When it comes to combining strategy and quick game play, there’s no better game than online video poker to play. While the game has the structure of a slot machine, it’s essentially a digital version of draw poker. To play a round, simply choose which of the five cards you want to keep for your final hand and swap the rest for new cards. The strategy is in your card selection, and depends on the version of video poker you play.

We have 11 online video poker games for you to choose from to play at Ignition Casino, including video poker games with wild cards and bonus payouts. With certain versions of online video poker, multi hands (1, 3, 10, and 52) can be played per round. Some versions you can play even give you the opportunity to double your payouts in a showdown with the Dealer. Here is a hand in seeing what to play. In this Casino Poker strategy guide, we’ll go over the online video poker variations that are available to you right now so you know the best way to start your video poker adventure and which games you’d like to play down the line.  

Online Video Poker Overview

Determining the best strategy to start your play adventure of online video poker for real money depends on the type of experience you’re after. At Ignition Casino, there are three ways to play video poker. For classic poker play, try the traditional experience. For an opportunity to book your earnings, dip your toe into the bonus experience. For a new take on video poker, we’ve developed the wild experience. In this overview, we’ll get into the details of each type and give you all of the insight you’ll need to maximize your play on the versions available in our casino.

Traditional

Traditional video poker doesn’t include any bells or whistles, but they are fun to play. It offers fair payouts for all nine standard poker hands, and includes a 4000-coin jackpot for landing a Royal Flush when you bet the max. The best examples of a classic video poker game are the Jacks or Better—online casino versions, which can be played with 1, 3, 10, or 52 hands per round; this option makes it possible to reach the Royal Flush faster and increase your real money earnings. 

Bonus

Bonus video poker is just like traditional video poker except it offers flashy bonus payouts for certain top-tier hands when you play. For example, instead of offering a 125-coin payout for a 4 of a Kind, a bonus video poker game may break up the 4 of a Kind hands into varying levels of quality, and offer unique payouts for each tier. Bonus Poker Deluxe at our casino has five different payouts for 4 of a Kind hands that range from 250 to 2000 (based on a 5-coin wager).

In order to be able to offer above average payouts for top-quality hands like quads, bonus video poker games typically skim from the payout of a lower quality hand. For example, there is no distinction between landing one or two Pair in Bonus Poker Deluxe—you get the same 5 coins. Our wide variety bonus video poker games include: Bonus Poker, Bonus Poker Deluxe, Double Bonus Poker, Double Double Bonus Poker, Double Double Jackpot Poker, and Double Jackpot Poker.

Wild

Wild card video poker includes a card that can stand in for any card in the deck in order to get access to more winning hands. The benefit of this is limitless and can change a game around with one turn of a card. For example, if you were to land four spades and one wild, your hand would turn from a dud to a Flush. In our casino, wild cards are Twos or Jokers. Here’s something to keep in mind about these important cards when you play: there are more Twos than Jokers in the deck, so when Twos are the wild, you’ll have a greater chance of landing a wild. Another important thing to remember is that these card poker games have two payouts for Royal Flush: one with wild card and one without, with the natural Royal Flush offering thee superior payout. Our wild card video poker games at our casino include Deuces Wild, Bonus Deuces Wild, Joker Poker and Loose Deuces.

Jacks or Better

Jacks or Better is a great starting point for video poker beginners who play at our casino. You can learn how to play video poker without complicating things with wild cards or unusual poker hands while playing for real money, which is what you’d encounter when playing many of our bonus video poker games. In Jacks or Better, there are nine basic winning hands that anyone who’s played poker before would be familiar with:

Jacks or Better

Hand Payout
Royal Flush 4000
Straight Flush 250
4 of a Kind 125
Full House 45
Flush 30
Straight 20
3 of a Kind 15
2 Pair 10
Pair (Jacks or better) 5

In order to win a payout, you must build one of the hands found above. If you do win, you’ll have the opportunity to sweeten your bank by opting to try to double your payout with a round of Double or Nothing against the Dealer. In this option, the Dealer picks one card and you get four cards placed face-down. To double your money, all you have to do is pick a card that is higher than the Dealer’s.

Bonus Deuces Wild

As you may have guessed, Bonus Deuces Wild is one of our wild card games that has Twos as the wild. It’s also a “bonus” wild card game, in that it offers bonus payouts that Deuces Wild doesn’t offer. Let’s have a look at the online video poker pay table for both games at our casino.  

Deuces Wild

Hand Payout
Royal Flush 4000
4 Deuces 1000
Wild Royal w/2 125
5 of a Kind 75
Straight Flush 45
4 of a Kind 20
Full House 20
Flush 15
Straight 10
3 of a Kind 5

Bonus Deuces Wild

Hand Payout
Royal Flush 4000
4 Deuces w/A 2000
4 Deuces 1000
Wild Royal w/2 125
5 Aces 400
5 3, 4, or 5 200
5 6-K 100
Straight Flush 45
4 of a Kind 20
Full House 20
Flush 15
Straight 5
3 of a Kind 5

As you can see when comparing both tables, the Bonus version of Deuces Wild ratchets up the excitement of poker play by offering bonus payouts for four Deuces with an Ace kicker and for 5 of a Kind combinations.

Double Bonus Poker

A good starting point for bonus video poker games is Double Bonus Poker. This game offers bonus payouts for landing three different types of quads. Landing four Aces gets you the second-highest payout in the game (800 coins). Landing quads for Four and below gets you 250 coins when you bet max. Finally, landing quads between Five and King gets you 225 coins. All three payouts are higher than what you get for landing 4 of a Kind while playing Jacks or Better. Here’s a full list of all the payouts you’ll get playing Double Bonus Poker.

Double Bonus Poker

Hand  Payout
Royal Flush 4000
Straight Flush 250
4 Aces  800
4 2, 3, or 4  400
4 5-K 225
Full House  50
Flush 35
Straight 25
3 of a Kind 15
2 Pair 5
Jacks or Better  5

Joker Poker

Joker Poker is the only wild card video poker game that offers payouts for hands as low as a Pair (Kings or better). It’s also the only video poker game in any casino to offer a massive 20,000-coin jackpot for landing the elusive Sequential Royal Flush, which is a royal flush hand in correct order (Ten-Jack-Queen-King-Ace) that starts on the left side and moves right. See below for a full list of the winning hands and their coinciding payouts for Joker Poker.

Joker Poker

Hand  Payout
Seq. Royal Flush 20000
Royal Flush 4000
5 of a Kind 750
Royal w/Joker 400
Straight Flush 250
4 of a Kind 100
Full House 30
Flush  25
Straight 15
3 of a Kind  10
2 Pair  5
Kings or Better 5

Video poker may have started out with just Jacks or Better, but it comes in all sorts of varieties now.  In this strategy guide, we’ve discussed just four of the video poker games available in our casino that you can play for real money.  If you’re looking for something different, or hoping to challenge yourself with a new version of video poker, there are 11 total games for you to explore in our Video Poker section of the online casino. Here, you can try any of these games and use this strategy guide until you’ve figured out your favorite version to play with real money. To see the full gamut, check out the Video Poker section and play any of the options for free. Once you’ve developed a strategy on the game of your choice, you can get real excitement and play for real money. Never has poker been so varied and accessible, so don’t wait to explore all that video poker has to offer, play a hand now.