If you’re like millions of other thinking gamblers worldwide, your game of choice just might be video poker.
By combining many of the smallest house edge rates offered by any casino, a brisk pace of play, and relative solitude for players who just want to grind in peace, video poker has all the bases covered.
Throw in progressive jackpots that can climb into six and even seven figures and the occasional player edge on full pay tables for games like Deuces Wild and Double Bonus Poker, and gamblers who like to give themselves a legitimate chance at glory obviously love video poker.
But while the five-card draw machines are as popular today as they’ve ever been, many players out there — even regulars who grind on a daily basis — don’t know all of video poker’s secrets.
As one of the more modern additions to the casino floor compared to table games like blackjack and roulette that date back several hundreds of years, video poker might not seem like it has a ton of secrets waiting to be revealed.
Dig a little deeper beneath the surface, however, and you’ll find a wealth of curiosities to discover about the great game of video poker.
![Video Video](https://www.casinonewsdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/guides/illustrations/video-poker/introduction/video-poker-screen.jpg)
John Kane was on a hell of a winning streak. On July 3, 2009, he walked alone into the high-limit room at the Silverton Casino in Las Vegas and sat down at a video poker machine called the Game King. Six minutes later the purple light on the top of the machine. To understand video poker addiction, you have to start with the deceptively simple appeal of the game. You put some money in the machine, place a bet of one to five credits, and the computer deals. Casinos have scores of video poker machines. They come in all types: Jacks or Better, Double Bonus Poker, Deuces Wild, etc., etc., etc. As you walk through the casino checking out the video poker being offered, don’t assume that what is printed on the glass or base is the actual game on the machine. Video Poker Machine Strategy. Because so much variety exists in the world of video poker, teaching you how to win at video poker would require lessons for each style of game that exists. Instead, memorize these three tips to performing well on any given video.
1 – Playing Perfectly Takes Nothing More Than Memorization
Video Poker Secrets To Winning
This one isn’t really a secret, but you wouldn’t know that from watching losing players part ways with their money like clockwork.
Despite its obvious strategic implications as a partial information card game allowing for player decisions, many gamblers assume video poker is all about luck.
And while that may be true over a short sample, the long run levels things out until only the players who make optimal decisions at all times have a chance.
Funny farm game. If you’re looking for strategy for prefer other forms of video poker like Deuces Wild video poker, or any variant for that matter, you can search online to pull up complete basic strategy charts.
2 – Video Poker Speed Runners Are Real – and They’re Spectacular
Deuces wild poker hands. When you spend enough time in video poker parlors, you’ll eventually be treated to one of the casino’s only free-of-charge spectacles — speed runners.
When expert-level players have mastered basic strategy so well that every correct decision becomes second nature, a select few try to press their perceived edge. And in a game like full pay Deuces Wild and full pay Double Bonus Poker, that edge isn’t limited to perception. Basic strategy players actually hold a slight advantage over the house.
Although they’re equipped with an edge, the rarest tool in all of gambling, video poker speed runners realize that their positive equity can only be realized over enormous sample sizes.
A short-term session involving 100 or even 1,000 hands will still be beholden to the whims of random variance. But up the session to 10,000 or 100,000 hands, however, and expert players can start to see their edge materialize into a healthy profit margin.
And that’s where the concept of speed running comes into play.
Video poker speed runners attempt to play as many hands as they can, which can only be done by making discard/draw decisions as quickly as humanly possible.
Top video poker speed runners have been known to play at speeds of over 1,500 hands per hour.
3 – Traditional Poker Pros Have a Knack for Scooping Six-Figure Jackpots
Back in 2018, poker pro — not video poker, mind you, but Texas Hold’em tournaments and the like — Bart Hanson was bummed out about busting from a big World Series of Poker (WSOP) event.
So he did what any high-rolling gambler in Sin City would do, strolling into Caesars Palace to play Bonus Poker for $250 a hand. No, that’s not a typo. Hanson bet at a $50-coin denomination for max-bets of $250 on every single deal.
When his starting bankroll was nearly exhausted, Hanson found the 10 of clubs, queen of clubs, and ace of clubs onscreen. The three-card royal flush draw offered scant odds of only 1 in 40,000 to find the jack of clubs and king of clubs — but guess what happened next?
Hanson’s bold play paid off in a big way, as the screen lit up perfectly with a royal flush worth $200,000 in cold, hard cash. Find below a video to listen as Hanson provides a full recap of his six-figure lightning strike for the ages.
Hanson isn’t alone, though, as four-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Huck Seed pocketed over $650,000 in 2011 on a $500 per hand royal flush.
And more recently, poker pro Kyle Cartwright has taken to Twitter to post pics of his royal run, which now spans five $100,000 or more jackpots.
Guess I got 4th in the main. Holy ishhhhhh pic.twitter.com/uo4XyViTeX
— Kyle Cartwright (@da_kyky) February 27, 2019
4 – For One Glorious Run, a Pair of Players Simply Couldn’t Lose
Back in 2014, a man named John Kane discovered the dream scenario for any gambler — a can’t-miss bet.
In this case, Kane found a bug in the ubiquitous Game King machines that make up the bulk of video poker games in Las Vegas and beyond. You can read about Kane and his partner’s exploits in this detailed profile on the pair, but here’s the Cliffs Notes version.
Kane spotted a software glitch in the Game King 5.0 update which, when combined with dexterity while pushing just the right combination of buttons, created a “golden goose” of sorts. Specifically, this bug in the machine let Kane and his partner play video poker for pennies until they finally landed a premium hand like the royal flush or four deuces.
As soon as the jackpot hand hit their screen, however, tapping the “magic sequence” of buttons directed the machine to count their wager and payout in the game’s highest coin denomination.
Just like that, a $500 winner on four aces with a kicker transformed into a $10,000 hand pay.
Of course, the too-good-to-be-true bug was eventually uncovered by casino operators and gaming regulators, but all dreams come to an end at some point, right?
5 – The Best Online Casinos Spread Every Video Poker Variant
When the guys and gals at IGT rolled out their Game King machine in the late ‘90s, video poker was changed forever for the better. Players could now use the same machine to toggle between Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, Double Bonus Poker, and Aces and Eights with ease.
Video Poker Machine Secrets Games
In 2019 and beyond, the world’s top online casino platforms sites all take pride in turning your computer or smartphone into a miniature Game King machine. With expansive menus covering every variant you’d find on a land-based casino machine, online video poker providers put the power to play all the games in the palm of your hand.
Conclusion
You probably knew just how fun, and potentially profitable, video poker can be when played correctly. But now that you know about the five amazing video poker secrets presented on this page, the game’s history and evolution make it so much more interesting.