Video Poker is a beloved game that can be wagered on in casinos all over the world, or alternatively at your house on your home computer, through a web account. The rules are absolutely straightforward and consist of the player attempting to get the best mixture of cards achievable in order to win money. In this respect it’s much the same as a normal game of poker, minus the line of contact with any other players. Of course, techniques used in a real-life game of poker, like bluffing, will be useless here.

The game of Electronic Poker begins when the bettor inserts credits (either tokens, credit slips or money) into the machine and presses the draw button. A hand of five cards will then be "distributed" on the screen.

The Video Poker machine also has buttons with ‘hold’ written on them, and enthusiasts will need to now pick which cards to keep and which to discard. For the cards the player would like to keep, the ‘hold’ buttons must be pressed so that they illuminate. The player can choose to keep any number of cards they wish, from all to none.

After the player has selected which cards he wishes to keep, they should press ‘draw’, which will mean that any new cards will be needed they will be dealt. The game is now finished, with the Electronic Poker machine analyzing the hand to see if it matches any of the winning hands listed in the payout schedule.

Generally, the minimum succeeding hand on a Video Poker machine is a pair of jacks with the award money increasing for each and every better hand. A common list of winning hands starts with jacks or better, and moves on to 2 pairs, three of a kinds, straights, flushes, full houses, 4 of a kinds, straight flushes and last but not least royal flushes. It is obvious that the payment schedule can change from game to game, so that discerning bettors are agile enough to select the most profitable game each time.

After the first round has completed, the player can either decide to continue on in an attempt to maximize their earnings, or press the ‘collect’ button to retrieve any cash that they may have won. Additionally, some styles of the game give the gambler a chance to double their winnings, in which case a further round is played. There are also variations among specific games, with some decks of cards having wild cards and other differing characteristics to increase playability.