Dice Fever Video Poker

Dice Fever video poker takes common video poker and adds a twist that might
appeal to the dice fans out there. Gameplay in terms of holding and discarding
the cards in your original deal takes place as any other video poker game might.
But for an extra coin bet above the max, and with a little luck on some
simulated dice spins, some free play might be coming your way.

You can play basic video poker, also known as Jacks or Better, any time you
like, either in a casino or as part of a top gambling website. It’s an easy
game to find and, when played well, it pays off quite nicely compared to other
casino games. However, it might lack a bit of excitement since only the royal
flush, which is extremely difficult to achieve, pays off at a rate that
resembles a jackpot.

Other video poker games have entered the fray in an attempt to up the
excitement level. Bonus games boost payouts for rare hands like a four of a kind
to give players more chances at top payoffs. Wild card games put those rare
hands well within reach.

On top of that, there are games that add some sort of gimmick or twist on
basic video poker play. Dice Fever video poker falls into this last category.
You can essentially play most of the popular types of video poker on a Dice
Fever machine by choosing your favorite pay table.

What Dice Fever adds is an opportunity to possibly earn valuable free play.
During the deal and then the draw, a set of five simulated dice will roll on the
screen. When you manage to get all five dice on the same number of these two
rolls, you pick up free play with a nice multiplier attached to it.

As you might imagine, these free play hands can really boost your winnings,
especially since you can continue to earn that free play as long as you manage
those five of a kind dice rolls. The only drawback is that you need to play six
coins per hand instead of the usual maximum amount of five coins to activate
these dice rolls. That means that Dice Fever is an expensive game to play if you
want the best return.

On top of that, betting six coins will only get you the payback for a
five-coin bet under normal circumstances. That means that you need those lucky
dice rolls to come around when possible. Otherwise, you will find your bankroll
diminishing very quickly.

This article will show you how to play basic video poker so that you can then
make the leap to Dice Fever video poker. We’ll explain how you can play Dice
Fever using the pay tables of several variations of video poker, and how those
tables affect strategy and payback percentages. Finally, we’ll look at both the
positives and negatives of this game so that you can make an informed decision
about whether or not it’s the right game for you.

Basic Video Poker Play

As we stated above, Dice Fever video poker adds an extra element to the video
poker play to which most people are accustomed. The good news is that, once it’s
activated, the dice element of the game will pretty much take care of itself.
All you have to decide is whether or not you’d like to go for it.

Video poker essentially mimics five-card draw. In that game, which many
people play at home with friends, players are tasked with making the best
five-card hands from a deal and a draw. Hands run from a simple pair all the way
to the extremely rare royal flush.

In video poker, players earn money for making these winning hands. You can
play video poker at your own pace, far away from the pressure of table games.
But it also beats slot machines because the paybacks are better and the
probabilities that are involved make gameplay more reliable.

The probabilities come from the fact that video poker uses, in most cases, a
52-card deck just as would be used if you were playing at home. Knowing these
probabilities will help you decide which cards are worth holding and which you
should discard. And that’s another advantage of video poker over slots: Your
decisions will make an impact on how well you do.

Here is a brief rundown on the process of playing basic video poker.

Establishing Your Bankroll

When you put money into a video poker machine, you are setting up the
bankroll you will use to play. If you’re playing online, you will need to create
an account by depositing funds. In any case, you will also pick the denomination
that you want to play.

Gameplay is based on a credit system, with each unit of the denomination that
you choose being equal to one credit or coin. For example, if you put one dollar
into a machine and choose a nickel denomination, you will have twenty credits.

Making Your Bet

Most machines allow you to bet between one and five credits. In the case of
Dice Fever video poker, you will have the option to bet a sixth credit so that
you can activate the dice option on the game. Playing six coins per hand is
actually the best option if you want to maximize your winnings in this game.

Barring that, you should at least play five credits. Otherwise, you are
short-changing yourself if you should manage a royal flush hand. On most pay
tables, the odds paid out for a royal flush with one through four coins bet is
significantly lower than with five coins wagered.

Playing a Hand

Once you press the “deal” button, you will receive five cards from a
simulated deck of 52. This deck is constantly being shuffled by a random
generator inside the machine. At the moment you press that button, the top five
cards will arrive on your screen.

While the results of the deal are random, they are still bound by the
probability inherent in the 52-card deck. Let’s say that the following five
cards show up on your screen:

Out of these cards, you can keep or discard any number of them. Two possible
seeds of winning hands might become apparent to you if you’ve played five-card
draw video poker in the past. There is the pair of threes, and there are also
four hearts, which is one card shy of a flush.

Deciding on the Draw

You now must make a decision on what to hold and what to discard. In this
case, it’s not an easy decision.

The pair of threes, while not a winning hand in itself, can become a two
pair, three of a kind, a full house, or even a four of a kind. But all it takes
is one heart on the draw to make the flush.

The mathematically correct play, based on probabilities and on most video
poker pay tables, is to keep the hearts and go for the flush. If you played this
hand forever, keeping the four hearts would make you the most money. On a single
hand, however, luck will play into the outcome a great deal.

Once you have made your decision, the computer will draw cards from the same
simulated deck from which you were dealt. Since you are only discarding the
three of clubs, you will receive one card from the top of the deck (at the time
you press the button) to replace it. Let’s see what happens on the draw:

Congratulations! You made your flush. That pays off, depending on the pay
table, somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 to 1 or 6 to 1.

Doing It All Over Again

You can continue to repeat that process for as long as you wish, as long as
you have remaining credits in your bankroll. Once you run out of credits, you
either have to replenish your supply or quit. If you want to quit with credits
still remaining, the machine will print a ticket which you can redeem at your
leisure.

And that’s pretty much the whole process for basic video poker. Now that you
know all that, you can start to look at the special aspects of Dice Fever
gameplay, specifically the dice option that you can activate with a six-coin
wager.

The Dice Fever Video Poker Twist

If you play Dice Fever video poker while betting one through five coins,
gameplay will go on as listed above. But, if you wager a sixth coin, a special
option is activated. This is the dice roll portion of the game.

Here’s how it works:

1. At the same time your cards are dealt, the machine will simulate a dice
   roll containing five dice. The odds of your receiving any number on the dice
   (from 1 through 6) are the same as if you were rolling at home, which is 1
   in 6.
2. The goal is to receive five dice of the same number (as if you were
   playing Yahtzee.) The
   computer will automatically “hold” the most matching dice and discard the
   rest. For example, if your roll contained a 1, three 4s and a 6, the machine
   would hold the three 4s. If there is a tie in terms of which dice number
   shows up the most, the machine will keep the higher number, with 6 the
   highest and 1 the lowest.
3. When you do your draw, the machine will once again roll, although this
   time it will only roll the dice which weren’t held. If, after the second
   roll, all five dice have landed on the same number, you will receive the
   bonus free play.

Now, let’s examine the rules of the free play for Dice Fever video poker:

• The five of a kind dice roll kicks off five games worth of free play
  where the player can play without making a wager. All of the base payoffs
  for the hands played during free play will be based on a five-coin wager.
• During free play, a 3x multiplier will be in effect. For example, if you
  make a hand during free play that pays off five coins normally, the pay will
  be bumped up to 15 coins, which is 3 times the original five.
• The dice will continue to roll during free play. And, if you should get
  another five of a kind during one of these free play rolls, you can activate
  five more free spins. Up to 100 free play hands can be earned at once.
• There is a special 5x multiplier in place on any hand during free play
  that, because of a five of a kind dice roll, triggers more free play.
• There is also a special 5x multiplier tacked on to any royal flush hand
  (ten through ace of the same suit) that is dealt in free play mode. No
  special multiplier is attached if you get to the royal flush on the draw.

Volatility of Dice Fever Video Poker

Basically, you are paying that extra coin for the privilege of possibly
getting the five of a kind roll. Your chances of activating the bonus lie
between one and two percent. That means that one or two out of a hundred hands
played, on average, will get you the bonus.

Those are not the best odds, obviously. Now consider that you are essentially
paying six coins for five-coin payouts. That limits your chances to make money
when you are not in free play mode.

As an example, when you’re playing Jacks or Better video poker under normal
circumstances, a pair of kings would pay even money, which essentially returns
your wager to you. But if you were playing a Jacks or Better pay table and going
for the Dice Fever bonus, you would be paying six coins. That means that the
same pair of kings would bring you a net loss of one coin.

That aspect of the game makes Dice Fever a high-volatility prospect. Games
that are high volatility allow you the opportunities for quick, big payouts, but
they also increase your risk of quickly diminishing bankrolls.

You can limit the volatility somewhat by choosing a pay table (more on that
below) from a variation, like Jacks or Better, that is low in volatility on its
own. Or you can double down, so to speak, and look for Bonus games. If you can
hit a Bonus hand while in free play with the multiplier, your winnings will jump
exponentially.

The volatility factor is something you have to consider when playing Dice
Fever video poker. If you’re the type who wants to go for big winnings and
aren’t too worried about losing your bankroll, it can certainly pay off for you.
On the other hand, you might want to give the game a pass, or play it without
the bonus, if you’re hoping to play for a long time with a small bankroll.

Possible Pay Tables and Payback Percentages for Dice Fever Video Poker

When you play Dice Fever video poker, you can generally choose between many
variations of video poker as your core game, so to speak. In other words, you
have many different pay tables at your disposal. The rolling dice aspect can
then be laid on top of any of those games.

From the pay tables, which are charts showing how much each winning hand will
play, we can also derive payback percentages. A payback percentage is a
mathematical estimation of what a player can expect to return from a given
machine. For example, a game with a payback percentage of 99% would, on average,
return $99 to a player who puts $100 into it, which would be a $1 loss.

Of course, just because a game possesses a payback percentage, it doesn’t
mean that’s what you can expect. Luck is heavily involved in video poker,
especially if you’re only playing for a short amount of time.

You might get lucky enough to activate free play when playing Dice Fever
early on in a session, and that will dramatically improve your chances of
winning and boosting your own personal payback. Or you might encounter a tough
streak of luck that causes you to lose your first ten hands. The bottom line is
that, over time, the probabilities of the poker hands and dice rolls will bring
the payback percentage near to the amount that is quoted.

The following is a typical pay table you might choose on a Dice Fever video
poker machine. This pay table is based on Jacks or Better, which is the most
basic video poker game found in casinos and online:

You can see that the pay table shows all of the hands which will win you
money and how much each one returns to you. Again, if you are betting the sixth
coin in Dice Fever video poker, you will be paid from the 5 coins column. And,
if you activate free play, you would also refer to the five coins column to see
what your base winnings are before the multiplier is applied.

If you were to play that pay table and not bet the sixth coin, your expected
payback would come in a 99.54%. However, if you should bet the six coins every
hand, the earnings from potential free play would boost the payback to 99.89%.

Here are some of the other games that can also be played using the Dice Fever
twist on the game. The payback percentages listed are the highest we could find
for those versions. You might find others with lower paybacks, so be sure to
cross-check the pay table with the percentages to get the most out of your game.

• Bonus Poker: 99.51%
• Bonus Poker Deluxe: 99.98%
• Deuces Wild: 100.07%
• Deuces Wild Bonus: 99.79%
• Double Bonus: 99.45%
• Double Double Bonus: 99.32%
• Triple Double Bonus: 99.92%

Keep in mind that both the Deuces Wild and Deuces Wild Bonus games
incorporate wild cards into the action. A wild card can be turned into the
whatever card improves your hand the most. In these games, the four twos in the
deck are designated as wild cards.

All of the percentages listed are those which can be expected by playing Dice
Fever using the sixth coin and activating the dice rolls. In each case, payback
percentage is slightly less if you play without the sixth coin and don’t have a
chance at free play.

Learning Strategy for Dice Fever Video Poker

Because Dice Fever encompasses so many different games, it’s impossible to
pin down a single strategy. For example, your strategy for Jacks or Better will
be different in many areas than it will be for Triple Double Bonus. That’s
because the pay tables are different in many ways.

Your best bet is to look at the pay tables and strategies for each specific
game. A good place to start is by perusing through our video poker
section and looking at all the base games listed above.

Once you know the strategy for each individual game, you can approach the
payback percentages above. Those percentages refer to someone who can play the
game without making any mistakes in terms of what to hold and what to discard.
Video poker training software and online strategy charts can help you achieve
perfect play for the pay table of your choice.

At the point that you have the strategy down for the games within Dice Fever
that you want to play, you just have to decide on whether or not to play for the
bonuses. As we mentioned above, it’s mathematically in your favor to do so. But
it’s an expensive prospect and leads to volatility of play, so some people might
be more comfortable playing five coins instead.

Pros and Cons of Dice Fever Video Poker

Conclusion

With a little bit of dice and a little bit of poker involved, you get quite
the mixture when you play Dice Fever video poker. It isn’t a cheap game to play
if you want to maximize your winnings, but seeing the five of a kind dice roll
on the screen and knowing that free play with multipliers is coming your way can
make it all worthwhile.