Red Black Double Double Bonus Video Poker Guide

Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker builds on a game that already has one of the most aggressive pay tables in all of video poker. It does so by adding another element to the pay table that really only exists in this particular game. An all-red or all-black run of cards from ten through ace will get you yet another nice payout in a game that is full of them.

Whenever you see “Bonus” in the name of a video poker game, you know that the pay table is going to be altered in some way. And, in most cases, the longer the name of the game, the more the game is tilted towards big payouts for relatively rare winning hands.

In the case of Double Double Bonus video poker, you’re looking at a game with pumped-up payouts for four of a kind hands. That also includes specific payouts depending on what the kicker card is within the four of a kind hand. Gamblers who play this game know that they have a decent chance at a significant payout on a single hand, certainly better than if they were playing a basic video poker game like Jacks or Better.

Well, Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker increases those odds by adding yet another hand that pays off extremely well and is exclusive to this game. It’s a kind of a play on a royal flush, only it is a much easier hand to achieve.

With that hand added to a long list of high-paying hands, you know when you play this game that there might be a big hand or two coming your way. The problem is that Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker pays relatively poorly for common hands that you might achieve during gameplay. That makes it one of the more volatile video poker games that you might find in a land-based or online casino.

We’ll take a close look at the gameplay of Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker and the twist this new hand adds to the game. We’ll talk about the pay tables you might find for the game and how they tie into the payback percentages that you can expect when you play. Finally, we’ll dive into strategies for winning, how you can learn them, and how this game stacks up with other video poker variations in terms of its benefits and drawbacks.

Playing Red Black Double Double Bonus Video Poker

People gravitate to video poker because of the way the game combines the best elements of both slot machines and table games. It matches table games because you can use your strategy to help you win. Meanwhile, it matches the solitary experience of slot machines in that it’s just you and the machine without any interruptions from others.

Video poker also makes for an excellent experience for online gamblers. After all, there is hardly any difference, visually, between playing the game via a phone, a tablet, or a computer screen. Many casino games lose a little something in the translation to digital realms, but that is not the case with video poker, which is the centerpiece of many reputable gaming sites.

With all that in mind, it’s understandable that gamblers would gravitate to games like Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker. Maybe you’ve already played video poker in the past and are just checking in to see what this unique variation is all about to know if it’s to your liking. But if you’re new to video poker, we’ll take you through the basics of gameplay for Red Black Double Double Bonus, which essentially match the basics for most video poker games.

Here is a step-by-step look at the process.

Step 1: Creating Your Bankroll

As you might expect, it takes money to make money when playing video poker. That means establishing a bankroll. The easiest way to do this is to insert cash or a redemption ticket with casino credit into the machine.

Gamblers who are playing Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker online will need to create an account to play. They will also have to fund that account to get started. Most sites accept credit cards as funding, although some of the more modern sites cater to those who like to pay with cryptocurrency.

The money that you use to fund your bankroll will be rendered in credits, or coins. A single credit will be equal to the amount of the denomination for the game that you choose. Some machines (and online casino sites with video poker) will allow you to choose between several denominations, such as a quarter or a dollar, while others may have the denomination predetermined.

It’s important to judge how much money you are going to need in your bankroll against how much you want to play the game in that session. Video poker tends to move fast, so you’ll need more than a handful of credits to sustain play unless you are very lucky. The more you play the game, the more comfortable you will be in terms of establishing your bankroll.

Step 2: Making Your Bet

When you play a hand of video poker, the minimum bet is one credit. In most cases, including Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker, the maximum wager is five credits, or coins. You can bet any number between one and five credits on any hand that you play.

Yet we highly recommend that you play the maximum five credits on every hand. Doing this gives you the opportunity to make the highest return on your wagering investment possible. It’s simple math, and it all has to do with the royal flush.

If you play between one and four coins, the payout for the royal flush is 200 coins for every coin that you bet. But if you play five coins, that payout jumps to 800 to 1. On the off chance that you do get the royal flush, you’ll want to make sure those five coins have been bet.

In fact, the percentage of return that you can expect from the machine drops somewhat if you don’t play the max bet for that very reason. That means that you should try to hit the “Max Bet” button if at all possible. If you can’t because you feel it’s too expensive to do so, you might want to switch to a game with a lower denomination.

Step 3: Playing the Hand

Video poker, including Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker, mimics a game that you might have played at home called Five-Card Draw. In that game, you get a deal of five cards. You then get to try to make the best winning hand possible by discarding the cards that you don’t want and having them replaced with others from the same deck.

The big difference is that Five-Card Draw is usually played among multiple people, all of whom are betting against each other to drive up the pot and hoping their hand is better than everyone else’s. But in the case of video poker, you are only trying to make a winning hand for yourself.

In the case of Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker, here are the potential winning hands that you might receive:

• A pair
• Two pair
• Three of a kind
• A straight (five cards in sequence like 7-8-9-10-J)
• A flush (five cards of the same suit)
• A full house (three of a kind of one rank and a pair of another rank in the same hand)
• 10-J-Q-K-A of the same color (red or black)
• Four of a kind
• Straight flush
• Four of a kind
• Royal flush

The one hand that stands out is the one for a ten through ace of the same color. This is the hand that pays off in Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker that doesn’t pay off in other forms of the game. For example, here are some hands that would qualify as winning hands thanks to this added feature:

Do note that all royal flushes technically fit this category as well. But if you get a royal flush, you will get paid according to the payout on the pay table for that specific hand. You won’t also get credit for having this same-color hand.

Another thing that comes into play in Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker is the concept of a kicker. Kickers come into play on four of a kind hands, and, as you’ll see when we get to the pay table section of this article, some are more valuable than others. Basically, a kicker is the fifth card in a four of a kind hand that isn’t included in the set.

For example, imagine the following hand:

In this hand, the two of hearts would be the kicker. And it’s a valuable one, as you’ll find out soon.

Knowing that these are the possible winning hands, and keeping kickers in the back of your mind, you must then try to achieve a winning hand — hopefully a lucrative one — through a deal and a draw in video poker. Once you make your bet, you can press the “Deal” button and get started with your hand. Five cards will appear on your screen, such as these:

In this five-card deal, there aren’t any winning hands right off the bat. But you know that you have a draw round coming, so there’s no need to throw in the towel. This is the part of the hand where the strategic element comes into play.

You have to decide which, if any, of these five cards you want to keep and which, if any, you want to discard. The discarded cards will be replaced by new cards from the same simulated deck from which you were dealt. That means that the new cards you receive can’t be ones that you already received on the deal.

Looking at this hand, you can see that you have a pair of sixes. Again, not a winning hand, but certainly something on which you can easily improve if you drop the other three cards. You could make anything from three of a kind to a full house to even — if you’re lucky — four of a kind, which is a big payoff in Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker.

But you also might notice that you have four hearts in that hand. That means that you are one away from a flush. And by dropping the six of spades, you could conceivably draw that flush if you end up with one of the ten remaining hearts in the deck.

In this case, let’s imagine that you go for the flush. As a result, you would press the “Hold” button underneath the four hearts that you received on the deal. You would then press the “Draw” button to see what your final hand will look like.

You might get your heart on the draw and get your flush. Or you could end up with another ace or king, which would be enough to get you even money as a pair of jacks or better. The worst result, obviously, would be if you drew nothing like that and ended up a loser.

If you do win, your winnings will be added to the credits you have in the machine. By contrast, a losing hand will get you nothing. Remember that the money from your bet will have already been deducted at the time you make the wager.

Step 4: Doing It All Over Again or Quitting

You can continue playing Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker as long as you have some credits still in the machine and can continue betting. All you have to do is repeat steps 2 and 3. Once you have exhausted all your credits, you will have to insert more money, or your session will be complete.

You can also walk away from the game at any time you wish to quit, even if you still have credits remaining. All you need to do is press the “Cash Out” button, and a ticket will be printed out for you, showing you how many credits you have left. If you want, you can take that ticket and play another machine or game, or you can redeem it for cash.

Pay Tables for Red Black Double Double Bonus Video Poker

Now that you understand the simple mechanics of playing hands of Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker, your next step is to figure out the pay tables. You might have seen them and had a vague idea that they tell you exactly how much you can expect from each winning hand you might make during gameplay.

What you might not have realized is that the pay table is an essential piece of information. That’s because each brand of video poker has a pay table that is structured in a special way, making them pretty much unique to each game. For example, Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker features a pay table that is drastically different than Jacks or Better.

On top of that, there will be several different pay tables that you might find under the Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker itself. That means that certain hands might pay slightly differently depending on the machine that you encounter. And that affects how much you can expect to get paid back from the game.

Let’s take a look at a pay table for Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker that is known as the full-pay version of the game. In other words, it returns the most to players, at least compared to other Red Black Double Double Bonus variations.

Red Black Double Double Bonus Pay Table

Coins/Hands	1 coin	2 coins	3 coins	4 coins	5 coins
Royal flush	250	500	750	1000	4000
Straight flush	50	100	150	200	250
Four aces w/ any 2,3,4	400	800	1200	1600	2000
Four 2s, 3s, or 4s w/ 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
A-K-Q-J-10 red or black	40	80	120	160	200
Full house	9	18	27	36	45
Flush	5	10	15	20	25
Straight	4	8	12	16	20
Three of a kind	3	6	9	12	15
Two pair	1	2	3	4	5
Pair of jacks +	1	2	3	4	5

For those who play Double Double Bonus video poker, you might quickly recognize that the pay table for Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker is very similar. The one big difference is the payout included for the hand with ten, jack, queen, king, and ace of the same color.

As for those who are relatively new to video poker, it’s important to give some context to this pay table, or else you might not realize how it affects gameplay and strategy. For that reason, let’s take a look at the full-pay table for Jacks or Better, which is the most commonly found version of video poker in casinos and online.

Jacks or Better Pay Table

Coins/Hands	1 coin	2 coins	3 coins	4 coins	5 coins
Royal flush	250	500	750	1000	4000
Straight flush	50	100	150	200	250
Four of a kind	25	50	75	100	125
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	2	4	6	8	10
Jacks or better	1	2	3	4	5

You can immediately see how different these two pay tables are. On the one hand, there are many more specific paying hands in Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker. That’s because you have the addition of kickers and the inclusion of the same-colored ten through ace hands that give the game its name.

You’ll also notice how much more aggressively the Red Black Double Double Bonus game pays off for four of a kind. The pay table is far more top-heavy than the Jacks or Better game.

The big advantage of the Jacks or Better pay table is that it rewards two pair at 2 to 1, compared to just even money for Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker. Two pair is a hand that comes up often during video poker gameplay, something like one in every ten hands. That means that you can sustain your bankroll for a long period of time without getting the big hands as often when playing Jacks or Better, and that’s no easy feat with Red Black Double Double Bonus.

You can see how knowing the pay table will also help you determine your strategy for playing the game. After all, knowing that four of a kind pays off so well in Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker means that you have to keep that in mind when making your decisions on holds and discards. Expert video poker players always tailor their strategy to the pay table they’re playing.

The other thing that you’ll find out about pay tables is that they are actually the determining factor for how much money you can expect, on average, to get back from a certain brand of video poker. That’s where the payback percentages come into play.

Payback Percentages for Red Black Double Double Bonus Video Poker

Imagine that you play a specific video poker game for the rest of your life, spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on that machine. As long as you’re playing the game expertly, your return on investment will likely mirror the payback percentage for that game. Payback percentages are determined by factoring in the probability of making winning hands with the pay for those hands.

If you were to play the game for just a short time, maybe a hundred dollars here and there, the payback percentage wouldn’t be quite as accurate. That’s because good or bad luck will have much more of an effect. The more that you play, the more the luck will even out, and the payback percentage will govern your results.

You want the payback percentage to ideally be above 99%. A machine that pays back 99% would give you, on average, $990 in return for every $1,000 played. That might seem like a loss, but when you factor in the free play rewards that you get for playing in a casino over time, that 99% can actually be turned into a profit.

Unfortunately, Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker falls a bit shy of that threshold in the full-pay version of the game. The payback percentage for the pay table listed above is approximately 98.6%.

On top of that, the full-pay pay table is not the only one you might see. There are other pay tables for Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker which reduce payouts for hands like the full house. When you see a reduced pay table, you have to understand that your payback percentage will be adversely affected as well.

Strategy for Red Black Double Double Bonus Video Poker

We showed you a sample hand of Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker above and how it could come down to a tough choice between two options. You might even come upon hands where the choice between what to hold and what to discard is even more complicated than that. But it’s crucial that you make the right choice because that’s the only way that you maximize your payback on the game.

The right choice is that choice that gives you the best mathematical chance at profits over the long haul. Just as is the case with payback percentage, luck will have a large impact on specific hands if you play them once or a few times. But when you see a certain combination of cards on the deal, there is always a play that will give you the highest expected value over the long haul, and that’s what you need to know.

In the hand that we played above, for example, the attempt to hit the flush by holding the four hearts was indeed the mathematically correct play. Let’s take a look back at that deal one more time:

But knowing what the right play is can be tricky, especially if you don’t have expert mathematical skills, in terms of probability, that you can display on the fly. That’s why it’s a good idea to get some help in that department. Here are the two best ways to do that.

Strategy Charts

A strategy chart, or card, is something that you can consult for just about any type of video poker game on the market. It takes the specific pay table into consideration and then calculates what the best plays are for each possible combination of cards you might receive on the deal. In that way, it does the work for you and allows you to benefit.

When you see a strategy chart online, make sure it corresponds to the game that you want to play. The strategy chart for Jacks or Better will look significantly different than the one for Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker because the pay tables are so different. Once you have the right one, you have to know how to read it.

The chart will list combinations of cards in ranked order. On top will be the best hands you could possibly be dealt in terms of expected value, and it will then progress down to the weakest hands. Your job is to compare the cards you have in your hand to what’s on the chart.

Using our example from before, you would look to see which is ranked higher on the chart: the four cards to a flush or the pair of sixes. Once you realize that it is the flush because that combination is listed higher on the chart, you can then know to discard the non-heart from your hand.

You can print out the strategy chart for Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker if you want and bring it to the casino. But it will slow your play down significantly to consult it on every hand. And the casino might not look too kindly on it.

The smartest move is to memorize the chart so that you immediately know the right play for each specific deal. In that way, you can achieve perfect play, although it might take you some time to do the memorization.

Video Poker Trainers

A video poker trainer is a software download that will demonstrate proper video poker play. You can get free ones off the internet if you wish. But it is advised that you purchase one in the case of Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker.

Video poker trainers work in simple fashion. They allow you to play simulated hands, and then they alert you whenever you make a mistake in terms of what to hold and what to discard. Again, they offer you the ability to learn the right plays without having to figure out the math.

After playing a while with the trainer, the right moves will become obvious to you when you play. And that will also lead you on the path to perfect play and maximizing your winnings.

Red Black Double Double Bonus Video Poker Pros and Cons

Conclusion on Red Black Double Double Bonus Video Poker

Red Black Double Double Bonus video poker adds just a little bit of a twist to your average Bonus play. If you see a bunch of high cards all the same color on the screen, you could be in luck, whether playing at your local casino or at one of the best online gambling websites. Just be prepared for your bankroll to sink if you don’t come up with some of the higher-paying hands.