About Video Poker

In games like Blackjack, the casino vig (house advantage) can be attacked and even turned in your favor in certain situations. In games like Craps and Baccarat, you're fighting a casino advantage of less than 2% on the prime betting options. With Video Poker you will be up against a disadvantage which could be as little as 0% or as much as 25%. Consider the following:

A hundred people decide to play Video Poker. They all play the same machine. Over several days or weeks each of them deposits $100. That's a total of $10,000.

Fifty of these players lose every penny. They experience winning hands, some large, some small, but they bet back there winning and keep doing it until all the money is gone. Maybe they played for hours or even days, maybe their play time could be counted in minutes.

Forty of this same group walk away from the machines with $50. They leave after losing half of their investment.

Five people enjoy moderate success. They each cash out for $200. They doubled their stake. Good for them.

That leaves only six people. And five out of the six do very well, thank you. Each of them collects $500. Wow! Started with only a hundred and ran it up to five hundred. Wonderful. Time to celebrate.

So, now we've covered ninety-nine out of the one hundred people who played, which leaves only one. And how did that person fare? That person won $4,000. That person started with the same $100 as everybody else and played exactly the same machine, but perhaps that person was smarter, luckier, or a combination of the two. All in all, the same as with most games. Lots of losers and a handful of winners.

Now, how about that machine? Consider that $10,000 was put into it and $9,500 was returned to the players. The machine returned 95% of every dollar put into it. It did exactly and precisely what it was programmed to do. Some people lost hands because they made mistakes; others lost hands due to ignorance or misplays. Most of the big winners were people who made intelligent choices on each and every hand. The machine didn't care. All the machine knew was that it was supposed to give back 95 cents for every dollar it received and it did exactly that. Had it been programmed to return 98.5 cents for every dollar, it could have done that, also. Because it is a machine. It does not get tired. It does not make errors. It goes on, and on, and on, twenty-four hours every day of the year. It's total shut-down time for the year may not exceed an hour. All it needs is electricity and a tiny fan to cool its circuitry and it's computer chips. You can beat it over the short term, you may even beat it for several years, but you cannot beat it forever. Sooner or later it will take more of your money than it gives back.

In essence, Video Poker is the same as all the other games. The casino has an advantage. You can do your best to overcome it with skill, intelligence, or luck. The choice is up to you.