Biggest Video Poker Jackpots
- Video Poker High Limit Jackpots
- Biggest Video Poker Ultimate X Jackpots
- Largest Video Poker Jackpots
- Large Video Poker Jackpots
- Largest Video Poker Jackpot Ever
Standard video poker games already offer large top payouts. You can win 4,000 coins for a royal flush when betting five credits per hand.
- $89K video poker jackpot hits at Boulder Station The big haul was part of several noteworthy jackpots across the Las Vegas Valley. By Tony Garcia / Las Vegas Review-Journal.
- Las Vegas Progressives has the secret tips and tricks on how to win a progressive jackpot. Find Progressive Video Poker and Progressive Slot Machines in and around Las Vegas.
More at https://www.worldcasinoindex.com.
However, you can actually win much more than this through progressive jackpot games. Certain video poker machines offer progressive prizes that can be worth four, five, or even six figures.
If you’re interested in playing for the biggest money that video poker can offer, then the following seven tips will help you out.
1 – Look for Progressive Jackpot Games
Again, you can already win fairly large payouts at standard real money video poker. However, you can increase the win potential much more by targeting progressive games.
A progressive video poker machine offers the standard 4,000-coin payout for a royal on five-coin wager. However, it also boasts a jackpot that increases with every wager that’s made.
Such machines take a small percentage out of each bet. Assuming enough gamblers play a game without the jackpot being won, the top prize can increase to a significant amount.
Some jackpots have even reached mid-six figures. For example, poker player Huck Seed once collected a video poker jackpot worth $670,665 in 2011.
An anonymous gambler won a $400,000 payout at the Cosmopolitan casino (Las Vegas) in 2017. This gambler was rumored to be former Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel.
Of course, most video poker prizes don’t reach $400k or $670k. But you can still find plenty of worthwhile jackpots through progressive machines.
2 – Play for High Stakes (If You Can Afford It)
I left out one important detail about Seed’s win above. He wasn’t playing your average quarter Jacks or Better game when he won well over a half million dollars. Instead, the 1996 World Series of Poker Main Event champion was betting $500 per round on a 100-line machine ($5 per hand).
The biggest video poker jackpots aren’t reserved for low rollers. Instead, they’re featured on high stakes machines in Las Vegas.
You can still win some decent progressive jackpots on quarter machines. Again, though, the largest prizes are only available through high stakes.
You may need to play 100-line machines that require anywhere from $2.50 ($0.50 coin) to $5 ($1 coin) per line or hand. Furthermore, you’ll need lots of money to survive for any amount of time on these games.
Luckily, video poker is more generous than slot machines regarding consistent payouts. Even still, risking between $250 and $500 per round takes plenty of commitment.
3 – Try Sequential Royal Flush Games (Good for Low Rollers)
Video Poker High Limit Jackpots
The one exception to the tip above is machines that feature sequential royal flushes. The latter entails a royal flush that’s in perfect order. For example, A-K-Q-J-10 full of hearts would be sequential.
Some machines only deliver their progressive jackpots on these rare hands. The same games don’t usually require you to bet as much when playing for huge prizes.
The catch, though, is that your odds of getting a sequential royal flush are much lower than a royal of any order. You stand 1 and 2.4 million odds of receiving a sequential royal, while you have 1 and 40,000 odds of getting a standard royal.
Considering the long odds, sequential royal flushes don’t pay their jackpots very often. Therefore, you can enjoy these games without having to bet much.
The downside, though, is that you’ll probably be waiting a very long time before getting the necessary jackpot hand. Here’s an example on how long it might take you to land a sequential royal:
- A sequential royal flush comes in once in every 2.4 million hands
- You play 800 hands per hour (a fast rate)
- 2,400,000 / 800 = 3,000 hours
- You play 6 hours per day
- 3,000 / 6 = 500 days to get a royal
4 – Always Bet Five Coins on Each Hand
You may very well know this next tip that I’m going to discuss. If you’re newer to video poker, though, I’d like to mention that you need to risk five coins on every hand.
Everything from standard to jackpot video poker requires the max hand bet to earn the top prize. Wager four coins or fewer and you’ll be playing for a much smaller top payout.
Of course, you may not always feel like risking five coins on every hand. After all, video poker can punish your bankroll, especially during cold streaks.
Just imagine how sick you’d feel if you got a royal flush and didn’t make the maximum wager. You’d miss out on a 4,000-coin payout in standard video poker and a progressive jackpot in other cases.
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The royal flush makes up around 2% of overall RTP in a standard game. It can represent much more of the RTP on a progressive machine. So, you stand to gain more in the long run when placing maximum five-coin wagers.
5 – Study Video Poker Strategy
Video poker is one of the most complicated casino games in terms of strategy. Every decision that you make in a hand impacts the RTP.
As a result, some gamblers are intimidated by strategy. They may even convince themselves that relying on instincts works better when spending time studying the game.
But you should definitely consider learning video poker strategy. This way, you can win back more money from your bets and last longer when chasing jackpots.
8/5 Bonus Poker offers 99.17% RTP with perfect play. However, you may only attain 98% payback if you’re not a good player.
This extra 1.17% may not sound like much, but it definitely has an impact on your long-term results. You’re missing out on $117 in theoretical winnings by not learning strategy in this case.
Luckily, there’s no shortage of materials to learn from. You can use video poker trainers, strategy charts, or even free online games to learn.
I suggest grabbing a strategy chart if you can find one for the progressive machine that you’re playing. But a trainer makes for a nice fill-in in lieu of a chart.
6 – Pay Attention to Your Bankroll
Chasing video poker jackpots can you take a huge toll on your bankroll. This is especially true if you’re playing one of the aforementioned high-stakes games.
Even sequential royal flush machines with quarter denominations can be expensive in the long run. After all, you’ll be waiting quite a while to land a royal.
In any case, you want to be well-funded when seeking a progressive jackpot. The more funds you hold, the better the opportunity you have of eventually scoring a huge prize.
Your starting bankroll will all depend upon the stakes and how long you wish to last. Generally speaking, though, I recommend having enough funds to cover 500 hands.
Here’s an example:
- You’re going to play a 100-line machine with a $0.50 coin denomination
- You must bet five coins on every line/hand ($250 total) to play
- Therefore, you’ll be risking $2.50 per hand
- You want enough money to survive at least 500 hands’ worth of losses (or five rounds in this case)
- 500 x 2.5 = $1,250 starting bankroll
I’m not suggesting that $1,250 guarantees you’ll last for any significant amount of time. But with the wins you’ll be booking on many lines, you should be able to stay in the game for quite a while.
Under ideal circumstances, you’ll have enough money to cover anywhere from 1,000 to 4,000 hands. But being able to cover at least 500 hands or lines is adequate for a start.
7 – Take Advantage of VIP Rewards
You definitely don’t want to miss out on opportunities to earn free money on the side of your play. With that said, you should always sign up for a VIP program wherever you’re playing.
You’ll typically be comped on around 0.1% of your wagers. In this case, you’ll receive $1 cash back for every $1,000 wagered.
This exchange rate doesn’t seem overly exciting. However, it can pay dividends when you’re trying to sustain your bankroll while chasing jackpots.
Online casinos go one step further by also offering deposit bonuses. If you’re playing for online video poker jackpots, then you might as well take advantage of these bonuses, too.
In some cases, you can earn hundreds of dollars through a video poker bonus. You just have to satisfy terms and conditions for cashing the money out.
Conclusion
You shouldn’t expect to win a huge video poker jackpot any time soon. But with preparation, you can at least boost your chances of winning a progressive prize at some point.
The first step involves finding progressive machines that offer large jackpots. These games are usually available in Las Vegas and call on you to either play high stakes or get a sequential royal flush.
From here, you just need to use good strategy and bankroll management. As long as you make the right plays and mind your bankroll, you can stay in the game and, hopefully, win big.
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Largest Video Poker Jackpots
By John Grochowski
Evaluating a video poker machine is usually pretty straightforward. A 9-6 Jacks or Better machine where full houses pay 9-for-1 and flushes 6-for-1, will return more to players than an 8-5 machine. A 10-7-5 Double Bonus Poker game, where full houses pay 10-for-1, flushes 7-for-1 and straights 5-for-1, is a much better gamble than a 9-6-4 version of the same game.
Your mileage may vary in any one session, of course. Losing streaks happen on the best of games, and a big hand or two can make you a winner on a coin gobbler. But over a long time, the odds of the games will lead those with better pay tables to return more money to players.
It gets trickier when extra elements are added, such as progressive jackpots and sequential royals. Can a game that’s lower-paying on its surface become the better bet if a progressive jackpot gets large enough?
Large Video Poker Jackpots
Of course it can. Let’s take a simple example, a 9-6 Double Double Bonus Poker machine with no progressive jackpot vs. a 9-5 DDB machine with a progressive pay on royal flushes. At the starting value of a 4,000-coin jackpot for a five-coin wager, the 9-6 machine returns 98.98 percent with expert play, while the 9-5 machine pays 97.87 percent.
To get to a 98.98 percent return, the progressive royal on the 9-5 DDB machine needs to reach 6,026 coins. That’s pretty normal. A reasonable rule of thumb for Jacks or Better-based video poker games is that every 2,000-coin increase in a royal flush progressive raises the overall payback percentage by about one percent. At that point, long-term returns on 9-6 and 9-5 DDB are about the same, though the 9-5 game will be a more volatile experience with more of its return in the top jackpot and less in the more common full houses.
That’s simple enough, but the situation gets muddier when extra elements are added. A reader emailed to ask about a couple of Double Double Bonus games he’d seen in the same casino.
“I play dollar Double Double Bonus Poker at a casino that has it two pretty interesting ways,” he wrote. “It has 9-6 DDB with three progressives, on the royal, aces with kicker, and aces without kicker. It also has 9-5 DDB with just one progressive on the royal, but it has a $50,000 jackpot for a sequential royal. Is it worth giving up a unit on the flush and the ace progressives to get the sequential royal?”
With that many extras in play, there are a number of things to be weighed. How far above the rollover values of 4,000 coins on the royals are the two progressives? Are the other jackpots on the 9-6 game far above the usual 800 coins on four aces and 2,000 on four aces plus a 2, 3 or 4 as the fifth card? And what about that sequential royal, anyway?
Largest Video Poker Jackpot Ever
The one with the smallest effect is the sequential royal, with the big payoff if the cards in a royal flush are on the screen in order of rank. There are 120 ways to arrange the five cards in a royal flush, and only one of them is the 10-Jack-Queen-King-Ace sequence. You know how rare royal flushes are. With expert play in 9-5 Double Double Bonus Poker at the 4,000-coin royal level, they come up an average of once per 40,065 hands.
With an average of one of every 120 royals sequential, you may or may not see one in the proper order in your lifetime.
How much does the sequential royal add to the overall payback percentage? Only about two-tenths of a percent, nowhere near making up the 1.1 percent difference between 9-6 and 9-5 Double Double Bonus.
Unless there is a great disparity between the progressive jackpots, with the 9-5 game’s royal progressive on the high side and the three progressives down near the starting point on the 9-6 game, then the 9-6 DDB game is going to be the higher-paying game.
With that three-way progressive, the Double Double Bonus machine has a chance of reaching the break-even point fairly often. If the three progressive jackpots are high enough, the payback percentage can reach or exceed 100 percent, heady territory for video poker players.
Calculating a break-even point is trickier than with a single progressive. If the only progressive was on royal flushes, 9-6 Double Double Bonus would become a 100-percent game with the royal payoff at 5,846 credits. If the only progressive was on four aces with a 2, 3 or 4, the break-even point is a 2,760-credit return. If a progressive only on four 2s-4s with an ace, 2, 3, or 4, the magic number is 1,152.
But with three progressive levels, all contribute to raising the payback percentage. One way to get to 100 percent is 5,500 coins on the royal, 2,100 on the aces plus kicker and 822 on the four aces, no kicker. Another way is jackpot levels of 4,800, 2,249 and 883 credits.
Understand that four aces, no kicker, occurs more frequently than the bigger-paying hands, so if the game is a 100-percenter based in part on the four-ace return, it probably won’t stay that way for very long. Someone will draw the aces and reset the pay to 800 coins.
When all this was explained by return email, the same reader wrote to ask about a special case in strategy.
“In 9-6 Double Double Bonus Poker with a three-way progressive on the royal, four aces with kicker and four aces, no kicker, I was dealt ace-2-3-4 of clubs and the ace of diamonds. I know the play is the four-card straight flush in a non-progressive game, but if the ace progressives get big enough, would you ever just hold the aces?”
There are turning points where holding the aces becomes better play, but it’s an interaction of the two ace jackpots. That’s very difficult to evaluate.
If the only progressive taken into account was the jackpot on four aces plus kicker, the turning point is a jackpot of 6,280 coins instead of the starting point of 2,000. At that level, the average return per five coins wagered is 11.9149 coins regardless of whether you hold ace-2-3-4 or the two aces plus one of the low kicker cards. You’re not likely ever to see a progressive that large, but if you do, the proper play is to hold a kicker along with the aces from that turning point onward.
If the aces-plus-kicker pot was constant at 2,000 coins, but there was a progressive on four aces, no kicker, starting at the rollover of an 800-coin payout, the turning point is 1,923 coins. When four aces, no kicker, pay that amount, the average return for holding A-A is 11.9160 coins, nudging past holding ace-2-3-4, at 11.9149.
But both jackpots increase simultaneously. Let’s say four aces, no kicker, pays 1,200 coins, a 50 percent increase from the usual 800-coin pay. How big does the aces plus kicker pay have to be for a strategy change? The turning point is 4,890 coins. If four aces pays 1,200 coins and four aces with a kicker pays 4,890, the average return per five coins play is 11.9149 coins regardless of whether you hold suited ace-2-3-4 or A-A.
If four aces are worth less than 1,200, it will take a bigger aces-kicker jackpot to bring a turning point, and if the aces alone are worth more, a somewhat smaller aces-kicker prize will turn the strategy around. But one or both jackpots will have to be at a level much higher than you usually see in the casino.
As a practical matter, holding the four parts of a straight flush is almost always the way to go, just as in a practical sort of way, 9-6 Double Double Bonus with a three-way progressive is almost always a higher payer than 9-5 DDB with a single progressive and a sequential royal.