Nickel and Quarter Video Poker Machines: This page explains the differences between nickel and quarter video poker machines and one and five coins play.
Video Machine Dogma: Gaming columnist often state as dogma that video poker machines must be played at maximum bet mode to qualify to the jackpot and in such way increase the payout percentage. They also note that betting the maximum number of coins may be quite expensive and recommend doing so at video poker machines with lower stakes. For, example, if 1.25 dollars bet at a quarter machines seems too high to you, you can switch to nickel machine and bet as much as 25 cents per game. Is it True? Well, the first part of the statement is quite reasonable. Qualifying to the jackpot increases the payback percentage to about 1.5%. Although the jackpot can only be won with a royal flush, which is extremely rare hand and thousands of games are requested to take advantage of these 1.5%, it still is an advantage. If a player has enough money and patience he will win the jackpot sooner or later. If such player plays a full pay machine and bets the maximum amount he will profit (or at least stay with his money) after a very large number of games if he will not run out of money before that, so profiting from video poker is possible, but requires a lot of time and budget.
However, the second part of the statement is not complete. Although nickel video poker machines require a smaller bankroll, it is very important to pay attention to the payout table of such machine. Betting the maximum amount at a nickel machine will still give you 1.51% advantage qualifying you to the main jackpot, but it is quite possible that other payouts will annul this advantage and even make the odds worse than those of a quarter machine played with one coin only.
For example:
Jacks-or-Better quarter machines in downtown Las Vegas pay out 9 to 1 for a full house and 6 to one for a flush. The maximum bet is required to qualify to the jackpot, so betting 1.25 dollars you increase your odds by 1.5%. If you do not want to bet this money and go to a nickel machine of the same type, you will discover that exactly the same Jacks-or-Better machine that accepts nickels instead of quarters offers only 8 to 1 payout for a full house and 6 to 1 payout for a flush, so betting the maximum amount (25 cents) at such machine also increases your odds by 1.5%, but lower payouts for a full house and a flush, decrease them by 2.2%, so betting the same 25 cents at a quarter machine will be more profitable. Exceptions: This is the most common case, but there are exceptions. In Las Vegas there are a lot of quarter and one dollar full pay video poker machines, but you will barely find a full pay nickel machine. However, there are nickel machines with better payout tables. Some Jacks-or-Better machines, for example, offer 7 to 1 payout for a full house and 5 to 1 payout for a flush. With such payout table, the difference between a nickel and a quarter video poker machine payout rates is only 1.15%, which, taking into the account a 1.5% advantage for playing the full bet, makes betting 25 cents at such machine more profitable than betting the same sum at a quarter machine. This, however, does not eliminate the house advantage.
In any case, it is not recommended to play 2, 3 or 4 coins at any machine. Only 1 and 5 coin modes have their strategic advantages. Betting one coin instead of five slightly changes the basic strategy for the game, primary eliminating the elements aimed to a royal flush.
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