Why Choose Video Poker Over Slots?
Slot machines and video poker machines have many things in common, with video poker resembling slots perhaps more than it does poker games! Despite their similarity though many gamblers will often choose to play the slots in a casino than a video poker machine.
The reason for this is the sheer simplicity of casino slot machines, particularly in the USA. Whereas in the UK slot machines are often complicated affairs which incorporate all sorts of buttons like holds/nudges, in the US slot machines are often simple one coin in, pull the lever and then you have either won or not.
The House Edge is Lower for Video Poker than Slots
The house edge in slot machines means that they are in fact one of the most lucrative and profitable for a casino. Of course many of them will pay out large jackpots, sometimes into the millions, but over the long run the casino will take in much more than is paid out. This is why US casinos have been so clever in making slots so simple and fast-paced, to lead to players spending less time procrastinating about whether to nudge/hold or not and more time putting coins into the coin slot.
But whilst so many play slots, the fact remains that the house edge is amongst the highest of all casino games. Conversely, when video poker is played to a correct strategy, it is actually one of the games which has the lowest casino edge and so can be one of the most profitable for the player. It is true that video poker requires a little bit of time to be spent learning how to play and what the various poker hand rankings are for those who are not used to playing poker either online or in person, but once understood then video poker can turn out to be a much better alternative to slot machines.