Video Poker Odds and Probabilities

Video Poker is an old game being played since 18th century. With time this game has undergone lot of changes and with the introduction of Internet online Video Poker has gained lot of popularity among the players. The players with a fascination towards a skillful and intelligent can win big by playing Video Poker. A professional Video Poker player always tries to enhance the odds and probability for winning the game.

Video Poker being a dynamic game requires the player to acclimatize all the changes that the game has incorporated with. Video Poker has several variations and all of them have their own strategies and pay tables. A professional player of Video Poker can only understand and choose the best pay tables for each game and the ways to play them. If a player unaware of the strategies and pay table selects game randomly and starts playing it then he surely loses large amount of his bankroll. There are many factors like risk of ruin, volatility, deviation which play an important role in calculating the probability and possibility of return in the game. Video Poker is a game of mathematics and if played by using the right strategies the player can easily increase his odds of winning.

Calculating odds in Video Poker

A game of Video Poker is played with a deck of 52 cards. The game starts when the system deals first five cards to the player leaving 47 cards in the deck. The player then makes a choice of holding and discarding the cards. The discarded cards do not come again in the play. For calculating the probability of is chosen hitting hand the player should count the number of cards that will make his hand. The player will get to know his chosen video poker payout by dividing the number of cards with 47. For e.g. if a player has four cards to a flush that means there are more nine spades left among the 47 cards which implies odds of making a flush are about nineteen percent.

Video Poker Odds and Probabilities - 9/6 vs. 8/5 Video Poker Games

The highest payout that the Video Poker games can have is a 9/6 payout which is also sometimes called full play games. A 9/6 payout means the game pays out 9 to 1 for a full horse and 6 to 1 for a flush. By using the right strategies the players can get 100 per cent return as there is no house edge left. The players need to be careful while choosing the games in the casinos. They should first go through the pay tables as number of casinos offer inferior payouts games like 8/6, or even 8/5 which hampers the player’s odds for winning big.

Video Poker Odds and Probabilities – Expected payouts

Video Poker is game with different variations. The odds for different variations may not change but the payout table differs widely. Video Poker is different from other casino games as it offers a very low house edge which means the players have great chances of winning. The “9/6” Jacks or Better game has a high payout rate of is 99.5%. A “9/6” variation will always provide with a higher payout for flushes and straights then an “8/5” variation for the same game. A player can increase his odds of winning by using the right strategy and betting maximum number of coins. At times to get the best winning hand the player needs to sacrifice the smaller betting hands like two pair or three of a kind.