Online Video Poker in South Africa 2024

Casino.com

Casino.com is a superb online casino for South African fans from the Mansion Group. This casino is licensed and regulated by the Government of Gibraltar. It uses software from Playtech to offer hundreds of exciting games, including video poker to its members.

The video poker games at Casino.com include Aces and Faces, Aces and Faces 25 Line, Deuces Wild, Deuces Wild 4 Line, 2 Ways Royal, Joker Poker, Joker Poker 50 Line, Megajacks, 10's or Better, Genie's Hi-Lo, Pai Gow Poker, and All American. The video poker games at this casino are not included in the welcome bonus offer.

Thunderbolt Casino

Thunderbolt Casino is a RTG-powered casino for South African online casino fans. This casino is owned by Merus (UK) Ltd and offers more than 200 exciting games, including video poker, to its players.

The video poker games at Thunderbolt casino include:

• 7 Stud Poker
• Aces and Eights
• All American Poker
• Bonus Deuces Wild
• Bonus Poker
• Bonus Poker Deluxe
• Deuces Wild
• Double Bonus Poker
• Double Double Bonus Poker
• Double Double Jackpot Poker
• Double Jackpot Poker
• Jacks or Better
• Joker Poker
• Loose Deuces
• Pick 'Em Poker
• Sevens Wild

Thunderbolt casino offers a welcome bonus of 100% up to R1500 on each of the first five deposits at the casino for video poker fans. The wagering requirement for this bonus is a 30x play through plus the bonus amount. To meet the wagering requirements for withdrawal, only play on video poker, multi-hand video poker, and video poker variations is considered. High rollers playing video poker are also eligible for an up to R40,000 high roller welcome bonus (200% up to R20,000 on each of the first two deposits, minimum deposit must be R5000).

Featured Video Poker Games

Types of Video Poker Games

There are different types of video poker games available at online casinos today. The games available may vary from casino to casino, depending on a number of factors, including the software provider. However, the most commonly found of these is Jacks or Better.

Jacks or Better

The game is called Jacks or Better for a simple reason: your final hand has to be at least a pair of jacks, or higher, for you to be able to get paid by the machine. The game is simple: there are no wild cards to complicate the mix. The pay tables for this game may have varying payouts for the flush and the straight hands. This game is good for newcomers to video poker. You play the game with four hands of cards.

The game is simple to play: Select the game from the list of games available to make it appear in a separate window. Next, decide how much you would like to wager. If you want to bet the maximum amount allowed, click the Bet Max option else click the Bet One option. Some casinos may also allow you to specify the size of your bet, and may even allow you to bet on specific winning combinations.

Of all the Jacks or Better games available, the best probably is the 'full pay' game. This game is also known as the 9/6 game and is not one of the commonly found Jacks or Better games. The name 9/6 implies that you get paid at 9:1 for a flush and at 6:1 for a straight. What this effectively means is that if you bet $5 on a game and got a flush, you would get paid $45. The game has a 99.54% payback percentage, which makes it a good game to play. Other variations of Jacks or Better include 8/5 games and also 7/5 games, the name again signifying the payout.

The following are the different hands in Jacks or Better, in order of their ranks:

• Royal Flush: This hand consists of A, K,Q, J, and 10 of a single suit.
• Straight Flush: This hand consists of any five consecutive cards of a single suit.
• Four of a Kind: This hand has four cards of the same value across suits.
• Full House: In this hand three cards are of one value and the remaining two of another value.
• Flush: This hand consists of any five cards of a specific suit, not necessarily in a sequence.
• Straight: This hand has five consecutive cards from different suits.
• Three of a Kind: As the name suggests, this hand has three cards of the same value.
• Two Pair: This hand contains two pairs.
• Pair of Jacks or Better: This is the lowest paying hand of them all. It has a pair of Jacks, Queens, Kings, or Aces.

Deuces Wild

This is considered the second most common video poker game, after Jacks or Better. The game is like Jacks or Better, with one change: the deuces are wild, as the name suggests. There are some Deuces Wild games where you get 100% payback percentages, while others offer payback percentages on par or around the same offered by Jacks or Better.

The game itself is played with a 52-card deck. The 2 of the four different suits in the deck all act as wild cards. This changes the complexion of the game somewhat, because you can use the 2 to enhance the value of an existing hand. The minimum range for a win in this game would there be a three of a kind hand.

Joker Poker

Joker Poker is considered one of the first variations of video poker. Unlike Jacks or Better, this game is played with a 53-card deck. The additional card in the deck is the joker, hence the name. You can use the joker in place of any card. The result again is different from what you would get in a Jacks or Better game; there would be more card combinations you could pull out with a joker in the hand.

The joker brought about a few changes: you could now have a five of a kind hand where the fifth card was the joker. The joker in a royal flush hand also created two royal flush hands now: the natural royal flush and the wild royal flush. The payback percentages for this variation of video poker are quite high as well.

There are of course many more varieties that the three listed here and most of our recommended casinos will have at least one version of each of the major varieties you see regularly ion land casinos.

Playing Video Poker on Smartphones and Tablets

An even better and personalized way of playing online casino games today is through your mobile device or tablet. Technology upgrades have seen a number of software providers coming out with mobile versions of their online casinos as well, and so a lot of casinos offer the mobile gaming option to their players.

You can play video poker on your mobile device, but the choices are rather limited compared to say slots. Most South African mobile casinos will offer only one or two video poker games.

Video Poker Software Platforms Compared

The following table gives a comparison of the video poker games from different software providers.

Understanding Video Poker Odds and Return to Player (RTP)

Before playing video poker, there are a few terms you must be aware of. We take a look at a few such terms here:

• Video poker odds
• Return to Player (RTP)
• Full Pay Video Poker

Video Poker Odds

There are odds for every game you play, and this holds true for video poker as well. This is one game where you have a degree of control in ensuring that the odds work in your favor. As you know, there are multiple forms of video poker at an online casino, and the game that you choose and the strategy you adopt for playing it has a big role in deciding whether the odds work in your favor or not.

The first step to increasing the odds while playing video poker, therefore, depends on which game you choose to play. The next thing of course is the strategy you adopt for the game variant you have chosen to play. When it comes to video poker, the odds of a particular hand appearing remains the same across all machines. This is unlike in slots, where the odds may vary depending on the machine as well. Your payout in video poker depends on which hand you land. Another factor that influences the odds of you landing the winning hand is the degree of probability of that hand appearing.

Let us take an example to understand this better. For instance, assume you are playing Jacks or Better, a game with a 99.54% payback percentage, and hoping to land a royal flush. What are the odds of that hand appearing for you? It is a staggering 1:40,390 or 0.002%. The payout for that hand is 4000 units. So what does this tell you? The greater the odds, the higher the payout you would get. The payout would be lesser for a hand where the odds are more balanced.

Return to Player (RTP)

The term return to player or RTP refers to the percentage of money that an online casino pays back to a player over a period of time. It is the percentage of the money a player can hope to get back from the total money he has wagered at an online casino over time. Let us take an example to understand this better. Assume that you have placed 50 bets of R10 each on a game of jacks or Better, which has a return percentage of 99.54. What this means is that the player can expect to get back 99.54% of the R500 he has wagered in all. Of course, this works only if you are able to play each hand optimally.

The RTP is directly related to the house advantage for a game. If a game offers a 10% house advantage, it merely means that it will have a RTP of approximately 90%.

Full Pay Video Poker

There are two terms you need to understand when it comes to video poker: full pay video poker games and short pay video poker games. A full pay video poker game is the highest paying variant of a specific video poker game. Full pay games usually have a high payback percentage. Take for instance the game of Jacks or Better; the full pay version of this game has a payback percentage close to 100% (99.54%).

How to Read a Video Poker Payout Table

There are many good things about video poker, and one of the best is that it is one game where you know the returns you can expect from a machine even before you play. This is because of the pay table. If you know how to read a pay table, you can select the machine that gives you the best returns when you want to play video poker.

Let us take an example to understand this better. Take for instance the game of Jacks or Better. The following pay table lists out the returns you can expect from different variants of the game. The column on the left lists the game and the one on the right lists the expected returns.

From the above table it is apparent that you can safely play the 9/6 or full pay variant of Jacks or Better as it has the highest payback percentage among all the variants listed.