double the bonus payouts if you can manage to get in the four of a kind pay line, so you may be worse off in terms of the fact that betting is more expensive, but it is up to you to decide what you are playing video poker for and why you are playing that game.
It is obvious that this is because you want more of a thrill, because if you risk more, you can win more. It doesn’t get more complicated than that; this is what gambling is about!
We all have different risk thresholds and virtually every game you play online whether it is video poker or not, will be put through a postmortem of percentages by some reviewer or other. If you want to get technical, this is fine, but if you just want to have fun like me, then you know these games are available.
