Guide to Regal Poker Deluxe Video Poker

Regal Poker Deluxe video poker provides an excellent change of pace for those who are weary of stagnant payback amounts on other video poker pay tables. It provides a uniform boost for four of a kind hands to give players something else to shoot for as they play. To compensate for this, the pay table drops payback for two pair, one of the most common winning hands of all.

In the world of video poker, Jacks or Better is the most well-known game of them all. It was the format used when video poker was first created years ago. And it still reigns supreme as the most common of all video poker pay tables found in casinos and in online gambling websites.

The lure of Jacks or Better is that it’s easy to play and relatively simple in terms of strategy. You get paid strictly based on the likelihood of a certain hand appearing during gameplay. When playing Jacks or Better, the more likely it is that a hand will appear, the less you get paid, and vice versa.

The problem with this style of play is that it doesn’t offer many chances at quick, significant payoffs. To win, you have to go in knowing that you’re going to have grind it out. Not everybody has the patience for that, and many people might want a quicker fix.

Pay tables that differ from the Jacks or Better template have become more popular for those very reasons. Many creators of online-only video poker games jumped into the fray to create their own unique pay tables. Regal Poker Deluxe video poker stands as one of those attempts for online gamblers.

When you play Regal Poker Deluxe video poker, you’ll do all the same things as if you were playing Jacks or Better. You receive five cards and have the chance to decide which cards to hold and which to discard. The discarded cards get replaced by others as you try to form a winning poker combination.

But the difference can be found in the pay table. You’ll notice that four of a kind hands are paid much more aggressively on a Regal Poker Deluxe video poker. In fact, you’ll get more than three times as much for the hand as you would playing Jacks or Better.

That gives you increased opportunities for monster payoffs when playing Regal Poker Deluxe video poker. You might have to adjust your strategy a bit to account for the higher payback for “quads.” If you can do that, you can see your bankroll take a big leap in a hurry.

Yet that boost for four of a kind comes at a price. You won’t receive as much for two pair as you would on other pay tables.

As a result, your bankroll might struggle in those periods when you aren’t getting the high-paying hands. This is why Regal Poker Deluxe video poker is known as a high-volatility game. You’ll have to decide if you can deal with the ups and downs.

In the following article, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about the game known as Regal Poker Deluxe video poker. We’ll show you how to play and talk about the special features on the pay table. Finally, we’ll talk about the payback that you can expect as well as looking into the best strategy available to you to maximize your winnings.

The Benefits of Video Poker

If you’re only a casual video poker player or even a complete beginner to the game who wants to get started with an online game like Regal Poker Deluxe video poker, you might not realize all the good things waiting for you. Many casino games are set up to be against you. In terms of friendliness to gamblers, however, video poker is right at the top of the list.

Perhaps that’s because video poker takes many of the best elements of table games and slot machines for its own. The combination is much stronger than the sum of its parts. For that reason, you’ll find many gamblers who will play nothing other than video poker.

To give you a better idea, here are some of the advantages that video poker provides.

• Video poker is a one-person experience. For those who cherish privacy when they gamble, this alone can make video poker worth your while. Along with slot machines, it’s one of the only casino games that lets you avoid the prying eyes of other gamblers.
• Video poker is a snap to learn how to play. You should be up and running within a few minutes once you get the hang of what a winning poker hand looks like. And if you already know that, it will take even less time.
• Video poker comes in many different varieties. We’ve already talked a little bit how just a simple change to the pay table can create something new and different. But there are also video poker variations with special features, multiple-play options, wild cards, and many other tweaks to the basic format.
• Video poker offers you the chance to use some strategy. Luck is still involved in the outcome, but you can also have an impact based on the cards that you hold and discard each hand. That separates video poker to any comparisons to slot machines, where strategy isn’t really a part of the game.
• Video poker gives you access to all the information you need to succeed. Probability math will tell you the likelihood of you achieving certain hands, and the pay table will reveal what each of those hands pay. As a result, you can tackle video poker without having to worry about anything hidden that could compromise your chances.
• Video poker stands tall in the payback department. This is another area where the game easily outranks slot machines. Many video poker pay tables can even offer payback on par or better than the top table games.
• Video poker is a great game for online play. When you’re playing video poker at one of the top real money casino sites, you’ll experience pretty much the same sights, sounds, and gameplay as if you were playing in a casino. And you’ll get the same kind of variety as well with many different types of games that are online-only, such as Regal Poker Deluxe video poker.

These are just some of the benefits that you’ll enjoy when playing video poker. If you already know how to play, you can skip the next section and move down to where we talk about the pay table for Regal Poker Deluxe video poker. But if not, you might want to check out the step-by-step tutorial we have coming up for you.

How to Play Video Poker

Step 1: Establish a Bankroll

It’s necessary to have a bankroll when playing video poker so that you can make wagers and collect your winnings. You can establish a bankroll online by first signing up for an account at the website offering Regal Poker Deluxe video poker. Once you’ve done that, you can fund that account with a credit card or perhaps other alternative methods.

When you create the bankroll, it will show up on the actual game screen divided into units such as credits or coins. These units will be directly related to the size of the denomination you’re playing. For example, if you’re playing a game with a denomination of 25 cents, one credit will be worth 25 cents, two credits will be worth 50 cents, and so on.

Step 2: Make a Bet

Many people believe that you can only exert your strategy by the cards you hold and discard once you get into playing the hand. But betting is actually a part of strategy as well. It’s easy to get it right, yet many players go against this simple advice and end up costing themselves money.

As you’ll see when we get to the pay table for Regal Poker Deluxe video poker, most winning hands raise their payback directly in proportion to the size of the wager. The all-important exception to that is the royal flush.

When you achieve a royal flush on a bet of one through four coins, you’ll get paid 250 to 1. That payback jumps to over three times as much when you bet five coins and make a royal flush, as you’ll get 800 to 1. That’s a 4,000-coin payout on a single hand.

Some people lower their bets because they’re trying to keep their bankroll afloat longer. Others might try to switch their bets up as they try to “time” winning hands. In both of these cases, you’re short-changing yourself.

Each hand is random and independent of others, which means that trying to time the game is useless. As for keeping your budget down, you should lower the denomination if you want to do that. Lowering the size of your bet, in terms of credits per hand, will cost you if you get lucky enough to score that royal flush.

Step 3: Play a Hand

A hand of Regal Poker Deluxe video poker plays out in a similar fashion to a hand of the card game known as Five-Card Draw, at least in terms of the actions you can take as a player. In both games, you’ll get five cards on the deal, choose to hold and discard each of those cards, and then receive cards on the draw to replace the discards. The object is the same as well, as you’re trying to achieve the best possible poker hand.

Five-Card Draw may have the same structure, but it differs in what you need to do to win a hand. A game of Five-Card Draw generally features multiple players. And you have to beat them all, either by forming the best hand or bluffing everybody into quitting to take the pot.

But in video poker, it’s only you playing the game. You don’t have to worry about bluffs or other players. Instead, you just have to concentrate on forming one of the winning hands on the pay table.

What are those winnings hands for Regal Poker Deluxe video poker? Take a look.

• 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)

As you look at this list, the hands at the top are ones that will come up with relative regularity, due to the probabilities involved. Hands at the bottom are harder to achieve. For the most part, a hand will pay more than the others above it on the list that are easier to attain.

The Deal

Five cards will appear on your screen the moment you activate the “deal” icon. These five cards will come from a simulated deck containing the same 52 cards you would find in any regular deck. The game’s software shuffles the cards behind the scenes with a random number generator in the software.

The moment that you hit the button for the deal, the top five cards will appear. And the same process takes place after the deal commences, as the 47 cards left in the deck will begin shuffling again.

What this means is that your chances for receiving certain cards or winning hands are completely based on probability. Don’t expect certain cards to show up because you haven’t seen them in a while in previous hands. That is as damaging strategy-wise as trying to time your bets.

Making a Decision

You will assess your five cards for possible winning combinations. Remember that you don’t necessarily need one of those combinations right off the bat. The draw can bring you a winning combination as well.

You should be looking to see if any of the cards that you have are worth holding. The cards that you hold will be a part of your final hand, which will be the basis of you winning or losing the hand.

Any cards that you don’t want to hold will be discarded. They’ll be replaced by other cards on the draw using the process we described above. You won’t be able to get the cards you discarded back in your hands on the draw.

The choices that you make about holds and discards should be based on which cards could possibly be useful in a potential winning hand. But you should also be thinking about the payback for those winning hands. There will be times when you should risk losing a hand completely in an effort to corral big payback.

Let’s take a look at a sample hand to see how the process plays out.

Sample Regal Poker Deluxe Video Poker Hand

Imagine that you receive the following five cards when dealt a hand in Regal Poker Deluxe video poker.

None of the card combinations here, no matter how you configure them, make up a winning hand. But there is potential in several of the combinations that you have, depending on what you can draw. Choosing which route to pursue is how you’ll exert your strategy playing Regal Poker Deluxe video poker.

Here are the three choices that stand out among the cards that you have.

• Hold the pair of fives. You’d be dropping three cards in this scenario, in an attempt to match the fives or get other cards that match in rank. For example, you could end up with two pair, three of a kind, a full house or four of a kind.
• Hold the four spades. Looking at the list of winning hands above, you can see a flush is made when every card in the five-card hand is the same suit. You have four so far, and you could conceivably draw a fifth spade if you drop the five of diamonds.
• Hold the five, six, and seven of spades. Having three suited cards that are consecutive in rank puts you two cards shy of the straight flush, one of the highest-paying hands on the pay table. You’d be dropping two cards in this case, which would leave open the opportunity for you to draw many other winning hands besides the straight flush.

Each of those options has its own risks and rewards. You have to decide which option is the best. When we get to the strategy section, you’ll better understand the right and wrong ways to make these decisions.

The Draw

Going back to our walkthrough of playing a hand, the last step is the draw, which comes after you decide on your holds and discards. This will complete the hand.

First, you have to indicate which cards you want to hold by clicking on them (if any). The cards you don’t indicate will be discarded once you press the “draw” button, so make sure your choice is final.

When you hit the “draw” button, the cards you’ve discarded will be replaced to finish the hand. At this point, if you have formed a winning combination, credits will be added to your bankroll according to what the pay table suggests. The bet that you made will have been deducted at the start of the hand, which means any winnings you earn will include the initial bet.

After that, the hand is over. You can move on to the next hand if you choose. As long as you still have credits in your bankroll, you can play another hand by repeating the steps.

Most video poker games are played in that same exact fashion. Where Regal Poker Deluxe video poker separates itself is in its unique pay table. Let’s take a look at what we mean.

Regal Poker Deluxe Video Poker Pay Table

It’s important that you take a good look at the pay table before you begin any video poker game. First of all, it will tell you about how the game stacks up against others like it. And it will also let you know what your strategy should be, since it’s important to go after hands based on what they pay.

Let’s take a look at the Regal Poker Deluxe video poker pay table that you’re most likely to find online.

Hand/Coins	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 of a kind	80	160	240	320	400
Full house	8	16	24	32	40
Flush	5	10	15	20	25
Straight	4	8	12	16	20
Three of a kind	3	6	9	12	15
Two pairs	1	2	3	4	5
Jacks or better	1	2	3	4	5

How can you tell from this pay table what you’ll win on a hand? Just follow the rows and the columns until they intersect.

For example, imagine that you managed a straight on a five-coin bet. Follow the “straight” row over to the “5 coins” column and you’ll see the number 20. Hence, you’ve won 20 coins, with a profit of 15 once you take into account the initial bet.

Without having played a lot of video poker, you might not be able to tell what makes Regal Poker Deluxe video poker unique. For that, you have to add some context. Take a look at the pay table for Jacks or Better, the most popular of all video poker games, for some of that context.

Jacks or Better Pay Table

Hand/Coins	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 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

The Jacks or Better pay table is set up in direct alignment with common rankings for poker hands. For example, if you were playing Five-Card Draw, a flush would beat a straight. That’s why a flush pays more than a straight on the Jacks or Better pay table.

But Regal Poker Deluxe video poker upends that just a little bit. If you’ll notice on that pay table, four of a kind pays more than a straight flush, at 80 to 1 to 50 to 1. Yet when you play video poker, you’re far more likely to encounter a four of a kind hand than you will a straight flush.

With that change, Regal Poker Deluxe video poker immediately gives you much more of an opportunity to come out of a single hand with a big payoff. It makes it an excellent game for casual players who want to make a lot of money quickly. You won’t have to grind your way to winnings in the same way that you might if you were playing Jacks or Better, where four of a kind pays only 25 to 1.

But Jacks or Better does enjoy some advantages over Regal Poker Deluxe video poker as well. You’ll see that the Jacks or Better game yields 9 to 1 for a full house and 6 to 1 for a flush. Regal Poker Deluxe only gives you 8 to 1 and 5 to 1 for these hands.

In the grand scheme of things, you might not be too worried about those discounts, especially considering what you get from the four of a kind hands when playing Regal Poker Deluxe video poker. But when you look a bit further down the pay table, you’ll find a discrepancy that really makes a difference, and not in a good way.

On the Regal Poker Deluxe video poker, two pair pays even money (1 to 1). In other words, you’ll be getting the amount of your bet back so that you break even on the hand.

But when you play Jacks or Better, you’ll be getting 2 to 1. This is important because two pair is a hand that will come up often as you play. As a matter of fact, you can usually attain two pair once every 10 hands or so.

What does the discount on two pair do to your bankroll? Well, you won’t get the same kind of boost that you normally get from it. As a result, you’ll have a harder time keeping your bankroll level as you wait for the high-paying hands.

What this all means is that Regal Poker Deluxe video poker is a game with higher volatility than Jacks or Better. The highs and the lows will be amplified.

On a good note, you’ll have more opportunities for the big scores as you play. But the downside is that you’ll be more probe to damaging slumps.

Knowing that Regal Poker Deluxe video poker possesses such volatility, you’ll need to adjust your bankroll if you want to play it for a long period of time. If you don’t raise the bankroll, you might find that one of those slumps ends up draining your bankroll completely. Should that happen, you might never get a chance at one of those high-paying hands.

One other pay table that might be relevant here is for a game called Bonus Deluxe Poker. You’ll be able to find this game pretty easily in casinos. Take a look.

Bonus Poker Deluxe Pay Table

Hand/Coins	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 of a kind	80	160	240	320	400
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
Jacks or better	1	2	3	4	5

You’ll probably notice that the Bonus Deluxe pay table is strikingly similar to the Regal Poker Deluxe video poker. The only differences come in the full house and flush, where Bonus Deluxe offers 9 to 1 and 6 to 1 respectively compared to 8 to 1 and 5 to 1 for the Regal Poker Deluxe game.

Obviously, in terms of payback, you’d be better off with Bonus Deluxe, since it has the edge in those two hands and all other hands are equal. Yet the online format offered by Regal Poker Deluxe video poker holds its advantages as well, especially in terms of convenience. You’ll have to decide which mean more to you when you choose which game to play.

Payback Percentage for Regal Poker Deluxe Video Poker

For long-term, serious video poker players, payback percentage is the most important of all measuring sticks. If you’re someone who fits that category, you won’t be worried as much about volatility, since you’ll likely have the kind of bankroll in place to withstand the ups and downs. But payback percentage is the bottom line.

Payback percentage measures what you can expect to remain from your bankroll after playing a specific video poker game and betting all of that bankroll. 100% would mean you could expect to break even. Less than 100% means that you expect to lose money, and over 100% means you can expect a profit.

Keep in mind that most video poker games are set up to be under 100%. The house edge is necessary, or else casinos and online gambling websites would go out of business. Ideally, you’d like the payback percentage to come as close to 100% as possible.

In the case of Regal Poker Deluxe video poker, the payback percentage sits at 97.4%. That puts the house edge at 2.6%. With a hypothetical bankroll of $1,000, you’d end up with $974 still remaining, leaving you with a loss of $26.

How does 97.4% rate? Well, it’s a little on the low side if your goal is to make a profit playing video poker over the long haul.

If you found a game with payback at 99% or higher, it would keep the house edge way down. That would allow you to recoup those losses through rewards offered by gambling websites.

At 97.4%, Regal Poker Deluxe video poker probably won’t provide you with that opportunity. As a result, it isn’t the best game for long-term profit-seekers.

It is, however, a great choice for those looking to win big in a hurry. Those boosted four of a kind hands join the straight flush and the royal flush as hands which soar above the rest on the pay table. Strike it lucky with one of those hands early in a session and you could walk away from your Regal Poker Deluxe video poker action with a significant profit.

Strategy for Regal Poker Deluxe Video Poker

Video poker strategy isn’t as easy as you might think. You might play it for the first time and be faced with a lot of easy choices and think it’s simple to figure it out on your own. But when you’re faced with a decision about what to hold and discard that isn’t as clear-cut, you could make a mistake.

Making a mistake doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll lose the hand in question. You could get lucky with the draw and pull the hand out anyway. But making mistakes will eat at your potential payback percentage, because that luck will eventually even out the more that you play.

Your goal when playing video poker is to select the combination of holds and discards that maximizes the potential value of the deal. That might sound easy, until you consider there are 32 different possibilities in each five-card deal. Only one is the mathematically correct one.

You also have to realize that each pay table should be played with its own separate strategy. This can also complicate matters, especially when you come to a unique pay table like Regal Poker Deluxe video poker.

As an example, consider the following deal.

That might seem like a no-brainer in terms of what to hold and discard. You have two pair right off the bat, so that would seem like the obvious choice. And if you’re playing Jacks or Better, it certainly is the right play.

Two pair yields 2 to 1 on a Jacks or Better pay table. As we said above, doubling your bet like that is extremely valuable. You can potentially draw a full house as well with this deal.

But what if you were playing Regal Poker Deluxe video poker? Remember that we talked about the fact that two pair only pays even money on that pay table. And that essentially means that the pair of jacks that you have, which also pays even money, is as valuable as the two pair.

Don’t forget the enhanced value of four of a kind on the Regal Poker Deluxe video poker pay table. You won’t give yourself any chance at that hand if you decide to hold the two pair.

When you take all of this into consideration, the right play on this deal in Regal Poker Deluxe video poker is to hold the pair of jacks and discard everything else. Figuring all of that out in the middle of a video poker session would be extremely tough. That’s why we suggest you get some help to learn perfect Regal Poker Deluxe video poker strategy.

Video Poker Strategy Resources

As daunting as it might seem to learn the right plays for every possible deal you might get playing Regal Poker Deluxe video poker, it isn’t all that hard if you use the right resources. These resources allow you to benefit from the work that others have done, usually via computer programs, to find out the right plays in every situation.

Once you avail yourself of one of these resources, all you have to do is learn the information that’s been gathered for you. It might take some time, but you can achieve perfect play in this manner.

Here are the two methods that we highly recommend.

Video Poker Training Software

The advantage of training software is that is allows you to learn while you play. It’s set up so that you can play sample video poker sessions and it will teach you as you go. You can learn the whole of video poker in this way and not just a specific game.

As you play, you’ll be faced with decisions about what to hold and discard. You can have the software help you along the way, or you can play it out and have the software tell you when you make a mistake. With either method, you’ll learn the perfect strategy for the pay table you choose.

Strategy Charts

A strategy chart ranks all of the possible card combinations that you might receive in a video poker deal that have the potential to become winning hands on the draw. The higher on the list a card combination is situated, the more valuable it is. Once you have the information from the chart in your head, you’ll know what cards to hold and what to discard in every instance.

The best way to use a strategy chart is to memorize it. If you find that’s daunting, at least concentrate on the list entries that might seem difficult to remember when compared with others. You could also play online with a strategy chart next to you, although consulting it constantly would slow play down.

Regal Poker Deluxe Video Poker Pros and Cons

Conclusion on Regal Poker Deluxe Video Poker

Regal Poker Deluxe video poker will have you on the lookout for four-of-a-kind possibilities whenever they might arise. You might not like the idea of only getting even money for two pair. But if you can stand that, you could really benefit from the quick-strike opportunities this online video poker variation provides.