Video Poker is a popular game that can be played in casinos throughout the globe, or alternatively at your house on your PC, through an Internet connection. The regulations are very simple and involve the player attempting to get the greatest mixture of cards possible in order to come away with money. In this respect it’s much the same as a regular game of poker, minus the interaction with any other players. Of course, tactics employed during a physical game of poker, like tricking, will be useless in Video Poker.

The game of Video Poker starts when the player inserts credits (whether it’s tokens, credit slips or money) into the video poker machine and presses the play button. A 5 card hand will then be electronically ‘given out’ on the screen.

The Video Poker machine also has buttons with ‘hold’ written on them, and gamblers will need to now choose which cards to keep and which to throw away. For the cards the enthusiast wishes to retain, the ‘hold’ buttons need to be pressed so that they illuminate. The player can choose to keep any number of cards they want, whether it is all or none.

After the gambler has decided on which cards he or she would like to keep, they should press ‘draw’, at which point any new cards will be needed they will be dealt. The game is now completed, with the Video Poker machine scanning the hand to see if it matches any of the winning hands shown on the pay out schedule.

Typically, the minimum succeeding hand on a Video Poker machine is a pair of jacks with the award money increasing for each and every better hand. A common list of winning hands starts with jacks or better, moving on to 2 pairs, 3 of a kinds, straights, flushes, full houses, four of a kinds, straight flushes and finally royal flushes. It should be known that the pay out schedule can change from machine to machine, so that discerning bettors are agile enough to pick the most money-making game each and every instance.

Once the first round has played out, the player can either choose to continue on and try to to maximize their winnings, or press the ‘collect’ button to retrieve any cash that they may have won. Additionally, some versions of the game allow the player a chance to double their winnings, in which situation another game is played. There are also variations between individual games, with some decks of cards having wild cards and other varying elements to increase playability.