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Introduction

To capitalise on the enormous popularity of Texas Hold'em Poker, casinos have devised games based on poker hands with a similar dealing structure. These casino games are not properly speaking poker variants, since the players do not play against each other but against the house. Therefore there is no scope for bluff: these are games of pure chance in which the house has a small edge.

Casino Hold’Em is an interesting variation on Texas Hold’Em, but just like Caribbean Stud Poker you are competing against the dealer and not fellow poker players, In effect, this game is another duel between you and the house but the big difference between Caribbean Stud Poker and Casino Hold’Em is that in this game there are community cards.

Note. Gambling can be dangerously addictive. You can find information and advice on our Responsible Gambling page.

Texas Hold'em Bonus

One such game is Texas Hold'em Bonus. The player places a bet and the player and the house each receive two hole cards. Then five shared cards are dealt in three stages as usual: a flop of 3 cards, a turn card and a river card. Before the flop the player must decide whether to fold or place an additional bet to continue. Before the turn and before the river the player has the option to place an additional bet (raise) or to continue without raising the stake (stand). Finally the house's two hole cards are revealed and the winner is determined.

In addition to the normal bet, the player may place a Bonus Bet which pays fixed odds for various sets of hole cards.

1. Based on the traditional Chinese domino game Pai Gow, Pai Gow Poker offers players a chance to divide their poker hand into two: a five-card hand and a two-card hand. To win the game, both your hands must be higher than the dealer’s hands. Keep in mind, the five-card hand must always be higher than your two-card hand.
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The Pogg's Texas Hold'em Bonus Guide provides more details of this game, analyses the house edge and provides a calculator for the optimal strategy.

Casino Hold'em Poker

In this game, introduced by Stephen Au-Yeung in 2001 and now played in several casinos, bets can only be placed at two stages of the game: before the deal and after the flop.

Before the deal players can play an ante bet to be dealt two hole cards. Then the face up three-card flop is dealt face up, after which they have the option either to fold, losing their ante, or to place a play bet, which is twice the amount of the ante bet. The final two table cards (equivalent to the turn and river) are then dealt, and the player's and the house's hole cards are shown. Each player and the house makes their best 5-card poker hand from the 7 cards available to them.

The house 'qualifies' with a pair of 4's or better.

• If the house qualifies and the player has a better hand than the house, the player wins the ante bet at fixed odds using a pay table based on the player's hand, ranging from 1:1 (for a straight or less) up to 100:1 (for a royal flush). Also the player wins the pay bet at 1:1.
• If the house qualifies and beats the player's hand, the house collects all bets.
• If the house qualifies and ties with the player, the player's bets are returned.
• If the house fails to qualify the player's play bet is returned and the ante bet is paid according to the fixed odds table.

The house advantage here stems from the fact that the house waits until after the turn and river and can then fold with a pair of 3's or worse, thus avoiding paying out on the 'play' bet which the player would often have won.

Before the deal the player can also place a bonus bet, which is simply a fixed odds bet on the 5-card hand formed by the player's two hole cards and the flop.

Further information is available from:

• Stephen Au-Yeung's Casino Hold'em Poker web page.
• The Pogg's Casino Hold'em Guide which provides an optimal strategy calculator and recommends places to play online.
• Rules of Casino-Hold'em on Wikipedia.

Video poker is the umbrella used for dozens of different gambling machines that all feature almost identical game-play. The most basic version of both casino and online video poker today is Jacks or Better, so called because the lowest-paying hand in the game is a pair of jacks, queens, kings, or aces.

These games all work the same way, but the way to get good at any of them is to master Jacks or Better first. If you get the hang of Jacks or Better, you can play a casino game where the house edge is less than 0.5%.

And that’s something worth doing.

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Here are some tips and strategies for Jacks or Better to get you started.

Understanding the Bets and the Sizing of Those Bets

If you’re completely new to the game, you might not understand the importance of betting 5 coins per hand.

That’s the first decision you’ll make at any Jacks or Better game, but it’s a no-brainer, because there’s only one correct decision:

Always play the max coin bet, which is 5 coins.

The reason you always make the max coin bet in Jacks or Better – or any other video poker game, for that matter – is because you trigger a bigger payoff by doing so.

You can bet 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 coins per hand in video poker. If you bet anything other than 5 coins, the best possible payout is 200 for 1. That’s for the jackpot hand – a royal flush.

But…

If you bet 5 coins, that hand pays off at 800 for 1.

And even though that hand only comes up once in every 40,000 hands on average, it’s a big enough difference in the payout percentage that playing for fewer coins will lower the payback percentage by 2%.

Some More Specifics About the Jacks or Better Pay Table

It’s become customary to use an abbreviated pay table when discussing video poker games like Jacks or Better. Here’s an example of the so-called “full pay” Jacks or Better pay table:

1-2-3-4-6-9-25-50-800

These are the payouts that correspond to the hands in this order:

• A pair of jacks or better
• 2 pairs
• 3 of a kind
• A straight
• A flush
• A full house
• 4 of a kind
• Straight flush
• Royal flush

The important numbers on a Jacks or Better table, though, are the payouts for the full house and the flush. On a full pay Jacks or Better game, the full house pays off at 9 for 1, and the flush pays off at 6 for 1.

These are the 2 hands where the casinos change the payouts if they want to offer a game with better odds for them.

If you play with the optimal strategy on a Jacks or Better game with the pay table above, the casino house edge is only 0.46%, and the payback percentage is 99.54%.

But if the casino only pays 8 for 1 for a full house and 5 for 1 for a flush, that payback percentage drops to 97.3%. The house edge skyrockets to 2.70%.

And that’s assuming you’re playing with perfect strategy.

If you’re making mistakes, you might be giving up another 1% or 2% to the casino.

The beginning of wisdom in Jacks or Better video poker is to recognize the best pay tables and play only the machines with those pay tables.

Where to Find the Best Jacks or Better Pay Tables

If you play Jacks or Better online, it’s relatively easy to find full pay Jacks or Better games. The best online casinos offer this as a matter of course.

Be careful of multi-hand games, though. Most online casinos do NOT offer 9/6 Jacks or Better games in multi-hand format.

As my uncle used to say, that’s how they get you!

You can also find full pay Jacks or Better games in traditional casinos, but that often requires doing your own scouting. You’re more likely to find full pay Jacks or Better in smaller casinos that cater more to locals.

If you’re in Las Vegas, forget all about the video poker machines at the airport. You’re lucky to find 7/5 Jacks or Better there. Some of the games there are 6/5 Jacks or Better, which is awful. You might as well play roulette.

The big casinos on the Strip MIGHT offer full pay Jacks or Better in the high limit slots room. You can pretty much forget about finding those games on the regular casino floor, though.

If you’re not wanting to do your own scouting, one of the best things you can do is join a community of gamblers or video poker players on the internet and share information with them. You can find multiple such sites with little effort using Bing or Google.

Learning How to Play Your Hands

That 99.54% payback percentage assumes you know how to play each hand perfectly – in other words, you know which cards to hold and which ones to discard, and in which situations.

That’s probably an easier strategy to learn in Jacks or Better video poker than in any other video poker game.

I’ll provide some of the basics of Jacks or Better strategy here, but keep in mind that this isn’t a full strategy. You’re still giving up a couple of tenths of a percentage by following the strategy.

But it’s a good place to start to learn video poker strategy.

Start with the understanding that some pat hands should require no thought on your part. If you’re dealt any of these 3 hands, just keep ‘em and take your payout:

1. Royal flush
2. Straight flush
3. 4 of a kind

The only tricky hand in that lot is the straight flush, because sometimes you’ll get a straight flush that’s also a draw to the royal flush.

Don’t break up your straight flush to try to hit the royal flush. It’s not worth it.

After those 3 hands, the best possible hand you can have is 4 cards to a royal flush. Any time you get 4 cards to a royal flush, it’s always appropriate to hold onto those cards and draw to the royal flush. This can mean discarding a hand that might be a sure thing.

With that in mind, you have a couple of other hands which you should always hold onto (unless you also have the 4-to-a-royal-flush.) These hands are:

1. Full house
2. Flush
3. 3 of a kind
4. Straight

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The lesson you should be taking away from this discussion of Jacks or Better strategy is this:

You should try to let the machine deal you a winning hand or a royal flush draw.

Jacks or Better strategy starts getting slightly more complicated after this.

If you don’t have that, then you should hold onto 2 pairs or a pair of jacks or better

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As you can see, there are only 2 hands worth breaking up a winning hand to draw to:

• 4 to a royal flush, which you should almost always draw to.
• 4 to a straight flush, which you should be willing to break up a pair to draw to.

That’s it. If you have a paying hand, those are the cards to keep.

After that, you start thinking about drawing hands. If you have 3 cards to a royal flush, you’ll keep that even if it means throwing away a small pair. You’ll also prefer 4 cards to a flush to a small pair.

But after that, you’ll want to draw to your small pairs in the hopes of getting 3 of a kind.

After that, focus on higher ranked cards that have straight flush or royal flush possibilities.

Conclusion

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Mastering Jacks or Better video poker is the first step in mastering every other video poker variation. If you can play it well, you can usually adjust your strategy for the other games based on the changes in the pay tables.

How To Play Casino Poker

In fact, that’s the main difference between Jacks or Better and other video poker variations – the pay table. Some games use wild cards, too, but it’s all about maximizing your expected value from each hand.