For a given hand, the average amount you win if you play that hand millions of times. For example, if a Royal Flush pays $1,000 and you draw one card to a Four Card Royal Flush, your average payback is about $25.

Average Payback is important because for any hand that you can play more than one way, you should always pick the play with the highest Average Payback.

Each Video Poker machine has a Cash Out button that causes one coin to be dumped into the machine's hopper for each credit that you have accumulated.

Short for Compensation, rewards that a Casino pays you for playing. To qualify for comps, join the frequent gambler's club (whatever it is called) at the Casino. They will give you a plastic card that should be inserted in the Video Poker Machine while you are playing. The Casino then tracks your play, and rewards you accordingly, providing you ask for your rewards. They include cash back, free meals, and free rooms.

Drinks (including beer and cocktails) are also free for players, but you don't have to join a club to get them.

Examples: 3-4-5-6 in the same suit.
8-9-10-J in the same suit.

Under the display on the video poker machine are five buttons, one for each card. You press these buttons to indicate which cards you want to hold and which you want to discard. Press a button repeatedly to switch between Hold and Discard.

A hand containing three or four cards in the same suit in a broken sequence. See Three Card Inside Straight Flush and Four Card Inside Straight Flush.

This is the term to indicate one of the really big-payoff winning hands. For example in Jacks or Better and Bonus Poker, the Royal Flush is a Jackpot Hand.

The original video poker game, with a Pair of Jacks as the minimum winning hand. The Full Pay version of this game pays 9 to 1 for a Full House and 6 to 1 for a Flush. It has a Maximum Average Payback of about 99.5%.

A Video Poker Game where the Joker is a wild card.

For a given Video Poker Machine Pay Table, the amount of payback per dollar bet if you play millions of hands on that machine, providing that you play every hand with correct strategy. It can be expressed as an amount per dollar bet or as a percentage (of each dollar bet).

For most machines, this number varies between 92 cents per dollar bet (92% payback) and $1.01 per dollar bet (101% payback). Obviously, you want to play the machines with the highest Maximum Average Payback, provided that you know a good strategy for the machine.

Maximum Average Payback's for every type of Video Poker Machine have been calculated by math and computer geeks, and are displayed on some Internet Sites.

By law, every Video Poker Machine must display the amount it pays for each winning hand for each amount bet. This is called the Payoff Table. Example:

The numbers are the number of credits that you get if you draw that hand. For example, if you are playing five coins in a quarter machine with this Payoff Table, you win 4000 quarters or $1,000.00 if you get a Royal Flush.

Usually (as in the table above), you get more bang for your buck by playing the Maximum Credits.

If you know the payoff table, you can calculate (or look up in a book or on the Internet) the Maximum Average Payback for the machine. The best machines to play are the ones with the highest Maximum Average Payback, assuming you know the correct strategy for playing the hands in that game.

Each Video Poker Machine has a Play Maximum Credits button. This is the button you push to deal a new hand and bet the maximum. If you don't play maximum credits, you don't qualify for the big jackpots. On most 25-cent video poker machines, the maximum credits you can play is five.

If you are playing a machine (presumably with a high maximum average payout) with the intention of getting a Jackpot, then always play maximum credits. If you are sitting at the bar playing a machine with a lousy payout, then play the minimum, play slowly, chat up the bartender, and collect your free cocktails.

This is a Jackpot, usually for a Royal Flush that grows as players play. Several machines are linked together so that each bet at any of them increases the jackpot. When a player gets the Jackpot the Progressive Jackpot is reset to a starting value, typically $1,000 for a 25 cent machine with five coins played. Important: You can't win the Progressive Jackpot unless you Play Maximum Credits.

It is required by law (at least in Nevada) that a Video Poker Machine must draw cards at random from a single deck. This means that no card is more likely to be drawn than any other. There is no rational reason for a Casino to try to cheat on this, since they can legally provide a Payoff Table that is lousy for the player.

When you win a hand that would put you over 1,000 credits, most video poker machines don't add to your credits. Instead they start spilling quarters into the hopper to pay off that hand. It's a noisy, happy occurrence, since it means that you are way ahead.

In a poker deck, each card that is not a wild card is in one of the four suits: Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts or Spades.

A Strategy Card is a Strategy Table printed on a card. It's a good idea to have a strategy card with you while playing. You can buy strategy cards for most any available video poker game on the Internet. With our Video Poker Wizard Coach software you can print a strategy card on your computer printer.

There are literally hundreds of models of Video Poker Machine. Broadly, these may be categorized into the types:

Jacks or Better
Bonus Poker - bigger payoffs for certain hands
Wild Card Games like Deuces Wild and Joker Poker

By law, the Payoff Table listing the payout for each winning hand must be posted on each machine.

Also by law, each machine must operate by drawing randomly from one deck of cards. There is no motivation for Casinos to try to cheat on the random draw, since there is no law against a Payoff Table with a lousy Maximum Average Payback (see below).

In a given casino, you will find a variety of video poker machine models, each with a different Maximum Average Payback. Most will be pretty lousy, and those with a high Maximum Average Payback will be few in number. (If you owned a Casino, what would you do?)