Video Poker for iPad

iPad video poker presents real money players with a poker challenge combined with some of the best odds in the casino. Many video poker games offer a house edge of around 1%, which makes video poker the second-best casino game, next to blackjack. The video poker pay table determines what the expected return on a game is. I'll show you later what to look for when choosing between different games of video poker. For now, I want to talk about how to play video poker for real money using an iPad gambling app.

iPad Casino Video Poker Apps - How They Work

Special online gambling sites called "mobile casinos" exist, which cater to the needs of iPad, Android phone, BlackBerry, Windows OS, and iPhone users. Whether you have a tablet computer, a smart phone, or a traditional mobile phone, players can gamble using their mobile devices by connecting to one of these casinos. Once you get on-site, you'll be directed to the mobile casino's apps page. Each operating system has its own application which needs to be downloaded for the device to work, so you'll see a list of download options: ioS casino app, Android app, Windows OS app, and BlackBerry app.

Once you've downloaded the proper iPad app, a player can open up the casino software and start selecting games to play. Unless you want to play for free or fun, you'll need to select a payment method and make a real money deposit. Typical payment options include VISA, Mastercard, Maestro, Solo, Switch, NETeller, Skrill Moneybookers, PaySafeCard, and UKash, but different sites are going to have different money options and policies.

Many mobile casinos allow 5-10 deposit methods and only 1-2 withdrawal options, because concerns about cash transactions across international borders. That's especially true of the US mobile casinos. In most cases, a bank wire transfer is an option for cashouts. As always, because the United States government feels the need to invade the privacy of a person's home tell citizens what they can and cannot do with their electronic gaming devices, United States real money gamblers are going to have fewer options than people elsewhere.

Can US Players Play Real Money Video Poker Games on an iPad / iPhone?

Video poker games are available on the iPad for US casino players. The games operate the same way as the PC version, but you will be able to play it while in the comfort of your living room, at school or even at the office. While there are plenty to choose from on iTunes,  you can opt for real money iPad video poker at Slotland Casino. The casino is open to all US players and accepts both Visa and MasterCard. This is currently the only casino accepting USA iPad players. Once you have your account set up and funded, just head to the mobile version of the Slotland website and click on the video poker image. The game should load immediately on your iPad. If you don’t have your iPad with you, but still want to play video poker, the games will work on your iPhone or any mobile device.

Video poker isn't just one game, but has up to ten popular variants. The original video poker game (and still the most popular) is jacks or better, which has pair of jacks as its qualifying hand for you to get paid. I should mention that video poker doesn't pit the player against another gambler or against the dealer. Instead, the player plays against a prearranged pay table. If your hand is as strong as a pair of jacks or better, you win. If your hand consists of nothing more than a pair of 10s or weaker, you lose. The higher your hand rank according to the traditional hand ranks of poker, the more you get paid. A royal flush is the jackpot hand. In this way, video poker machine is similar to a slot machine, in that a preset combination constitutes a win.

Several differences exist between video poker and slots, though. Video poker has much better odds than slots. Jacks or better video poker has a house edge around 1%, while most slot machine have a house edge between 3% and 7%. Also, slots have no strategy. Player decisions have no effect on the outcome (except bet amount determines how much money you win or lose). In video poker, you decide which cards to hold and which to discard, so your decisions can be good or bad, affecting the probability of you winning. Video poker has strategy. The game itself plays like 5-card draw. You're given five cards. You can choose to discard between 0 and 5 of these cards, at which points you'll be given replacement cards. After the re-draw, your 5-card hand is compared against the pay table.

Besides jacks or better, games like loose deuces, joker poker, double jackpot, double double jackpot, deuces wild, aces and eights, sevens wild, pick'em, 7 stud, all-American video poker, bonus poker, bonus deluxe, double bonus, double double bonus, mystery bonus, and bonus deuces wild exist. Even this isn't the full scope of games. In fact, I've noticed some iPad mobile casinos have two versions of games, which I'll warn you about. One of those two versions has better odds and I'd bet it's not the one you would think.

Reading Video Poker Pay Tables

Usually, the best way to tell which is the better video poker machine is to look at the payouts on the full house and the flush. The legendary 9/6 jacks or better actually had a +100% expected return, meaning players lucky enough to find such a machine could expect to win more money than they wagered. Those machines are no longer available anywhere I know about, but what I want to point out is the 9/6 designation. This meant you got paid 9x the bet on full houses and 6x the wager on flushes. A more common 8/5 jacks or better would be 8x for a full house and 5x for a flush. This changes the odds dramatically.

In my experience, pay table designers try to make the lesser machine look good by offering better payouts on the higher hands, such as a four of a kind. Special 4-of-a-kind hands are given more money sometimes. Bigger payouts on three of a kind, straights, or two pairs are sometimes offered. Enough of these are higher that it might look like this is the better machine, but the full houses and flushes pay less. So find the machine with the better payouts on flush hands and full house hands and you'll probably be playing the better version of video poker.