Reason #5 why the Wizard likes Bovada:

Intelligent Bonuses

Many online casinos offer huge signup bonuses, but there’s a catch. Buried in the fine print is that play on the most popular games doesn’t count towards earning the bonus. It’s common for play on blackjack, baccarat, roulette, craps, and video poker to be excluded. In many cases, only slots count.

And that’s if you can even find the terms and conditions. Many casinos put their 100% bonus in big flaming letters but make you hunt all over their site to find the rules.

Bovada allows play on all games to count towards the wagering requirement. It’s that simple. Just no opposite betting. All casinos ought to be as easy as Bovada about this. The bonus offer itself is simple too: on your first deposit, they’ll give you an extra 10%. If you deposit $100, you’ll wind up with $110 in chips or tokens.

Finally, in the unlikely event that Bovada feels you’ve been abusing their bonuses they won’t seize your winnings like most other casinos will. In the worst case scenario they will politely tell you that they will not be offering you any future bonuses, but you are welcome to keep playing and keep everything you have made already.

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Video Poker -- Tens or Better

Last Update: Jul 05, 2004

Tens or Better

Tens or Better
Hand	Payoff	Probability	Return
Royal flush	800	0.000026	0.020530
Straight flush	50	0.000104	0.005180
Four of a Kind	20	0.002357	0.047145
Full house	6	0.011493	0.068955
Flush	5	0.010670	0.053350
Straight	4	0.012386	0.049544
Three of a Kind	3	0.074218	0.222653
Two Pair	2	0.128936	0.257872
Tens or Better	1	0.254368	0.254368
Nothing	0	0.505443	0.000000
Total		1.000000	0.979598

Tens or Better
Hand	Payoff	Probability	Return
Royal flush	800	0.000026	0.020546
Straight flush	50	0.000103	0.005141
Four of a Kind	25	0.002358	0.058958
Full house	6	0.011497	0.068984
Flush	5	0.010654	0.053270
Straight	4	0.012357	0.049429
Three of a Kind	3	0.074265	0.222795
Two Pair	2	0.129007	0.258013
Tens or Better	1	0.254251	0.254251
Nothing	0	0.505482	0.000000
Total		1.000000	0.991388

Other Games

Methodology of Expected Return Tables

I have personally developed the above tables for jacks or better, bonus poker, Double Jackpot, double Double Jackpot, triple bonus, and triple Double Jackpot and Double Jackpot. In general the wide tables that show the exact Combinations of combinations were done by me. The determination of said tables was done by testing all 32 ways to play any given hand. For each possible play I looped through every possible set of cards on the second deal and averaging the payoffs. Finally the decision that yielded the greatest overall expected return was defined as the best way to play that hand. The determination of the overall expected return was done by systematically analyzing all 2,598,960 possible five card poker hands,testing all 32 ways to play each one, adding the average results of the best way to play each hand, and finally dividing by the total Combinations of hands to yield the average results.

All other forms of video poker were analyzed with the help of WinPoker 5. This software allows the user to specify the payoff table to most forms of video poker and it evidently uses the same methodology as mine to determine the tables above. You can also play video poker with this software and it will tell you if and when you make a mistake and show you the reason why. To develop your own strategy you can enter any hand you like and the program will give you the expected return of all 32 ways to play it on one screen. The cost of this software is $30 and the web page has a stripped down version for free. For anyone serious about playing video poker properly I give WinPoker an A.

My Video Poker Offerings
Basic Video Poker Info My main Video Poker page Return tables: Probability of Ruin for single-play video poker Random simulations of multi-play video poker The standard deviation of n-play video poker Practice / Play Video Poker for Free Play my free video poker game/trainer Video Poker Calculator Analyze the return for almost any video poker paytable Other Stuff Jacks or Better quiz Probability distribution for each hand by number of cards held in Full-Pay Deuces Wild Video poker programming tips San Diego County video poker survey	Strategies Full-Pay Jacks or Better: Simple Strategy (return of 99.46%) Intermediate Strategy (return of 99.52%) Optimal Strategy (return of 99.54%) Full-Pay Deuces Wild: Simple Strategy (return of 100.71%) Optimal Strategy (return of 100.76%) 3 to a wild royal (ace-high) vs. Deuce only 2 to a royal (king-high) with a straight penalty 2 to a royal (king-high) with no penalty Quick Quads: 9/6 Jacks or Better 8/5 Bonus Poker 9/7 Double Bonus 9/6 Double Double Bonus 8/5 Triple Bonus Other Strategies: "Not So Ugly Ducks" 8/5 Bonus Poker 10/7 Double Bonus 9/6 Double Double Bonus

Video Poker -- Tens or Better

Tens or Better

Other Games

Methodology of Expected Return Tables

Basic Video Poker Info

Practice / Play Video Poker for Free

Video Poker Calculator

Other Stuff

Strategies

Full-Pay Jacks or Better:

Full-Pay Deuces Wild:

Quick Quads:

Other Strategies: