Best Video Poker Casinos UK
Video poker is the casino’s solo cousin to traditional poker, where you are the absolute center of attention. There won’t be any strangers eyeing your chips, and you won’t need to call anyone’s bluff. Just you, five cards on a screen, and a paytable telling you exactly what each hand pays. If you’d rather play against a machine than another person, you’re in the right place.
Below you’ll find the best video poker casinos in the UK, the variants worth knowing, the strategy basics, and a few things to look for before you load up your first hand.
Best Video Poker Casinos UK
New players only | Deposit & wager at least £10 to get free spins | Free Spins winnings are cash | No max cash out | Eligibility is restricted for suspected abuse | Skrill deposits excluded | Free Spins value £0.20 per spin | Free Spins expire in 48 hours |. Full T&Cs Apply.
*18+. New Players Only. 11 Welcome Spins on the Pink Elephants 2. Wager-free on your first deposit. Min £10 deposit. The Welcome Spins need to be activated in your account within seven (7) calendar days and used within 24 hours. Welcome offer: 10x Wagering. Game availability & restrictions apply. Full T&Cs Apply. Play Responsibly. GambleAware.org. #AD
18+ New players only. Min deposit £10 and £10 stake on slot games required. 100 Free Spins on Big Bass Splash credited automatically. Free Spins value: £0.10 each. Free Spins expire 48 hours after crediting. No wagering on Free Spins; winnings paid as cash. Full T&C’s apply.
New customers only. Enjoy 50 Free Spins on any of the eligible slot games + 10 Free Spins on Paddy’s Mansion Heist. Claim your 50 Free spins from your promotional hub. Next, enjoy your 10 Free spins on Paddy’s Mansion Heist (Awarded in the form of a £1 bonus). Finally, opt in, deposit and wager £10 to receive 200 more Free Spins on slots. Free Spins expire after 7 days. Deposits must be made using Pay by Bank, Apple Pay or Debit card. T&Cs apply.
New players only | Deposit & wager at least £10 to get free spins | Free Spins winnings are cash | No max cash out | Eligibility is restricted for suspected abuse | Skrill deposits excluded | Free Spins value £0.10 per spin | Free Spins expire in 48 hours | T&C’s Apply
#ad. 18+. Gamble Responsibly. Gambleaware.org. New players only. Min dep £10 (Excl. PayPal & Paysafe) & spend £10, to get 100 Free Spins. 10x wagering. Max win £200. T&Cs apply. Full T&Cs Apply.
18+. New Players Only. GambleAware.org Minimum Deposit £20, 10x Wagering in 7 days, Max Bet £5, Max Win applies., Spin value £0.1 each. 50 spins added immediately, 50 -24h later. Full T&Cs apply. Take time to think
18+. New Depositing Players Only. 25% Deposit Match Welcome Package. Claim up to £50 on your first deposit. Must be claimed within 7 days. Full T&Cs apply.
18+. New players only. Min. deposit £20. Max. bonus bet is £5. Welcome Offer is 50 free spins on Big Bass Splash on your first deposit and 50% match up to £50 on your 2nd deposit. To claim the free spins you also need to wager a minimum of £10 of your first deposit on slots. Free spins must be used within 72 hours. Winnings from free spins credited as cash funds and capped at £100. These cash funds are immediately withdrawable. Bonus funds expire in 30 days, unused bonus funds will be removed. Bonus funds are separate to Cash funds, and are subject to 10x wagering the total bonus. Only bonus funds count towards wagering contribution. Affordability checks apply. Terms apply. Please gamble responsibly. BeGambleAware.org
1st deposit | Deposit £20+ and Spin £20 | 100 Bonus Spins in Big Bass Splash | £0.10 spin value | Max bet £1 | Max cashout £100 | 1x wagering | Selected slots only | Expiry 7 d. | User Agreement & Bonus T&Cs apply Gambleaware.org #AD
New players only, £10 min fund, £100 max bonus, 10x Bonus wagering requirements, max bonus conversion to real funds equal to lifetime deposits (up to £250) full T&Cs apply.
1st deposit only | £10 min deposit | £50 max bonus | £0.10 spin value | £5 total spin value | x10 wagering | £1 max contribution to wagering | max cashout from bonus winnings: 3x bonus amount | max cashout from bonus spin winnings: £50 | 2-day offer expiry | offer is valid for selected games only
*18+ New members only. Must sign up via this offer link. Min £10 cash deposit and wager on any Slot Game only within 7 days of sign-up. Must accept free spins within 7 days of pop-up notification, valid for 7 days from acceptance on Eye of Horus. 10p coin size per free spin, max lines. Click here for full Rules & Exclusions. Bet Responsibly. Please gamble responsibly. GambleAware.org #AD
18+. New Customers Only. Stake £10+ across any QuinnCasino games, within 7 days of registration. Get 50 Free Spins (£0.10p spin value) on “Baa, Baa, Baa”, valid for 7 days. Free Spins winnings are real cash, max. £100. UK 18+ T&Cs Apply. Gamble Responsibly. GambleAware.org #AD
18+ | 1st Deposit Only | Min Deposit £10 | Max Bet £1 | Max Bonus £50 | Max Cashout X3 The Bonus | Max Cashout from Bonus Spin Winning £50 | X10 Wagering on Bonus and Bonus Spin Winnings | 2-days Bonus Expiry | 2-days Bonus Spins Expiry | Bonus and Spins Winnings are playable on any Slot and Scratch game, except for restricted-bonus games | BeGambleAware.org – T&Cs apply
How video poker works
The setup is straightforward. You place a stake, the machine deals you five cards, and you choose which ones to keep and which to swap out. After the swap, the machine pays out based on your final hand against the game’s paytable, and that’s the whole round done.
The hand rankings are the same as in any poker game, ranked from lowest to highest:
- High card: nothing in your hand combines
- One pair: two cards of the same value
- Two pair: two separate pairs
- Three of a kind: three cards of the same value
- Straight: five cards in sequence, any suit
- Flush: five cards of the same suit, any order
- Full house: three of a kind plus a pair
- Four of a kind: four cards of the same value
- Straight flush: five cards in sequence and the same suit
- Royal flush: 10, J, Q, K, A all of the same suit (the jackpot hand)
There’s one thing to know before you start. In most video poker variants, the minimum hand that pays anything at all is a pair of Jacks, and anything below that pays nothing, even though it would still beat ‘high card’ in a regular poker game. That’s why the most popular variant of the game is called Jacks or Better.
After the deal, your only job is choosing which cards to hold, and the maths behind that choice is what video poker strategy is all about. We’ve covered the basics a little further down.
Video poker strategy
Video poker is one of the few casino games where the choices you make actually move the maths. Slot reels just spin themselves and roulette wheels really don’t care what you do, but video poker hands you a genuine decision every round. You choose which cards to hold, and that choice is almost always either right or wrong.
A few basics that apply to nearly every variant:
- Always hold a winning hand. If you’ve been dealt a pay, don’t gamble on improving it unless you’re one card off a Royal Flush.
- Break up a pair to chase four to a Royal Flush. Counter-intuitive, but the maths backs it.
- Hold three to a Royal Flush over a low pair. The Royal pays so much more that it’s worth the swap.
- Don’t keep kickers. If you have a pair, throw the other three away. The machine has no memory.
- Learn the variant. Optimum play for Jacks or Better isn’t the same as optimum play for Deuces Wild. A pair of 2s in Deuces Wild isn’t a pair at all, it’s four wilds.
Most variants have a printable strategy chart that tells you the best hold for every possible five-card hand. They’re not glamorous, but if you play often, they pay for themselves. The Wizard of Odds publishes them for free.
A small caveat: optimum strategy doesn’t mean guaranteed wins. It means you’re getting the best possible long-run return from the game’s RTP. Variance still bites, and short sessions can go either way.
RTP and pay tables explained
RTP, or return to player, is the slice of all wagers a game theoretically returns to players over millions of hands. A game with an RTP of 99% returns £99 for every £100 wagered, on average, over the very long run. Emphasis on the very.
Video poker has some of the highest RTPs in the casino, but those numbers only apply to the full-pay version of each variant with optimum strategy. Casinos often run lower-paying versions of the same game, and the only way to tell the difference is the paytable.
Here’s a simplified Jacks or Better paytable:
| Hand | 1 coin | 5 coins |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Flush | 250 | 4,000 |
| Straight Flush | 50 | 250 |
| Four of a Kind | 25 | 125 |
| Full House | 9 | 45 |
| Flush | 6 | 30 |
| Straight | 4 | 20 |
| Three of a Kind | 3 | 15 |
| Two Pair | 2 | 10 |
| Jacks or Better | 1 | 5 |
A couple of things to spot. First, the 5-coin Royal Flush pays 4,000, not 1,250. That’s the bonus for betting max, and it’s the reason max-bet is the standard advice on full-pay video poker. Second, the 9 for a Full House and the 6 for a Flush is what makes this ‘9/6 Jacks or Better’. If you see 8/5 or 7/5 in those slots, the RTP drops by a percentage point or more for what looks like the same game.
If you want to play the variants with the strongest theoretical returns, our high RTP casino sites page is a quicker starting point than scrolling through every casino’s lobby.
Multi-hand video poker
Multi-hand video poker is the same game played across several hands at once. Most online versions offer 3-hand, 5-hand, 10-hand, 25-hand, 50-hand or 100-hand layouts. You’re dealt one set of five cards, you choose your holds, and those held cards lock across every hand. Each hand then gets its own draw from a separate shuffled deck.
So if you hold three to a Royal Flush, every one of your 25 hands keeps those three cards and pulls two fresh ones. One or two might hit. Most won’t. That’s the point. You trade big single-hand outcomes for smoother session variance.
A few things to know before you load up a 50-hand game:
- Your stake multiplies. A £1 bet on a 25-hand game is a £25 bet per round. Adjust your coin size before you click deal.
- Strategy is identical to single-hand. Same holds, same maths. The only thing that changes is your overall stake exposure.
- Variance drops, expected return doesn’t. You won’t win more on average. You’ll just win and lose in smaller chunks more often.
It’s a good format if single-hand video poker feels too slow, or if you’d rather spread the chase for a big hand across more attempts per round.
Bonuses for video poker players
Most online casino bonuses are written with slots in mind, so the small print matters more than usual if you’re a video poker fan. A few things to check before you claim a bonus:
- Game contribution. Slots usually count 100% toward wagering requirements, but video poker often counts only 10%, 20%, or sometimes nothing at all. A £100 bonus with 10x wagering and a 10% video poker contribution effectively means £10,000 of video poker play before the bonus clears, so always read the small print before you claim.
- Max bet caps. Many bonus T&Cs cap your bet size while you’re wagering, and a £5 max bet limit means you can’t play 5-coin max-bet at £1 coin sizes, which kills the maths on full-pay tables.
- Excluded games. Some operators flat-out exclude video poker from bonus play, which is frustrating but at least it’s honest.
The bonuses worth your time as a video poker player are a standard casino welcome bonus where video poker contributes at least 20%, a no deposit casino bonus (small but free, and a useful way to try a casino’s video poker lobby before you deposit), or a site offering no deposit free spins alongside their main bonus, which lets you bank a little balance to fund video poker hands later.
As of January 2026, the UKGC has capped bonus wagering requirements at 10x. So a £10 bonus that used to need £650 of play to clear now needs £100. That’s a meaningful change, especially for video poker players, who were always being squeezed by the combination of high wagering and low game contribution.contact the online casino directly.
Here are some trending bonuses currently found at UK online casinos:
What to look out for at a top-quality online video poker site
As nearly every online casino offers video poker, you may ask how can you tell which online casinos are worth dealing with, and which should be avoided. Here are three things you should definitely look out for.
Properly licensed and regulated
If you are in the UK and you want to join an online casino, then you will need to check to see if the online casino has proper licensing from the United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC). Any site that does not have a UKGC licence and yet offers its services to UK-based players is doing so illegally and as such, should be completely avoided.
A UKGC licence is designed to keep you completely safe. It means that the online casino is regulated and uses fair software that in turn uses an independently-audited random number generator to generate the outcome of its games, including its video poker games.
A variety of video poker titles from different game vendors
If you go to a cake shop, and they sell only one kind of cake, then you will soon get bored of getting the same cake every day that you go into the shop. The same is true of video poker at online casino sites. If a site just has one version of video poker, then you may soon get bored of playing the same game every time you visit.
The best sites will have a variety of online video poker games, including different titles from different vendors. The two game vendors you need to look out for are NetEnt and Microgaming.
Bonuses and fair wagering requirements
Most online casino sites will offer you bonuses along the way, but some bonuses are better than others, and indeed some bonus terms are so bad that there really is no point in signing up for an online casino that offers it.
As you become more experienced with online casinos you will learn how to recognise good bonuses from bad bonuses. You will also come to understand wagering conditions and game contributions, and how they affect a bonus deal’s worth.
How to play video poker
The first thing you need to learn about when it comes to online video poker games is the poker hands themselves. Here is a list of all possible poker hands, ranked in order of value:
- Straight flush: Five cards in sequence of the same suit
- Four of a kind: Four cards of the same value + one spare
- Full house: Three cards of the same value + one pair
- Flush: Five cards of the same suit but not in sequence
- Straight: Five cards in sequence but not of the same suit
- Three of a kind: Three cards of the same value + two spare
- Two pair: Two pairs + one spare
- One pair: One pair + three spare
- High card: A hand that does not fit into any of the above categories
Usually in poker, hands are ranked in order of the highest card, but in video poker this does not matter. You are rewarded by the highest type of hand you obtain.
You start a game of video poker by issuing your stake. This can be a fixed amount, or you can choose how much you want to wager. The more you wager, the bigger your potential prize.
Once you have placed your stake you hit ‘deal’. The video poker game will issue you five cards. You can then choose between one and five cards to ‘hold’. Once you have done this, all cards that are not held are re-dealt. This then forms your final poker hand. The object of the game is to obtain as valuable a poker hand as possible.
The amount you win depends on the hand you achieve. Each video poker game will have its own pay table, so you can see how much you are likely to win with each specific type of hand.
With most video poker games you will receive the chance to ‘gamble’ any winnings. This is in the form of a side game where you have to guess whether the next card dealt will be red or black, or if the next card dealt will be higher or lower than the previous one. If you are correct then your win is doubled, and if you are incorrect then you lose your winnings. Most games will allow you to keep gambling up to a fixed limit.
The different types of video poker game
There are many different types of online video poker game. Here is a quick review of some of the most frequently found.
Jacks or Better
This is the most popular online video poker game, and the one most commonly found at online video poker sites. This is also the most simple type of video poker game. It is called ‘Jacks or Better’ because in order to win, you need to finish with a hand that contains at least a pair of jacks. If you finish with a hand that contains a pair of tens or less than you do not win.
Obviously, all hands that rank above a pair of jacks are winners too.
Deuces Wild
In this game, all deuces (twos) are wild, can be used for any other card. For example, if you end up with a hand containing JJ962 then you have finished with a hand containing three jacks, as the deuce is ‘wild’ and can be used as the third jack to score a very good hand indeed.
Some hands containing wilds, for example, a royal flush, score less than hands that are ‘natural’ (i.e. contain no wild cards). In addition, a new poker hand ‘five of a kind’ is now possible. This scores higher than a straight flush. You will also win big if you finish with a hand containing all four deuces.
Joker Poker
This game can also be called ‘Joker’s Wild’. In the game a joker is added to the pack, making fifty-three cards. The joker is wild and can be used to substitute for any other card in the pack.
As with Deuces Wild some hands without a joker score higher than the same hands with a joker, and ‘five of a kind’ is a possible hand.
Aces and Faces
Aces and Faces is identical to Jacks or Better except that bonuses are paid for hands containing four aces, kings, queens or jacks.
Tens or Better
Identical to Jack or Better except that the minimum qualifying winning hand is a pair of tens.
Real money video poker
Is it possible to win real money playing online video poker?
Video poker is one of the best games to play if you want to make money playing online, although don’t expect to become a video poker millionaire overnight! Even the best games take some getting used to, and you will only win money if you know what you are doing. Take time to learn your game and the optimum strategy needed to play if you want to give yourself the best chance of winning some cash.
Is it safe to play for real money?
As long as you select an online casino that has a UKGC licence and has a decent privacy policy when it comes to your personal data, then you, your money and your personal information will be okay.
What is RTP?
RTP stands for ‘return-to-player’ and is the expected amount of money that will be returned to someone playing online video poker for an extended period, expressed as a percentage. For example, if a game has an RTP of 99% then after an extended playing period in which a player starts with £100, then should expect to have £99 left.
RTP is only a guide, and if you play video poker without an idea of what you are dong, then your return is likely to be much less. It should be used as a guide to the different types of video poker games and your chances of coming out on top. For example, Jacks and Better has an RTP of around 99.54%, and Joker Poker has an RTP of 98.6%.
Conclusion
Video poker is a fun and quick-fire game to play, and you won’t get eaten by poker sharks as yoy may do when playing with other online poker players. Why not sign up at one of our recommended trusted UK casinos here and find the video poker game that you like the most?
And if you fancy something more social, our online poker guide covers that side of the room.
