The biggest draw to video poker is the fact that players can actually beat the long-term house edge in some games. For example, full pay Deuces Wild (100.8% payback), Double Bonus (100.2% payback) and Double Double Bonus (100.1% payback) games all offer players the chance to win money - assuming perfect video poker strategy is used. This being said, many players wonder how realistic it is for one to beat video poker games over an extended time period, which is certainly worth examining.

Finding Full Pay Video Poker

One of the biggest mistakes among video poker players is assuming that all games are full pay (offer maximum payback available). But the reality is that the large majority of video poker games are not full pay, and players will have to look pretty hard to find these games. 

All video poker games must post their payouts (at least in land-based casinos), so you can easily tell if a game is full pay by looking at the payout screen. For example, in Deuces Wild, you would need to receive the following payouts to get the top 100.76% payback:

If you see payouts differentiating at all from these amounts, you know that the game is not full pay Deuces Wild. So basically, the key to knowing whether or not a game is full pay is simply looking at the payouts; as long as you know the full payout setup, you should have no trouble here. Furthermore, most casinos prominently advertise their full pay games in order to draw in players.

Chances of beating Full Pay Games

Once you've found a full pay Deuces Wild, Double Bonus or Double Double Bonus game, the next step is to beat it using good video poker strategy. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done because there's not much room for error when playing the game. 

With this being the case, you need to spend a considerable amount of time learning video poker strategy in order to beat the game. It always helps to use video poker training software to improve before you start betting real money. And if you don't have access to training software, there are websites offering video poker games where you're told when you make correct and incorrect moves.

In an overall sense, the more work you put into video poker, the more likely you are to beat the game one day.