How to Play Video Poker for BTC the Right Way

Learn Correct Video Poker Strategy for Games at Canadian Crypto Casinos

If I asked you to name the first casino game that comes to mind, chances are you’d pick slot machines, blackjack, or maybe roulette. Video poker rarely gets top billing. That’s because video poker appeals to a niche audience. Most players who enjoy thought-provoking card games are drawn to the more communal atmosphere of blackjack, while most players who prefer the singular nature of a gaming machine spend their time spinning the slots reels. Video poker attracts players who like both solitude and a mentally challenging game.

If you happen to be one of those people, you’ll be glad to know that video poker is actually one of the highest – if not the highest – paying games in the casino. It all depends on what video poker variants are on offer, compared to the range of blackjack rules provided. I’ve seen video poker games with return percentages as high 99.92% at online casinos. No blackjack game (since the turn of the millennium) has come with rules friendly enough to compete with that number.

Now that I’ve got your attention, please have a look at the informative topics covered on this page. We kick things off with the basic rules of video poker, including a few of the best-known (highest RTP) variants on the market today. We then detail perfect video poker strategies for some of those games. Further along, we’ll talk about the availability of video poker games in the online casino community, and the types of video poker games you can play for Bitcoin and other crypto currencies.

Table of Contents

• Rules of Video Poker
• Optimal Video Poker Strategy
• Video Poker Casinos Online
• Bet on Video Poker with Crypto

How to Play Video Poker – Bet, Hold, Draw

There are three simple steps to playing a video poker game – bet, hold and draw. You start by placing your bet. Next, choose which cards you want to hold (keep). Then, draw replacements for the cards you don’t want. The resulting hand will either win or lose. It’s not complicated.

What varies most from one video poker game to another is the rank of qualifying hands. This information should be displayed right on the screen, via the game’s paytable. It will show which hands are worth a payout, and how much that payout will be per hand. Thus, the object of any video poker game is to achieve a poker hand rank worthy of a payout; the higher the better.

Because so many video poker games vary in hand rank and pay out rules, I’ll use an example of one of the most popular games online or on land – Jacks or Better – to describe the basic rules of play.

How to Play Jacks or Better Video Poker

The object of this game is stated in its name. You’ll need to achieve a hand with “a pair of Jacks, or better” to win. Anything less, and you lose. Please refer to the illustration below as you continue reading the exact rules of how to ‘bet, hold and draw‘ in this game (and pretty much every other video poker game ever created).

Bet One / Bet Max: At the start of every game, you place a bet. You can do this by pressing Bet One, wagering one coin at a time, or by pressing Bet Max to wager the maximum 5 coins. The pay table at the top lights up the current payouts, according to the number of coins wagered. In this case, we see the fifth row is highlighted red, indicating we’ve wagered 5 coins.

Deal / Draw: When your bet is ready, press the Deal / Draw button to deal a new five card hand. You’ll press this button again to draw new cards after choosing which ones you’d like to hold.

Hold / Cancel: Press the Hold button to indicate that you’d like to keep a card. Above that card, you’ll see the word HOLD has appeared. Pressing this button again will Cancel the current Hold on that card. In the illustration above, we’ve chosen to hold the A, J, Q and K. Now, pressing the Deal / Draw button will discard the 9 and replace it with a new card. (For the record, it was a 5, we did not win).

Reset: Press this button at any time to clear all bets or selections.

Reading the Video Poker Paytable

The pay table is pretty straight forward. In the illustration above (repeated in the table below), we see a list of hand ranks, followed by 5 columns of numbers. The numbers directly to the right of each hand rank relate to the payout multiplier for achieving such a hand.

The first bet column (Bet 1), for example, tells us a Flush pays 6. This means you’ll win 6x your bet for a Flush. A pair of Jacks or Better pays 1x the bet, which really just means we’ve broken even. Wins are paid “for 1”, not “to 1”, meaning you won’t get the original bet back. In this game, we need 1 Pair of Jacks or Better to win our money back, and 2 Pair or better to make a profit.

Keep looking towards the right, and we see additional lists of payout ratios, corresponding with a bet of 2 coins, 3 coins, 4 coins, or the max 5 coins. Betting max coins is important, because – as you’ll notice – the payout for the best possible hand of a Royal Flush does not increase incrementally.

Look at the payout line for any other hand, and the payout scales up evenly per coin. For example, Two Pair increases 2, 4, 6, 8, 10; an even multiplier. The Royal Flush, on the other hand, pays 250, 500, 750, 1000, then, instead of the incrementally expected 1,250, it jumps all the way up to 4,000. This is important, because betting max coins ensures you are getting the highest RTP for the game.

The “9/6” Paytable

The pay table in the Jacks or Better Video Poker game illustrated above is what we call a 9/6 Full Pay table. The numbers 9 and 6 refer to the payout for a Full House and a Flush, respectively. At 1 coin wagered, the Full House pays 9 for 1, and the Flush pays 6 for 1. The 9/6 is the best pay table you’re going to find in terms of lowest house edge (highest RTP).

A 9/5 paytable would decrease the payout for a Flush to 5 to 1. All other payouts remain the same. As minimal as that one little disparity might seem, it actually makes a pretty big difference when it comes to the casino’s advantage over the player. And these aren’t the only two pay tables you’ll come across, either. They can scale anywhere from a 10/6 (worthy of an ultra rare 0.70% player’s advantage), to 6/5, which carries an abysmal house edge of 5.00%. Most of today’s online slot machines pay out better than that!

Here’s a quick chart to show you just how much the pay table impacts the house edge and theoretical return to player (RTP) in a video poker game. This chart applies specifically to Jacks or Better Video Poker rules, but you can expect similar disparities in other video poker variants.

Video Poker Strategies to Win More Often

There are three simple steps to employing an optimal video poker strategy. Follow them unwaveringly, and you’ll have the best possible chance of winning money on video poker. Deviate in any way, and your odds will only decrease. That means forgetting about intuition and gut instinct, and following the mathematical probabilities all the time, every time.

Play Video Poker with the Highest RTP

Returns are theoretical, and you can always expect some variance in the short term, but long term results (very long term) will always align with scientifically provable, mathematic probabilities. Don’t let all those big, smart words scare you. All it means is that you should be playing the game with the highest RTP.

If the game variety at your chosen casino is low, you can rest assured Jacks or Better will be on the menu. Check its pay table. The “9/6 Full Pay” is the game you should be looking for. Don’t expect to come across a 10/6, as that player’s edge is incredibly rare, and has never been seen in an online casino. At the same time, don’t settle for less than 9/6. Switch to another online casino if you have to.

If you happen to be gaming at a Microgaming powered online casino, bypass the Jacks or Better machines in search of a game called All Aces Video Poker. Not all operators carry this game anymore – not since players figured out it has an ultra high RTP of 99.92%. If you really want the best chance of winning video poker, shop around for an online casino that has it.

Microgaming gave its All Aces Video Poker machines a complete makeover in 2018. Below is an illustration of the old version, and the new version. Both carry the same paytable, with the same 99.92% RTP, so if you find either version, you’ve struck gold.

Bet Max Coins

As previously discussed, betting the maximum number of coins delivers a bonus payout for the best possible hand of Royal Flush. Every video poker game worth playing will have a similar bonus payout, whether it’s Jacks or Better, All Aces, or any of a number of other variants. And so long as that bonus payout exists, you’ll guarantee yourself the highest RTP by wagering max coins.

Please note that you do no have to bet the max denomination per coin. If you’re offered denominations of $0.05, $0.10, $0.25, or $1, you do not need to bet five $1 coins ($5) to get the max RTP. You can choose the lowest $0.05 denomination, wagering five coins worth $0.25, and get the same max RTP.

Apply Perfect Decision Making

This is where things get tricky. By tricky, I mean that your decisions directly impact the RTP of the game. Bad decisions result in a lower RTP, while good decisions retain the highest RTP (99.54% in 9/6 Jacks or Better, 99.92% in All Aces, etc.).

The perfect strategy for every video poker game is different, but they are all built on the same concept that, when faced with a decision between which hand to play, (almost) always pick the one with the higher payout. There are exceptions to the rules, of course.

Here are the proper video poker strategy rules of thumb to follow, including logical exceptions to those rules.

Number Bonus Video Poker Strategy

We’ve recently learned of a video poker game called Numbers Bonus, by Red Rake Gaming. This unique variant is like Jacks or Better, except that every day, a random ‘Bonus Number’ is selected. That number becomes the catalyst for awarding bonus payouts on a variety of hands.

While we haven’t worked out the perfect strategy for it just have, we have crunched enough numbers to know that it has a variable RTP ranging from 100.26% to 100.80% (avg. 100.43%), depending on the given day’s bonus number. We hope to have a full strategy review up soon, so check back often! Until then, you can find Number Bonus Video Poker available one of our favorite Canada crypto casinos, OneHash (see below).

Crypto Casinos with Video Poker Games

Every self-respecting online casino supplies a host of video poker games. They’re almost as readily available as blackjack and slot machines. It’s not that everyone loves video poker so much, but rather the niche-market of players that do are too valuable to the iGaming industry to be overlooked. That goes for traditional online casinos, as well as Bitcoin casinos that allow players to wager with crypto currencies.

What does vary, to an extreme degree, is the variety of video poker games crypto casinos have to offer. Playamo, for example, offers just one version known as Super Video Poker. If it were a 9/6 Full Pay Jacks or Better, no one would bat a lash. However, the only thing “super” about Super Video Poker is the super-high house edge of 4.86% (RTP 96.14%).

So, if you’re Canadian and looking for a highly reputable crypto gambling site to play a high-RTP video poker game at, Playamo’s single machine isn’t going to float your boat. You’d be far better off with a crypt casino with a larger video poker menu. You’ll find more information on that in the following section…

Where to Play Video Poker for Bitcoin

We’ve compiled a complete list of the video poker games, with RTP percentages, available at Canada’s most respected, reputably licensed and regulated crypto casinos. I’ve listed each casino with a full list of video poker games and corresponding RTPs, alphabetized by the software brand that supplies them. Click any casino name to read a full review.