Many of our regular readers will be very familiar with the terms high-volatility or low-volatility, but many players out there immediately associate the terms with slot games. While this is perfectly fine, many people out there do not realise it also applies to other casino games, including video poker. Whether you’re playing your favourite casino game at an online casino, or in a land-based one, volatility is something you’re going to have to get used to.
The volatility of any game determines how often it pays out and how big those payouts are. A game with low volatility means it pays out often, but they will be small payouts most of the time. In contrast, a high-volatility machine will need you to keep feeding it coins and it may feel like it is eating all your money, but when you win, you win big.
Some players out there have compared video poker to a reverse roller coaster when it comes to its volatility. When you look at a regular roller coaster at a theme park, it involves the people climbing slowly up the track before plummeting very quickly.
It’s the other way around with video poker, with players slowly losing money but suddenly winning a lot of money when they manage to land a good combination. But how do you tell if a video poker game is high or low volatility?
One easy way to tell is to look at the number of adjectives in the name, the more it has, the higher its volatility.
Something like Jacks or Better tends to have a much lower volatility than some other video poker games out there, where as something like Triple Double Bonus Poker has a much higher volatility.
The odds aren’t actually working against you but the pay tables in these high-volatility games don’t reward the winning hands that tend to be easier to get. However, the more difficult winning combinations will pay out a lot more.
That’s up to each individual player to decide. Some players prefer small, regular wins while others can go ages without a win because they know the big win will make them feel better. You’ll need to look at your bank account as well, no point playing a high-volatility game if you can’t keep the money flowing into the machine between wins.
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