Cryptologic Bonus Video Poker

All online gaming software providers offer the standard video poker games in their suite. These games are offered in single hand and in multi-hand formats. Some online gaming software providers offer, in addition, variants to the standard game. For example Microgaming offers Level Up video poker. Cryptologic offers Bonus Video Poker.

In standard video poker games the player holds certain cards from the initial five cards dealt. He then asks for a replacement of the remaining cards. The cards to be replaced go out of play. This means that the deck from which fresh cards are dealt does not contain these cards. This is natural because the player does not want these cards in his hand. In Cryptologic's Bonus Video Poker the cards which are to be replaced are returned to the deck. The deck is then shuffled and the fresh cards are dealt. This means that the discarded cards have a chance of being dealt again. This is obviously disadvantageous to the player. Bonus Video Poker compensates the player by awarding bonus credits if a discarded card is dealt again. Other than this difference the procedure of play is the same as that in the standard game.

Cryptologic offers the following video poker games in its Bonus Video Poker series: Super Jackpot, All American, Deuces Wild, Double Bonus, Jacks or Better, Joker Poker and Tens or Better. The games can be played with 3, 5, 10, 50 or 100 hands. The Jacks or Better variant with 3 hands is used to describe the procedure of play.

The coin denomination varies from $0.10 to $5.00. The player first chooses the coin denomination, which converts his balance to number of credits. For example if he chooses $1.00 as the coin denomination then a balance of $1000 gets converted to 1000 credits. If he chooses $0.10 as the coin denomination than a balance of $1000 gets converted to 10,000 credits. Next the player decides how many coins per hand he wants to wager. He can choose from 1 to 5 coins. The player should bear in mind that the payout for the royal flush with 5 coins is an enhanced one. This decides his bet for the deal, which is shown on the right-hand side of the screen. Once the player clicks on the Deal button his account balance is appropriately reduced. Before clicking on the Deal button the player can cancel his bet by clicking on the Clear Bet button.

The cards are dealt in one hand only to start with. If the player has a winning combination a text message appears on the screen specifying the hand ranking, which simultaneously gets highlighted in the payout table on the left of the screen. Once the cards are dealt the player has to decide which cards he wants to hold. He does this by clicking on the selected cards. When he does so, the same cards appear in the remaining two hands. The player can reverse his selection by clicking again on the cards marked as Hold. Then when the player clicks on the Draw button the following steps take place. The discarded cards are displayed at the bottom left of the screen. Each of the three hands gets fresh cards to replace the discarded ones. Winning combinations are marked with the hand ranking and the appropriate payout is shown in the Paid cell. For every card that had been discarded but has been dealt again the payout is shown separately as Bonus Paid and also added to the amount in the Paid cell.

Cryptologic's Bonus Video Poker has a "double" game that can be played by clicking on the Double Up button. This is a voluntary game and the player need not play it but can collect his winnings. If the player decides to play this game then the dealer's card is dealt face up and four cards are dealt face down. The player selects one of the facedown cards by clicking on it. If this card happens to be higher ranked than the dealer's card then the player gets his payout doubled.