Top Online Video Poker

After you've signed up to a real money online video poker site, head to the casino lobby and choose a game. Most Internet video card game casino websites will let you practice their games for play-money first before committing with some real bucks, so it's a good opportunity to try a few variants out first.

Once you've selected your game - kick off with something straightforward like Jacks or Better - choose your betting limits, and away you go.

After hitting the 'Deal' button you'll receive five cards face up. The aim is to get the best five-card poker hand after one draw - that is, one change of cards.

To do this, select the cards you want to keep, or 'Hold', and the ones you want to discard. The discarded cards will be re-dealt and you will be paid out if your hand qualifies.

Taking the Jacks or Better game as a good example (other variants of casino online video poker will behave differently) the minimum winning hand is a pair of jacks, hence the name. For that you will win one coin of whatever stake you're playing at. For the maximum bet of 5 coins you'll win 5 coins. Next best is two-pair, then three-of-a-kind, a straight, a flush, then a full house, four of a kind, a straight flush, and finally a royal flush, which pays out 4,000 coins. Some real money video poker games will pay out on a sequential Royal Flush - that is, 10, J, Q, K, A of the same suit, running left to right across the screen.

We're not finished there, however. After a win you can usually choose to gamble and go 'double or nothing' on your money. It adds a little more gambling fun to the casino video poker.

While Jacks-or-Better offers players in Australia the quickest gaming fix online, it's by no means the only video poker variation out there.

4-Lines Jacks or Better ups the action a little by letting you play four hands at the same time. Power Poker works in a similar way, but when you hold your cards in one hand - for example, holding an ace in card 1 and 3 - the first and third cards in every other hand will also become aces. It introduces a little strategy into play and makes for a really exciting casino video card game variation. Wild Card games

utilise a Wild card which can substitute for any card you're holding. Deuces Wild has the 2s as wild, while Joker Poker - another popular online video poker game you'll find at most decent Australian casinos - has the jokers wild.

Fair online video poker casino gaming relies on its RNGs (Random Number Generators) being totally above-board, and that means fair shuffling and dealing without the chances of glitches or impropriety. Check your Internet video poker casino homepage for the SSL and eCOGRA logos, or their equivalent - they're marks that the software all-round can be trusted.

If you're looking for the best online Aussie casino video poker, you've come to the right place. At casino.com.au we hunt out the top real-money rooms on the web to enjoy Jacks or Better, or even better!

At all of our recommended links you'll be able to try online video poker for free, and some will even allow you to play via your web browser on the go. Sign up with one of our great sites and earn the best video poker casino bonuses in town. Ripper!

The history of Australian casino video poker is virtually the history of online slots itself.

The first terminals appeared in Vegas casinos during the mid-1970s as TV-like monitors attached to gaming machines made it possible to play against the computer, with gamblers looking at the cards on-screen.

IGT - now a major player in casino slots - came out with the first major casino machine in 1979, called Draw Poker. The game took off massively, with many players in land-based casinos preferring the solitude of one-on-one gaming rather than playing at intimidating game tables.

As online slots first hit PCs in the mid-1990s, so the first online video poker games hit casino rooms on the web. You can now enjoy a bewildering array of games at an Internet video poker casino in Oz.