Image: Unsplash
When the paytables are decent and strategy is perfect, the house edge in video poker is razor thin and the return to player (RTP) is 99 percent or more.
Yet for Texas Hold’em fans, video poker is still seen as a kind of slot version of the game; a losing proposition that is played against the house.
This article explores the possibility that you can push this marginal loss into the green zone by using casino bonuses. After all, if you can gain just one percent in expected value, you’ll already be breaking even.
House Edge in Video Poker
Unlike in Texas Hold’em, video poker is a machine-based game that is played solo against a small house edge. Your job is to make optimal decisions to maximize your returns by knowing which cards to hold or discard.
With a perfect discard strategy, you can achieve an RTP of around 99.54 percent in Jacks or Better, meaning on average you will see $99.54 returned for every $100 bet. The house edge is a tiny 0.46 percent.
In some Deuces Wild Full Pay games, it’s actually possible to break even or gain a tiny advantage over the house by playing perfectly.
However, full pay games are rarely available and online sites instead offer alternatives like Bonus Deuces Wild, which have a slightly lower RTP.
So, assuming you’re playing Jacks or Better or Bonus Deuces Wild with a perfect strategy, the best you can hope for is a very slight long term loss. That is, without using any casino bonuses…
Can Promotions Shift the Maths?
When playing video poker online, you can expect to find deposit match bonuses, cashback deals, as well as regular promotions on the site.
Casinos, meanwhile, offer free bets to new and returning players. If used well, these deals can give short term boosts to your expected value.
Let’s take a look at some possibilities for tipping the maths:
- Deposit match – New players often get matched on their first deposit when playing at online casinos. So, if you deposit $100 and play it through according to the requirements, you could end up with more than you started with, especially when playing a low house edge game.
- Rakeback/Cashback – Some casinos or online sites may offer cashback on the total amount that you bet. For example, you play through $100 with a cashback rate of 2 percent, so you gain $2. If you could play video poker at 99 percent RTP and gain 2 percent rakeback, you would be in profit.
- Free play – If offered, free play gives you the opportunity to win prizes with zero risk. Playing a high RTP game like video poker will give you a greater chance to cash out. For example, with a $20 free play at 99 percent RTP, you would cash for an average of $19.80.
- Tier points – Online poker sites and casinos may offer tier points based on the amount that you bet. These can be accumulated fast and for little cost playing video poker and can then be traded for bonuses or prizes.
Incorporating Promotions Into EV
We’re now going to offer a simple formula for incorporating the value of casino promotions into your overall expected value for video poker:
Total EV = Base Game Return + Promo Value – Mistakes Made
For example, you are playing near-perfect Jacks or Better video poker strategy, so you can expect a base game return of around 99.2 percent.
You then add on the total value of all promotions, such as cashback and bonuses, before taking off any errors that you made during play.
So, let’s say that you get a 1 percent cashback deal. However, you end up making a few mistakes during a long session:
99.2% + 1.2% Promo Value – 0.3% mistakes made = 100.1%
You can see that, in this example, the player has managed to gain a very marginal edge, which could have been even bigger were it not for the occasional mistake. However, there’s more to the picture.
Promotional Pitfalls and Why the House Still Wins
Occasionally, it is possible to get a casino bonus that tips the scales very slightly in your favor, at least for a short period of time. However, casinos place significant restrictions on bonuses that make it difficult to maintain an edge in the long run.
Match bonuses, for example, usually have playthrough requirements of multiple times your deposit amount. So, if you deposit $100 with a 10x playthrough requirement, you’ll actually need to bet $1,000 to fully unlock the bonus.
When it comes to cashback bonuses, games with a very high RTP like video poker may earn less redemption points per dollar bet when compared to more volatile games like roulette, or even be excluded from the scheme.
Although casino bonuses undoubtedly offer extra value when playing video poker, they will rarely, if ever, be enough to allow you to become a long term winning player.
Instead, you should use your bonuses as a temporary way to gain value that can be used to beat the house edge in the short term.
