Before the rise of online gaming over the past 10 years, video poker enthusiasts in New Jersey were accustomed to walking casino floors in Atlantic City on “treasure hunts” for the best video poker pay tables. On a physical casino floor, unlike online, video poker is the only game a player can look at and know the optimal payback percentage, known these days as “return to player,” or RTP.
Video poker is a much different animal than slot machines, in that skill can be used to gain the maximum possible return. The key is to find the best pay table for a particular video poker variant, and then to learn the optimal strategy for that game—that is to say, the correct cards to discard in each five-card draw poker hand.
There are many sources by which players can learn basic video poker strategy. Before the dominance of the internet, players turned to books by video poker experts, or expert articles in player magazines like Casino Player and Strictly Slots, or even to in-person video poker lessons conducted by one of the top experts who were actually earning a living at video poker.
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Go Online for Video Poker Tips
These days, it’s easy to learn strategy by clicking on an website like videopoker.com or the “Wizard of Odds” site, wizardofodds.com. By far, the easiest strategy to learn is the basic Jacks or Better game. The best pay schedule available for that game is the so-called “9/6” game. The numbers refer to the single-credit payouts for a full house (9-for-1) and a flush (6-for-1). The RTP when optimal strategy is used on this game is 99.54 percent.
There was a time when a player could find 9/6 Jacks or Better video poker at several casinos in Atlantic City. However, between the 2008 recession, the 2014 revenue drop that resulted in several casinos shutting down, and the Covid-19 pandemic, good video poker options have all but disappeared from Atlantic City casinos. Thus, players are forced to walk slot floors looking for that magical 9/6 pay schedule, or even higher-returning games like Deuces Wild, with top pay schedules returning 100 percent or more of wagers over time. That’s the treasure hunt.
Happily, the online player doesn’t have to go on those treasure hunts. Since even the slot games online normally display the RTP before play begins, most of the New Jersey sites offer ample high-returning video poker.
Lower Stakes at Online Sites
The other advantage online is that these full-pay games are available at lower stakes than can be found on a casino floor. For instance, it’s relatively easy to find a 9/6 Jacks or Better game in the nickel denomination online. While one can find lower denominations in multi-hand games—games requiring wagers on 10, 50, even 100 hands at a time, each with a common dealt hand but draw cards from a separate deck—they generally start at 25 cents on the floor, and good luck finding a decent pay table at that stake.
Online in New Jersey, the pay tables, and thus, the RTP, on most video poker is much better not only than casinos in Atlantic City, but casinos just about anywhere. Video poker enthusiasts will always flock to local Las Vegas casinos, or Reno, and find a good inventory of high-paying video poker. And to many players, the experience of the physical casino can’t be matched. But from a pure player-return standpoint, not even these top video poker locations can match the New Jersey sites.
So, what’s the very best video poker game available online in New Jersey?it’s the Deuces Wild game at Virgin Casino (virgincasino.com). This carries the pay schedule dubbed by video poker experts as “Not So Ugly Deuces” (because it’s the second-best; the top schedule returns over 100 percent), returning 16-for-1 for five of a kind, 10-for-1 for the straight flush, and 4-for-1 on four of a kind.
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Discover Nuances in Jacks or Better
The strategy is a bit harder to learn than Jacks or Better, with many decisions affected by the presence of the wild card. Once you master it, this pay schedule returns 99.73 percent of wagers over time.
The good news is that it’s much easier to find the 9/6 Jacks or Better full-pay schedules in New Jersey, returning only .19 percent less by mastering a much easier strategy. Nearly every online casino in New Jersey offers this game.
Some video poker experts caution to avoid “Jacks or Higher” that is available at 888.com and Harrahscasino.com. The pay schedules on those have been tweaked with lower four-of-a-kind and straight flush payouts, so the RTP is lower.
Other than that, if you love video poker and want to play online, New Jersey offers a treasure, instead of a treasure hunt.
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