Video Poker Lingo

Ante: This is your initial bet.

Bad beat: This is when you lose with a strong hand., based on probability you should have won.

Bonus Poker: Jacks or Better variation.

Coin-In: This is the amount of money played through a video poker machine.

Countdown: This is a number on a card reader indicating the number of coins necessary to earn a comp. Sometimes used at online casinos where bonuses are based on amount of money wagered.

Drawing Hand: A viable hand that needs additional cards for improvement.

Flush: Five cards of the same suit.

Fold: This is when you drop out of the hand.

Full House: This is a hand consisting of three cards of the same rank and a pair.

Full-pay: The highest paying available form of a given type of video poker. Called 9/6 machines when playing Jacks or Better.

Inside Straight: A potential hand that can be made into by drawing one more card of a certain rank.

Joker Poker (Jokers Wild): Variation on Jacks or Better where there is one joker wild card in the deck.

Kicker: This is an unpaired card held in conjunction with one or more pairs . Never keep a kicker when playing video poker. You are not playing against any other players where this card would make a difference. Always try to draw a better hand instead.

Payoff or Payback: This is your expectation expressed as a percentage for a given machine.

Pay Table: This is the schedule of payouts for each winning hand, it will be listed on the screen. If not, be sure to ask customer service regarding it.

Penalty card: This is a discard than can affect the expected value of your cards held in your hand.

Perfect Pay: This is when you play each hand exactly as indicated by computer-derived strategies.

Progressive Jackpot: This is the constantly growing amount of money offered on linked video poker machines. Like progressive slots, you may have to be wagering a certain amount of money to qualify for this jackpot.

RNG: Random number generator. Computer chip that randomly selects results on machine.

Royal Flush: An ace high flush of all the same suit. The highest ranking hand in poker.

Short-pay: This is a type of video poker machine that pays less than the best machines of the same variation. It is always recommended that you play Full-pay machines.

Straight: This is five cards in sequence

Straight Flush: This is five cards in sequence that are all of the same suit.

Total return: This is your expected return for the whole game when played perfectly over the long run.

Triple play: This is a variation where your original hand becomes three separate hands.

Trips: This is slang used to describe three of a kind.