Video Poker Gamble Features
Many video poker games have a built-in gamble feature of some type which gives players the chance to risk the prize won from a given hand in order to try and increase its value. The format of the gamble feature varies from game to game. Some require players to predict whether the next playing card in a series will be higher or lower than the previous one. Others require the player to predict the colour or suit of a playing card.
The odds paid for a successful prediction obviously vary according to the type of prediction made, but typically the video poker player can double or quadruple his winnings with each successful gamble.
Whilst many casual video poker players are quite happy to risk modest wins in the hope of parlaying them into something more substantial, serious video poker enthusiasts should think more carefully about whether or not gambling prizes is a sensible idea. When playing strategically a video poker player can minimise the edge that the house has over him, but if he then gambles his modest wins he may well be undoing all of his hard work in a matter of moments.
Consider a player who manages to win £20 in an hour by playing video poker in a strategic and thoughtful manner and refusing all opportunities to gamble his prizes. If that same player had taken advantage of the gamble feature then although he would have given himself the chance to win even more he could just as easily have lost quite a few of his prizes, and that in turn would have had a negative impact on his overall performance.
It could be argued that the gamble features embedded into video poker games are nothing more than ancillary games of chance which are designed to help the casino hold onto as much cash as possible. That said, would you be happy to make a profit by playing video poker for an hour and then risk all of that profit at the Roulette wheel or the Craps table?
If your answer to this question is yes then you are probably someone who plays video poker primarily for its entertainment value and so you should feel free to take advantage of the video poker gamble features as you see fit. However, if you would hate to make a video poker profit only to risk it on a pure game of chance then you probably shouldn’t use any gamble features, because you would effectively be risking your hard-won profit on nothing more than the flip of a Random Number Generator.
Of course, you can explore this matter further by playing free video poker games and seeing how you would fare taking each approach. Play several one-hour sessions in which you take advantage of the gamble opportunities offered to the same extent as you would if playing for real, but at the same time keep track of what your profits or losses would have been without gambling at any point. If gambling modest wins really does help you to make more profits then feel to do that in the real cash games, but if risking modest wins decreases your bottom line the gamble features would be best avoided.
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