Video Poker is a favored game that can be enjoyed in casinos across the globe, or alternatively at home on your home computer, using an Internet connection. The rules are very simple and consist of the player trying to achieve the greatest assemblage of cards possible in order to come away with money. In this respect it is much the same as a normal game of poker, without the interaction with any other players. Of course, methods used in a real-life game of poker, like bluffing, will be useless in Video Poker.

The game of Video Poker starts when the enthusiast puts credits (either tokens, tickets or cash) into the video poker machine and presses the deal button. A five card hand will then be "given out" on the screen.

The Video Poker machine also has buttons with ‘hold’ printed on them, and bettors will need to now choose which cards to keep and which to throw away. For the cards the gambler would like to retain, the ‘hold’ buttons should be pressed so that they light up. The player can decide to keep any amount of cards they wish, from all to none.

After the player has selected which cards she wishes to keep, the player will then press ‘deal’, which will mean that any new cards are needed they will be given out. The round is now completed, with the Video Poker machine scanning the cards to see if it is the same as any of the winning hands listed in the pay out schedule.

Generally, the minimum winning hand on a Video Poker machine is a pair of jacks with the prize money getting larger for each and every better hand. A list of common winning hands starts with jacks or better, moving on to two pairs, three of a kinds, straights, flushes, full houses, four of a kinds, straight flushes and last but not least royal flushes. It definitely goes without saying that the payout schedule can vary from game to game, so that discerning bettors are agile enough to select the most beneficial machine every instance.

As soon as the initial round has played out, the player can either choose to remain on and try to to maximize their earnings, or press the ‘collect’ button to retrieve any cash that has been won. Additionally, a few versions of the game give the gambler a chance to increase their profits, in which situation another round is played. There are also differences among specific games, with some decks of cards having wild cards and other varying characteristics to enhance playability.