hi and welcome to our instructional video
that is designed to make you a smarter gambler my name is Steve Bourie
and I'm the author of the American casino guide which is the number one
bestselling book in the US
on the subject of casino gambling and travel and the
only book that comes with more than one thousand dollars in casino coupons
If you want to know more about the book be sure to visit our website at
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American casino guide. In this video
Linda Boyd who is the author the video poker edge gives
details on the top 10 reasons why jacks or better
is the best video poker game to play. And now
here's linda boyd. One of the best games that you're gonna find in the casino
is video poker and one of the best games that you'll find
of the video poker games is a game called Jacks or Better
And there are ten excellent reasons why you would choose
the game called Jacks or Better. The first
the ten good reasons is game availability it does you no good to learn
how to play a video poker game
then you arrive at the casino and you can't find the game that you selected to
play
so availability is critical
virtually every single casino that offers video poker
will offer some version of Jacks or Better
my favorite version because it has the highest
expected return (called e.r.) is a game called
9/6 jacks or better. You can find it
because everything pays the same for winning hands with two
exceptions. The first exception in Jacks or better
is the full hous. 9/6
pays 9 times each coin bet for a full house
and six times each coin bet for a flush
so you want to play that as opposed to one that pays
8 for a full house and five for a flush
called 8/5. Keep in mind there are other versions available in the casino
but you may not want to play them due to the expected return
So availability is the first good reason to select Jacks or Better
Reason number two is something called
variance and the variance is also called
the risk factor in the game so the risk factor
relates to how long your bankroll with the money you brought
the casino will last. Jacks or Better has a low variance
something that's a good thing for players If you're playing 9/6
Jacks or Better variance is approximately 19.51
compared to say double double bonus
9/6 double double bonus has a variance
of 41.98 and and that's
twice the risk to your bankroll. If you want to hang on to your bankroll
variance or volatility is extremely
important and that is number two. The third good reason for choosing
Jacks or Better is promotional equity. Promotional equity
relates to how many entries you'll get into a drawing. The more
tickets you have the more entry tickets that you have the better your odds are
of winning the coveted prize so you want increased
equity or an increased number of drawing tickets
Since the variance is low as described in reason number two
you'll be able to play longer on the given bankroll
casinos determine how many entry tickets by something called
coin in which is the amount of money
you run through the gaming device. You will run through
approximately twice as much money on a given bankroll
say a hundred dollars with jacks or better than you will
on a high-risk game like double double bonus. Thus,
you increase the number of tickets you have and I call that
your promo equity. The fourth good reason
to select Jacks or Better play is increased comps.
We all want to have increased comps which is
giving you free food or free show tickets or anything the casino maybe offering
you will get double on a given bankroll than you will for high-risk game
like double-double bonus that I've been using in the other examples
So if you take say a hundred dollars with you to play in the casino
you might get twenty dollars in comps if you choose Jacks or Better
whereas you would only have ten dollars in comps
the odds are if you chose high-risk game like double-double
bonus. The more coin in, the higher your comps
will be. Reason number five
that you would select Jacks or better is more cash.
There are two kinds of cash that you can collect
the first is called bounce-back cash
that comes to you in the mail and it's to entice you
to come to the casino you'll get more bounce back cash
by increasing the amount of coin in that you have
on a given bankroll and also second kinda cash
is of course the slot club points
you cash in your slot club points if you have double the number of points
by choosing a low risk game like Jacks or Better
you will get double the amount of cash back when you go to collect your slot Club
points.
Reason number six is something relatively new we find in casinos today
they now give cards indicating levels
They'll have low roller, medium level
and a high roller sometime they'll have even more
levels. For you the player it's best to have the highest level possible
because there's more perks Associated with the higher
levels. By increasing the coin in you run through a machine
you will increase the likelihood of rising to a higher level slot club
card
thus, you'll increase your perks and benefits
Reason number seven is longer sessions
nothing worse than going to a casino with a group friends
and you're there until the group decides to leave all of a sudden
you have run out of bankroll. By playing a low volatility game
that pays more for frequent hands
like two pair Jacks or Better is the example
you'll be able to last longer the same thing is true
if you choose to go on vacation and you want to get in at least three
to four hours of slot play or video poker play
you're gonna last longer with a game like Jacks or Better
than something that runs through your bankroll real quickly like double double
bonus
or any video poker game that only returns
even money for two pair, a frequent hand.
Keep in mind Jacks or Better returns double your wager
for two pair, a frequent hand. Reason number eight
is Jacks or Better has an easy strategy
because it's very intuitive. By that
I mean most people are inclined when dealt two pair
to hold both pairs and that's exactly what you should do
with any version Jacks or Better. However, some games
you do not hold two pair for example if you're playing
double double bonus and you're dealt two pair
one pair aces the correct strategy
is the whole the pair aces so it's more complicated to learn the strategy for
games
like 10/7 double bonus or even
9/6 for any version of double double bonus
once you've learned the basic or key plays for Jacks or
better you'll be able to play any kind of format involving the games of jacks
or better. The number nine recent that jacks or better is a good choice for players
is it's a core game when you look at the place that have
a selection of games that you can play
Let me explain that sometimes you can play
a multi-hand game like three play or five play and so on
just to make the game a bit more exciting. Jacks or Better
is one of the core games you can select from. The same is true for games like
multi-strike, spin poker, quick quads
and there's a number of formats you can select from
Reason number ten that you would want to choose Jacks or Better as your game of
choice
is it's frequently found in a progressive version
sometimes you want to play 9/6 Jacks or Better
of course it's the best version but it simply isn't
available in the casino so the next best
would be an 8/5 progressive Many games are simply
not found in progressive form very often
For example deuces wild games are infrequently found in
progressives and when you do find them they're bad
versions. Not so with jacks or better
so if you can't find the 9/6 jacks or better
you're very likely to find an 8/5 progressive version
a good thing for you, the player. So there you have it
ten good reasons for choosing to play Jacks or Better
as your video poker game choice if I had to name
the most significant of these ten reasons
it would be the variance or the risk factor
because derived from the variance or risk factor
are several other advantages like the comp's
and increased number of promo tickets, increased
amount of cash that you earn, higher levels and that sort of thing
So Jacks or Better is a wonderful game for players
and its easy to learn with the most important and sigificant
factor that makes it such a great game being
the variance. Low variance, good game.
If you wanna learn more about me are my work I have a book
it's called the video poker edge it's published by Square One
out of New York I also write for three publications
Arizona player, southern gaming, and Midwest gaming and travel
I have an article in this year's American casino guide
as well. Don't forget that you can see more of our educational gaming videos on
our YouTube channel
just go to youtube.com/americancasinoguide