All online casino players have favorite games, which they choose among the whole variety which exists today at gambling sites. So some people prefer to play dynamic games, like progressive slot machines, while the others choose more moderate tempo. Certain gamblers prefer playing risky games, where they can wager a lot and at the same time get huge profit, while the others even choose a free mode, as they are playing games just for fun. Different games are popular and one of the most popular for today is certainly online video poker.

The idea of video poker appeared in the 19th century at the same time when slot machines were invented. Sittman and Pitt took the idea of usual five card poker and created a machine with five reels on the base of this game. However, after the invention of slot machines with card symbols, the idea lost its popularity and was revived again only in 1970s in Las Vegas. This was the year when first video poker machines were introduced to land-based casinos. And today video poker is one of the favourite online casino games, which can be played at every gambling site.

What are the rules of video poker? How should you play it? In fact, everything is pretty simple, but you should remember one thing, which is incredibly significant. This game is played against a computer, not against real people. That’s why when you are choosing an online casino game, it’s necessary to pay attention to the payout percent. But let’s turn to the rules first.

When you start playing video poker online, you will see a screen with a payout table and several buttons below. At the beginning you should place a bet, which may vary from $0.5 to $1 and place a button “Deal”. After it you will be dealt five cards and you may held the cards you’d like to by just clicking on them. Then a computer checks a hand for possible winning combinations and you see the result.

But to make this game more interesting a player is usually offered to play a bonus game to double the win. In this case you are given five cards and one of them is open for you. Your task is to guess the card from the rest four higher by a rank. If you succeed, the sum of a win will be doubled and in some online casinos you will be ven offered to double it once again. However, if you guess a wrong card, you lose the whole amount. Several gambling sites offer to risk only a half of a bet.

However, you may also play multi line video poker, when there are usually five lines in a row and each of them is checked for a winning combination. In fact, there are several varieties but we will speak about them a bit later. Now let’s see what winning combinations exist in video poker online:

• Royal Flush: five cards in consequence from Ace to Ten of the same suit (800:1).
• Straight Flush: any five cards in a row of the same suit (50:1).
• Four of a Kind: four cards of the same value (25:1).
• Full House: a pair and three cards of the same value (9:1).
• Flush: five cards of the same suit (6:1).
• Straight: five cards in consequence of any suit (4:1).
• Three of a Kind: three cards of the same value (3:1).
• Two Pairs (2:1)
• A Pair (1:1)

These are general rules of playing video poker online. But still due to the number of variants you should read the rules carefully before starting to play.