Video Poker Strategy – Wheel Poker
Video Poker is one of the most popular casino games, not to mention one of the fairest for casino gamblers. Because of this, it’s no surprise that there are plenty of new innovations and ideas in video poker, adding new twists to this classic casino game. One of these new video poker games is called Wheel Poker.
What is Wheel Poker?
In wheel poker, the basic structure of video poker is the same as always. You can play for one to five coins, in which case the game plays exactly the same as regular video poker. However, you also have the option of playing for a sixth coin, which adds a special bonus; if you make a four of a kind, you can spin a bonus wheel which pays out extra coins (usually ranging from 100-2000).
Wheel Poker can be played with a variety of different video poker games, such as Deuces Wild and Bonus Poker. In all cases, the wheel is activated only when a natural four of a kind is made. However, it’s worth noting that in games like Deuces Wild, a five of a kind with a single deuce or four deuces will also trigger the wheel.
Wheel Poker Payouts
As we said above, the wheel poker payouts range from 100 coins to 2000 coins. However, while all the spaces on the wheel may appear to be the same size, they’re actually weighted so that not every amount has the same chance of being awarded. Both the lowest payouts and the highest are less common than the amounts between 200 and 500 coins. In all, the average return on the prize wheel is about 428 coins.
For an example of how this changes the payouts for a video poker game, let’s take a look at a typical Double Bonus video poker machine – one that offers nine coins for a full house, seven for a flush and five for a straight. This is a fairly common payout structure that offers a 99.1% return. Normally, this machine also offers the following payouts for four of a kind:
• Four Aces: 160
• Four of a Kind (2-4): 80
• Four of a Kind (5-K): 50
These are the per-coin payouts; for instance, on a five-coin play, those four aces pay 800 coins. The bonus wheel, of course, will make these payouts much higher. However, the bonus is not per coin – it’s just a flat bonus. Here are the average per-coin payouts for the same game with the wheel bonus:
• Four Aces: 246
• Four of a Kind (2-4): 166
• Four of a Kind (5-K): 136
The increased payouts on four of a kind make the return on the machine slightly higher; instead of 99.1%, the Wheel Poker version of this game offers a 99.5% return.
Wheel Poker Strategy
Despite the bonus, wheel poker is not always a better game than the original video poker. This is because the machines still pay out winnings based on a 5-coin play, even though you’ve played a sixth coin to activate the wheel. The increased four of a kind payouts definitely offset this – but do they offer enough to improve the game to the player’s advantage?
The answer is usually yes. In most video poker games, it pays to play the six-coin, wheel bonus version of the game rather than the regular five-coin version. However, this is not the case on most Deuces Wild machines; for this game, sticking to the original game offers slightly better returns.
