Before you Go! - Video Poker Essentials
Video poker uses regular poker-hand ranks to determine winners. The most basic game is jacks or better. Deuces or jokers are wild in other versions. Whatever the game, the play remains the same;
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The RNG in a video poker machine simulates dealing from a shuffled deck of cards. The likelihood of receiving any particular hand from a real deck is identical to a video poker deck.
The pay table is the most important element of a video poker game. A casino can’t tighten or loosen a video poker game by changing how the cards are dealt, so the only way the house can get an edge is to change the pay table. Thus you can simply look at a machine and instantly know the casino’s edge.
Some machines pay slightly fewer credits on selected hands. The difference may seem small, but it can dramatically increase the house edge.