Some playing strategies:

First, Never keep a kicker with any pair. Holding a kicker to any pair reduces your return by 5%.

2nd, Never draw four cards if you can draw three to a royal flush.

3rd, Always keep five-card winning pat hands with on exception: if you can, draw one card to a royal.

4th, Don't break a flush even if you can draw one to a straight flush, but

5th, always break a flush to draw to a royal.

6th, Never break a straight to draw to a straight flush.

7th, Never draw five if you have a jack or better, and

8th, don't keep a ten for a four card draw.

The odds

The odds on a given hand vary from game to game, of course, but generally speaking the house edge on Video Poker games is pretty small, even 0% in some cases. Where the Video Poker games get an edge is with players who do not follow an optimum strategy. In other words, winging any given game based on a loose understanding of Poker is going to lose you money.

Each Video Poker variation has its own quirks when it comes to the odds and optimum player strategy. In this section we'll give you a rough guide to the most popular games, but detailed strategy guides would take pages.