One of the more popular games played in the casinos these days is video poker. It’s being played both off and online. What keeps most people from really winning is the fact that they only approach playing as fun. They don’t even believe they can win, lets shed a different light on that type of thinking.

There is one thing that’s true, if you want to learn how to win at video poker you will probably not find it as fun as just playing blindly. It’s not hard to learn how to win, the truth is winning requires the player to become more mechanical at playing.

The Emotional Rush

When someone gambles isn’t it the “emotional rush” that makes playing fun? It is a feeling of excitement, this is one factor that the casinos exploit and use to their advantage to increase their odds. You get your kicks and they get your money.

The very first thing someone has to do to become a winning video poker player is control these emotions. For some people, as mentioned, this takes the fun out of the game and they don’t care if they win or lose. I can tell you though, this kind of fun can quickly become addictive and then destructive. If you give it a chance, you will find winning at video poker is more fun than losing.

The casinos perpetuate your emotions by offering free drinks and food. You will find out over time that what you thought was a free drink has now cost you hundreds of dollars.

Winning at Video Poker

Remembering that video poker is still gambling, we must find ways to neutralize the casinos odds.

There are three areas we must look at: Technical play, money management and timing.

Always remember these are machines, computer driven devices that run in cycles. The only people that have any clue about these cycles is the cash department of the casino. They know how much money a machine has taken in and given out. So the question is, how does the average player deal with cycles?

The answer to this boils down to testing and knowing when to keep playing or move on to another machine. This is where money management comes into play. If you allow emotions to rule your play, as you might have seen, many players get sucked into playing a video poker machine that is way off cycle, but they continue to pump money in it, why? Revenge, chasing money, maybe thinking the machine just has to pay, you name it, emotions play a big role in this type of “erroneous thinking.”

There are strategies you can learn to overcome these losing habits.