Hello, and welcome to Tech4Truth Episode 5. I’m Mark Vincent, the certified slot technician, and as I told you in our last episode, this episode will be all about video poker. Video poker is, without a doubt, the best slot machine bet in the casino. There are many reasons for this which I’ll go over, and I’ll even show you how to find out of the poker game you’re playing is a good bet. Since this is likely to be a popular episode and there are many poker players watching who won’t care to watch my episodes about other types of slots, I’d like to take this opportunity to briefly go over what I’ve covered up to this point. If you haven’t watched videos 1-4 I would highly recommend you do so, even if you only play video poker, as the concepts I covered there will still apply to video poker games.

In Episode One I talked about how slot methods and systems are almost always scams and how there is no way to win at slots all the time; it just isn’t possible. In my second Tech4Truth episode, I showed how every spin of a slot machine is random, and thanks to the RNG, there is no way to know from spin to spin just what combination you’re going to get. I also talked about how the RNG, virtual reels, and the paytable come together to form the payback of the machine. In Episode Three, I explained just how the payback percentage works, and I went over how the machine’s denomination will affect the payback. I also discussed what a certain payback percentage on a machine means to you. My last episode, Episode Four, went over the different types of slot machines, and how to play them to make sure you get the best odds possible. I ended that episode by saying that the final type of slot machine I’ll talk about is video poker, and it’s important enough to devote an entire episode to it. This is that episode.

You’ve heard me say a few times now that video poker is the best slot machine bet in the casino. That’s true because video poker games universally have higher payback than regular reel or video slots. There are a couple of reasons for this, but perhaps the biggest reason is that video poker games are considered ‘skill based’ games. Put simply, they’re the only type of slot machine that allow you a certain level of control over the outcome other than when you hit the bet button. When you play video poker, you’re initially given five cards and can choose to hold or discard those cards on the next draw, changing your outcome. If you’re good at poker, you can greatly increase your odds of winning over the long term by holding the right cards at the right times, but if you’re a poor player you can actually decrease your payback by holding the wrong cards. Because there are far more poor poker players than good ones, the casinos can bump up the paybacks overall to compensate.

Another reason poker games are a better bet than other games is because poker games use a deck of cards to determine combinations, not virtual reels. If you remember Episodes Two and Three, you know that the casino uses the RNG, Virtual Reels, and the Paytable to determine payback, but on poker games there are no virtual reels. There are always 52 cards in a virtual deck, and the casino can’t change that. That means that your chance of pulling any single card initially is always one in 52, no matter what machine you play. Since the casino can no longer control the odds on the game, the only way they can affect the payback is by changing the paytable, or how much you’re paid for each hand.

Let me state that again. The only way the casino can control the payback of a video poker machine is by changing the paytable. This may not seem like a big deal until you realize that you can see the paytable, it’s required by law that you can. This means that you can compare the paytable between two video poker games, and know, just by looking at them, which one has a better payback. There is a ratio on video poker machines called the full house to flush ratio, and it’s used to measure the difference in payback on video poker games. In fact, it’s possible to mathematically calculate the exact payback percentage of any video poker game, just by looking at it. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. What IS easy, is to simply compare two machines and see which pays more. The only pitfall is to make sure you’re comparing the same type of poker game. As with most of the information I share in my videos, there is much more specific information and examples in my book, EGDSecrets: Reel Truth, Right From the Source.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no poker expert. I certainly know how to play, and am pretty good at it if I do say so myself, but I’m not the greatest poker player I know by a long shot. It takes a lot of skill and a lot of practice to know what cards you need to hold and when in order to get the best payback. My advice is to find a good video poker simulator online, such as the one at tech4truth.com, and play until you’re comfortable.

There are a few tips that I can give you, just in general, to help you out when playing video poker. The first, and perhaps the most important, is to play carefully! Play video poker only as fast as you’re able to control. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been called to a video poker machine for a player dispute to be told the machine didn’t hold the card the player wished to hold. Time after time the diagnostics come back to show absolutely no problem with the machine, it’s just that the player was playing poker so fast that they didn’t push the button down enough to actually hold the card. There are times that this results in the loss of hundreds or even thousands of dollars, just because they were playing too fast. Make sure you’re actually holding what you want to hold, because the casino won’t pay you if you didn’t hold the card.

The second piece of advice is this: Don’t hold a card just because it’s a high card. More often than not, you want to hold a high card, but if you already have a hand that pays, don’t hold an additional high card just because it’s high. For example, if you get three twos and an ace, don’t hold the ace unless the game specifically pays more for ace high hands. Most of the time they don’t, and holding that ace is just once less chance you have of getting that fourth two on the draw. There is far more advice out there, and even a little more in my book, but looking around on the internet will provide a wealth of information on video poker.

Don’t forget to head to Tech4Truth.com and check out my free video poker simulator while you wait for my next episode! In episode six I’ll be talking about money management and a great starting strategy you can use to ensure that you always walk out of the casino with some money. I’ll see you there, and thanks again for watching Tech4Truth.

Stay Tuned for Episode 6...