The majority of local state casinos in Canada only have a small number of video poker machines. Because this is such a popular game, you may find it difficult to get a seat at your preferred video poker machine during peak hours.

The range of variations available tends to be small at most casinos too unless you make a visit to Las Vegas or Atlantic City.

If you choose to play online you can take your pick of any kind of video poker, at any time of the day or night.

The latest and greatest innovations tend to be tested first in the online market, so you may find newer and more exciting variations available online than you would at a land-based casino.

Regular video poker has an extremely low house edge, which makes it a difficult game for some casinos to make a worthwhile profit from.

To counter this, many land-based casinos have lowered the payout their games award for some winning hands which dramatically increases the house edge.

In the most common “Jacks or Better” form of video poker, a “full pay” machine awards nine times your stake for a full house, and six times the bet for a flush. 

A low paying machine will pay less for these two relatively common winning hands. Payouts as low as 6x for a full house and 5x for a flush can be found in many land-based casinos, which results in a house edge ten times higher than a full pay game.

The vast majority of online casinos offer only full pay video poker, so it’s easy to ensure you are getting the best odds possible when you choose to play online. If you do play Jacks or Better in a land-based casino, be sure to seek out a machine offering full pay 9/6 payouts.

The online casino market is extremely crowded, with a huge number of different casinos all working hard to attract new players.

Whilst some land-based casinos will offer “comps” to their biggest gamblers, online casinos tend to be much less picky about who they award such benefits to.

Nearly every online casino offers some kind of welcome bonus to those signing up and depositing for the first time, and these bonuses can dramatically swing the odds in your favor.

It is entirely possible to try a new casino every weekend, grabbing yourself a large deposit match bonus every time you sign up. Some casinos offer bonuses on your first several deposits, or even as a regular reward for depositing players.

We all have a smartphone in our pocket nowadays, and the online casinos have made sure to tailor their offerings to make them suitable for the small screen.

As a result, you can play a few hands of video poker wherever you happen to be any time you like using your phone or tablet.

If you wish, you can switch to your computer or laptop when you are at home for a big-screen experience. No traveling, no gaming time wasted, no additional expenses – just play video poker, whenever and wherever you want!

This is the most common variation of video poker and has the simplest strategy, making it ideal for those who are new to the game.

It isn’t always very exciting, however, as there are very few high paying hands. You are very much holding out for a royal flush every time you play, and they simply do not come along very often!

A pair of Jacks or Better – that is, any pair of Jacks, Queens, Kings or Aces – is the minimum required to be awarded a win.

You will usually need to ensure that you are betting the maximum of five coins per hand to be eligible for a jackpot payout, usually set at 800/1 for a royal flush.

Provided you ensure the game pays 9/6 for a full house and a flush, the house edge of Jacks or Better is just 0.46% – some of the best odds of any online casino game.

Note that the house edge is much higher if you do not play the maximum five coins per hand.

This game is extremely popular, so you are likely to find Deuces Wild available everywhere that offers video poker. The twos (or “deuces”) are wild cards in this game, which makes for an entirely different strategy compared to Jacks or Better.

The payoff for a natural royal flush remains the same at 800/1, but this drops all the way down to 25/1 for a wild royal flush.

The minimum win in this game is a three of a kind, and many of the lower-paying combinations pay much less than they do in Jacks or Better. This is because those hands are much more likely because of the introduction of wild cards.

What makes Deuces Wild so interesting is that the full pay version of the game – paying 15/1 for a five of a kind, and 5/1 for a four of a kind – has an overall house edge of -0.76%!

Yes, if you can find it and play with perfect strategy, Deuces Wild is a losing game for the casino. You’ll need to look hard to find a full pay game, even online, but if you do it’s well worth spending some time trying to hit a royal flush playing Deuces Wild!

This is a really fun version of video poker which is based on regular Jacks or Better but makes many changes to the pay-table.

These changes are a big improvement, and makes Aces and Faces a far more interesting and exciting game to play.

The win for a royal flush remains at 800/1 as long as you bet the maximum five coins, but there are additional large wins assigned to four aces and four Jacks/Queens/Kings.

These changes make Aces and Faces a little more complicated than Jacks or Better, but it’s still a good choice for beginners.

The house edge for a full pay game – paying 8/1 for a full house and 5/1 for a flush – is 0.74%. Unfortunately, low paying versions of Aces and Faces are common even when playing online.

These alternative versions might pay 7/6 or 7/5, which can result in a house edge as high as 3%, which is extremely high for a video poker game.

Another wild card game, Joker Poker is usually played with one joker added to a standard 52-card deck, though you can find games with two jokers as well. The joker(s) serve as the wild cards in this game, making it something of a hybrid between Jacks or Better and Deuces Wild.

The minimum win increases from Jacks or Better to Kings or Better, whilst the maximum win increases to 1000/1 coins as long as you are playing the maximum five coins. A five of a kind pays 200/1 whilst a royal flush including a joker pays 100/1.

The house edge of Joker Poker can vary significantly from casino to casino due to differences in the pay-table and the number of jokers used. A figure of -0.36% is often quoted for a full pay game, which makes this a profitable game for a player using perfect strategy.

Bonus Poker was the first in what is now a long line of “bonus” poker games, and is probably the most exciting variant of video poker.

You’ll need a reasonable amount of skill to play this game correctly, so be sure you have taken a look at the strategy before playing Bonus Poker for real money.

Once you are familiar with the game you will find yourself hitting more large wins than you would playing Jacks or Better, but your smaller wins will pay less and be less common.

The various four of a kind hands all offer better returns than Jacks or Better, but the minimum win is still a pair of Jacks or Better and the maximum win also stays the same at 800/1.

You will find some lower payouts further down the pay-table, but these are sacrifices worth making for the sake of hitting bigger wins more often.

The house edge for the full pay game works out at 0.83%. Whilst this is a little higher than Jacks or Better, the larger number of medium-sized wins make this game “feel” far more profitable.

Despite the higher house edge, unless you are lucky enough to hit a royal flush you are much more likely to have a profitable session playing Bonus Poker.