Destiny Poker Video Poker Guide

Destiny Poker video poker makes sure that any deal with four cards of the same suit doesn’t go to waste. When you get a deal like this, you walk away with some excellent payback thanks to a few extra features. The drawback is that you have to bet a little bit more than the average amount to take advantage of these features.

Video poker began as an offshoot of the card-game known as Five-Card Draw Poker. The rhythm of play for both video poker and Five-Card Draw is the same—deal, discard, and draw.

In terms of video poker, you use this method to form one of the winning hands, with the minimum being a pair of jacks. That’s why the name of the most popular video poker game is Jacks or Better.

But video poker games soon began to branch out from this format. Online gambling sites began to offer their own forms of video poker. They wanted more variety, so they would mess around with the game.

Destiny Poker video poker is one of these variants that tinkers with the basic format.

One of the frustrating parts of basic video poker comes when you get a really promising deal but come away with nothing from it on the draw. But this game helps to fight against that.

Destiny Poker video poker plays out like normal video poker except when you’re dealt four of the same suit. You get one chance to draw the ideal winning hand.

If not, a pair of potential bonus rounds will open up to you. First, you’ll get to choose from all the cards remaining in the deck, on the screen face down, in an attempt to get the card you need. When you do get the card, you’ll get payback on the Destiny Poker video poker pay table and move on.

But if not, then you move into a match card bonus round. In this round, you can win bonus coins or free games. It depends on which cards you match up on the screen.

Having access to these bonuses ensures that you’ll walk away with something to show for it.

In addition, Destiny Poker video poker features a very aggressive pay table with plenty of jackpot-type payments for certain winning hands. You can win a lot in a hurry.

The big drawback is the size of the bet you make. Although the bets and payback are scaled a bit differently in Destiny Poker video poker than in most video poker games, you have to bet 20% more to have access to these features.

You’ll be betting more per hand, so your bankroll will sink faster during a losing streak in Destiny Poker video poker than it would on other video poker games.

In the following article, we’ll tell you all about Destiny Poker video poker. We’ll explain how to play basic video poker and talk about how the special features of this game come into play. Finally, we’ll talk about strategy that you can use for this game and what kind of payback percentage it offers.

Playing Basic Video Poker

Before you move on to a game like Destiny Poker video poker, with its special features and twists, it’s a good idea to have a foundation in basic video poker. As a matter of fact, once you know how to play a basic hand, you should have no problem understanding one of the many variations of video poker that are available to you.

For instance, you get the self-contained play of slot machines. There isn’t any reason for you to have to deal with casino employees or other gamblers. This means that you’ll enjoy great privacy and convenience without having to worry about casino etiquette or protocol.

But slot machines don’t allow you any control over gameplay. That’s where video poker leaves it behind. By using playing card probability and the pay table information, you can strategize your way to excellent video poker play.

Video poker is also good for your bottom line, as it offers excellent payback when compared to other casino games. And it provides an ideal online gambling experience. When you’re playing video poker at one of the top gambling websites, you’ll get the same experience, in both looks and gameplay, as if you were playing in the casino.

Those are just some of the positives attached to video poker. If you already know how to play, you can move ahead to where we talk about the special features of Destiny Poker video poker. But if not, check out this how-to to get yourself acclimated to video poker game play:

Step 1: The Bankroll

Your bankroll will be created by the money you enter into the video poker machine. If you’re playing video poker online, you’ll have to create a gambling account at the website of your choice then fund it with credit cards, cryptocurrency, or some other method. Once your bankroll is in place, you can make wagers and collect your winnings.

You’ll see your bankroll rendered on screen in units sometimes called credits, or coins. The amount of credits you have will depend on the denomination. For example, if you put $10 into a 25-cent machine, you’ll have 40 credits. (10 divided by .25 equals 40).

Step 2: The Bet

Destiny Poker video poker contains a slightly different format for wagering than most video poker games. In most video poker games, you’ll have a choice of wagering between one and five credits. You can raise or lower your wager each hand in increments of one credit.

But in Destiny Poker video poker, the increment in play is six credits. Your choices in terms of betting are as follows:

• 6 credits
• 12 credits
• 18 credits
• 24 credits
• 30 credits

Another difference in the betting for Destiny Poker video poker is that there is no incentive for wagering the maximum amount on each hand. Your payback for each winning hand will rise in direct proportion to the amount of credits that you wager. In most video poker games, a royal flush will pay at much better odds at the maximum-wager level, but that isn’t the case with Destiny Poker.

One thing you’ll find with Destiny Poker video poker, and we’ll talk more about this when we get to the pay tables, is that you’ll be betting more per hand in proportion to what you’ll receive in payback. This is how the game can afford to give you its special features.

Otherwise, the advantage would be skewed too much to the player and the house edge would disappear. And that’s not something that rarely happens in casino or online gambling.

Step 3: The Hand

As stated above, you’ll find playing video poker very similar to the format of Five-Card Draw Poker. You get five cards then decide what to hold and discard in both formats. And you’ll draw new cards for the discarded cards in both formats as well.

The main difference in video poker is that you’re the only one at the table, so to speak. As a result, you don’t have to worry about forming a hand so great that it beats multiple players. And you don’t have to worry about trying to bluff the other players either.

Instead, you’ll just be trying to make one of the winning combinations on the pay table. In Destiny Poker video poker, here are the basic combinations you’ll be trying to achieve:

• Pair of jacks or better
• Two pair
• Three of a kind
• Straight (five cards of consecutive rank, like 3-4-5-6-7)
• Flush (five cards of same suit)
• Full house (three of a kind and two pair in the same hand)
• Four of a kind
• Straight flush (straight with five cards of same suit)
• Royal flush (ten, jack, queen, king, and ace of the same suit)

When looking at this list, it’s important to understand the relationship between the possibility of making the hands and the payback attached to them. Hands at the top of this list will appear relatively often but don’t pay back all that much. Meanwhile, the hands at the bottom won’t come up much during gameplay but will pay a bunch when they do.

You’ll receive five cards on the deal once you make your bet and start the hand by pressing the “deal” button (or clicking on the icon). These five cards are from a simulated deck, one which contains the same 52 cards you’d find in a standard deck.

These simulated cards are always being shuffled behind the scenes by a random number generator. Whatever five cards are at the top of the deck at the instant that you hit the “deal” button, those are the five you’ll receive. And once the deal is done, the remaining 47 cards in the deck go right back to shuffling until the draw.

It’s important to understand that process, because many novice video poker players might think erroneously that what they get in upcoming hands will be based on what happened before. In actuality, your chances of receiving specific cards are the same, whether you’ve played one hand or a thousand on a specific machine or online game.

Making Your Decisions

You’ll have to decide when you see your five cards which ones you want to hold and which ones you want to discard. The ones that you keep will be a part of your final hand. Since the final hand is what matters, you have to try and choose cards that give you a good chance at a winning combination.

Meanwhile, the ones you discard will be replaced by others from the deck. For example, if you discard three cards, you’ll draw three new ones to round out your hand. These cards will come from the top of the deck in the same process that provided your deal.

How do you make your choices? Well, you have to consider what winning hands you might be able to make based on what you can hold and what’s left in the deck. Not only do you have to decide what hands you might be able to make, you also have to decide, based on their payback, whether they’re worth the chance you’re taking to get them.

To illustrate this process, let’s take a look at a sample hand of video poker.

Sample Hand

Let’s say you received the following deal:

There are no winning combinations in this deal. But there are several combinations which might be turned into winners if you can draw the right cards. You have to decide which ones you should try to get.

If you choose the pair, you’d have the best chance of forming some winning combination, but many of those combinations would pay back only a little. By going for the straight, you’d open up the chance for a mid-priced winning hand, but you’d only have one card to get it. And keeping the four, five, and six of diamonds gives you the least chance of making a winning combination but the best chance of earning a big payback.

As you can see, it’s all about risk versus reward. And that’s a concept that will come up over and over as you play hands of video poker. Making the right choices will maximize your winnings, and that’s something we’ll talk more about when we get to strategy.

In any case, you’ll press the buttons for the cards you want to hold (if any) once you decide. You’ll then activate the “draw” button to complete the hand. The discarded cards will be replaced and the highest-paying winning combination will be rewarded.

That’s how basic video poker works. Knowing that, it’s time to check out the special twists added to Destiny Poker video poker.

Destiny Poker Video Poker Special Features

As we mentioned above, Destiny Poker video poker will play out in the fashion of basic video poker on the vast majority of the deals that you get. The only time that it differs is when you receive four of the same suit on the deal.

To activate the special features, you must choose to hold those four cards of the same suit. If you discard one or more of them, you’ll get to draw like always. But the hand will end at the draw no matter what.

If you do hold the same-suited four cards, you’ll get one chance to draw the card that would make the highest-paying hand that can be made. What that hand is depends on what you are dealt.

Take a look at the following deals to understand what this means:

Deal 1:

Deal 2:

Deal 3:

In Deal 1, the best you can do with the four hearts is make a flush. But in Deal 2, you have a chance at a straight flush. And in Deal 3, you can make a royal flush.

The game will recognize this. If you hold the cards from these deals, the only way the hand will end on the draw is if you do indeed draw a card that completes the highest-paying hand. But if you draw something that makes a lower-paying hand, you will get paid for that but will still continue into the bonus rounds.

For example, let’s say in Deal 2 that you held the four hearts then drew a nine of clubs. That would give you a straight.

In that case, you would get paid for the straight according to the Destiny Poker video poker pay table. But you would still move on to the first bonus round, since you didn’t make the straight flush.

Bonus Round 1: Blind Draw

The first Destiny Poker video poker bonus round commences once if your normal draw doesn’t produce the highest-paid winning combination. You’ll see 47 cards appear on your screen, all face down.

Included in these 47 cards is the card that you just drew in the standard game. But the five cards that you were dealt will not be included.
You’ll be asked to choose one of these 47 cards blindly. When you do, the card will be revealed.

If the revealed makes the highest-paying winning combination, you’ll get the payback for that combination as listed on the pay table, the hand will be complete, and you’ll move on to your next deal. But if not, you’ll head onto the next bonus round.

Keep in mind that the same feature applies here as it did above, in that winning combinations that pay lower than the highest-paying possibility will be paid. And you’ll still move on to the next bonus round.

Bonus Round 2: Match Card

Assuming that you didn’t get the highest-paid combination from Bonus Round 1, you’ll move on the final stage. In this stage, you’ll see 30 cards on the screen.

These cards will also be face down. But instead of revealing typical playing cards, these cards will have prize amounts on their faces.

Some of these cards will award free hands. Others will have coin amounts listed on them.

You’ll begin turning over these cards one by one. Once you’ve turned over three cards with the same prize on them, you’ll win that prize.

These free hands can also be eligible for the Destiny Poker video poker bonuses if they qualify. Once you’ve played the allotted hands, you’ll go back to normal play.

Or you might end up turning over three cards that turn over something that says “3,000 coins” on it. In that case, you’ll immediately be awarded that amount immediately and you’ll go back to normal play.

What these bonus rounds add to Destiny Poker video poker is the assurance you’ll get something positive from a good deal. That isn’t always the case in basic video poker.

In addition, it will give you extra chances to earn a royal flush, which is the ultimate goal for any video poker player. And the bonuses can really provide a major boost.

As we look at the pay table for Destiny Poker video poker, however, we’ll see how the game adjusts the wagering slightly to its advantage. That adjustment will balance out the benefits brought about by the special features.

Destiny Poker Video Poker Pay Table

The pay table is where you’ll find how much you can expect to win for each winning combination based on the amount wagered. It’s also where you’ll get your strategy, since you’ll always want to make your decisions about which winning combinations to seek based on how much they pay.

In the case of Destiny Poker video poker, you’ll see a pay table that will look a bit different from ones you’ll find in other video poker games. The amounts on the table will all be a lot bigger than what you might be accustomed to seeing. That’s because those payback amounts are based on bets that are higher than normal.

As we said above, the bet possibilities in Destiny Poker video poker (6, 12, 18, 24 or 30 credits) are much different than the ones in basic video poker (1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 credits). Hence, the payback amounts are going to be higher on the Destiny table to account for that.

Let’s take a look at the Destiny Poker video poker pay table.

Coins/Hand	6 Coins	12 Coins	18 Coins	24 Coins	30 Coins
Royal flush	4,000	8,000	12,000	16,000	20,000
Straight flush	250	500	750	1,000	1,250
Four aces without any 2,3,4	2,000	4,000	6,000	8,000	10,000
Four 2s, 3s, 4s without any A,2,3,4	800	1,600	2,400	3,200	4,000
Four aces	800	1,600	2,400	3,200	4,000
Four a 2s, 3s, 4s	400	800	1,200	1,600	2,000
Four 5s through Ks	250	500	750	1,000	1,250
Full house	45	90	135	180	225
Flush	30	60	90	120	150
Straight	20	40	60	80	100
Three of a kind	15	30	45	60	75
Two pairs	5	10	15	20	25
Pair of jacks +	5	10	15	20	25

To compare, let’s now take a look at the pay table for Double Double Bonus video poker, which is the pay table on which the Destiny Poker video poker bases its payback.

Coins/Hand	1 Coin	2 Coins	3 Coins	4 Coins	5 Coins
Royal flush	250	500	750	1,000	4,000
Straight flush	50	100	150	200	250
Four aces without any 2,3,4	400	800	1,200	1,600	2,000
Four 2s, 3s, 4s without any A,2,3,4	160	320	480	640	800
Four aces	160	320	480	640	800
Four 2s, 3s, 4s	80	160	240	320	400
Four 5s through Ks	50	100	150	200	250
Full house	9	18	27	36	45
Flush	6	12	18	24	30
Straight	4	8	12	16	20
Three of a kind	3	6	9	12	15
Two pairs	1	2	3	4	5
Pair of jacks +	1	2	3	4	5

You’ll notice the proportion of the payback goes up at the rate on both pay tables. For example, the payoff for three of a kind on the Double Double Bonus pay table goes up three coins for each coin bet, until you reach 15. On the Destiny Poker video poker, the payback for three of a kind starts at 15 coins and then goes up by that amount for the other amounts wagered.

The key to understanding the difference is looking at the actual payback odds for both. And that has to do with the size of the bet.

Notice that the last column of the Double Double Bonus pay table is for five coins wagered. Meanwhile, the first column for the Destiny Poker video poker, with payback the same as the five-coin column in Double Double Bonus, is for 6 coins wagered.

In other words, you’re betting six coins in Destiny Poker video poker for the same payback as a five-coin bet in Double Double Bonus. And that discrepancy holds true throughout the entirety of the pay tables. You’re essentially paying a 20% premium in Destiny Poker.

Obviously, this extra bet is what pays for the extra features in Destiny Poker video poker. When you play Double Double Bonus, you won’t have the opportunity at any special features when you get four of the same suit. You just have to accept the draw as it is.

Volatility Factor

The Destiny Poker video poker pay table is one that lends itself to high volatility. In other words, you are prone to big swings between wins and losses as you play the game.

Notice that there are many significant paybacks in Destiny Poker video poker for four of a kind hands. This is common for “bonus” pay tables. It’s a way of giving players more chances at jackpot-style payback.

But you’ll also notice that there is only an even-money payback for two pair. On many video poker pay tables, you’ll be getting 2 to 1 for this hand.

Since two pair will appear often (about once every 10 hands) during video poker play, your bankroll will suffer from the discount. That drives up the volatility even further.

Of course, the flipside to that is that the bonus features yield even more chances at a high-payback hand. And when you get those bonuses, your bankroll will rise in a hurry.

All of this plays into the volatility of Destiny Poker video poker. Note that volatility isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It depends on what you’re trying to get out of the game.

For example, if you’re hoping to play for a long time on a small bankroll, Destiny Poker video poker probably isn’t the best choice. You run a much higher risk of losing our whole bankroll in a short period of time than if you were playing a low-volatility game like Jacks or Better.

But if you’re the type that wants to win a lot in a short amount of time, Destiny Poker video poker can provide you a better opportunity to do that than other games with lower volatility. The pay table and bonus rounds ensure you of that.

Payback Percentage for Destiny Poker Video Poker

Volatility measures the way that your bankroll will rise and fall while playing. But payback percentage will tell you what you can expect from your bankroll at the end of your play. It measures how much you can expect to retain from your original bankroll in an average session.

For example, if you were to break even in a video poker session, your personal payback percentage would sit at 100%. If you lost money, it would be lower, and if you won, it would be higher.

Each specific form of video poker yields its own payback percentage. It can be calculated by combining the chances of making each winning combination on the pay table with the amount of payback for each of those hands. You also have to take into account what special features, like the ones offered by Destiny Poker video poker, add to the equation.

In the case of Destiny Poker video poker, its payback percentage sits at approximately 98.5%, which means the house edge sits at 1.5%. That’s a solid, if not spectacular, total for video poker games. For comparison, the Double Double Bonus pay table above, with no special features but with the lesser betting requirement, pays back slightly better at 99%.

Destiny Poker video poker falls a little below that, but not too much. And as we said earlier, it’s a good game for those looking for a big payback boost in the short term because of it’s high-volatility structure.

Keep in mind also that payback percentage is a figure that will only predict your results accurately once you’ve played a game like Destiny Poker video poker for thousands of hands over a long period of time.

If you’re only playing once in a while, your results will be more so based on luck than anything else. Once you play for a long stretch, the luck will even out and you’ll see results that should mirror the payback percentage, assuming perfect strategy.

Strategy for Destiny Poker Video Poker

We ended that section with the phrase “assuming perfect strategy.” How can you devise perfect strategy for a video poker game like Destiny Poker video poker? Well, it comes down to the math.

Each time that you receive a five-card deal, you’ll have 32 different combinations of holds and discards at your disposal. No matter how many times you receive that deal, there is only one of those combinations that you should consider using. It’s the combination that brings the highest expected value of all 32 possibilities.

This is another area where you have to think long-term. In the short-term, you can get lucky on the draw and get the cards you need, even if you made an incorrect mathematical choice about what to hold and discard. But once you’ve played for a long time, it’s likely that the correct play will have returned more than any other possible play for that deal.

That’s what you have to figure out for each deal. When you consider how many deals there can be from a 52-card deck, it might seem impossible. And doing the math on your own is next to impossible.

So, what do you do? Get some help.

Getting Strategy Help

The good news is that Destiny Poker video poker, even though it’s a unique twist on video poker, provides no major difficulties in terms of finding the right strategy. Its pay table is essentially based on the same payback amounts as Double Double Bonus, which is a common game. As a result, information on how to play specific deals should be easy to locate.

Also, the special features for Destiny Poker video poker don’t really factor into the strategy in any way. You just need to make sure to hold the four cards of the same suit every time they come up instead of trying to go in another direction.

The bonus rounds are simply too valuable to ignore. As if to drive that point home, you’ll see that four cards of the same suit on the deal are highlighted when they appear on the Destiny Poker video poker. Even the game itself if telling you that you should make sure to go in that direction.

As for the rest, you just need to use one of the two main resources for learning perfect video poker strategy. Make sure that whichever one you choose is tailored to a Double Double Bonus pay table so that you get the proper instructions.

Here are the two methods for video poker instruction that we recommend.

Video Poker Strategy Charts

If you’re well-versed in how to play video poker, strategy charts will provide you with the quickest method of learning perfect play. You can simply memorize the charts and you’ll have the information in your head to use. Then, you just need to apply it properly.

A strategy chart ranks combinations of cards in terms of their expected value based on the pay table you’re using. When you see your own deal and know these values, you’ll know which combination of cards is the most valuable. And you’ll know that these are the cards that you should hold, discarding everything else.

Video Poker Training Software

Software might be a better way to go if you’re just learning how to play video poker. After all, a strategy chart will be confusing to someone who is new to video poker. In addition, the software will help you get the hang of bankrolls, betting, pressing the right buttons, and everything else associated with video poker.

You’ll basically be playing sample hands of video poker on the software. When you have to decide what to hold or discard, the software will tell you which direction you should be headed. After practicing for a while in this manner, you won’t need the help because the right plays will have been drilled into your brain.

Destiny Poker Video Poker Pros and Cons

Conclusion on Destiny Poker Video Poker

Destiny Poker video poker will satisfy those video poker players who’ve even been frustrated when a good deal turns into no payback. It will cost you to take advantage of this thanks to the significant bet increase. But it will also put you in range of jackpot-style paybacks to compensate for the size of the wager.