Guide to Playing Magic Deal Poker Video Poker

Magic Deal Poker video poker offers one of the most interesting variations on a video poker game with an extra feature. It is not a cheap extra feature, since you will need to double your bet just to put it into play. But it increases your overall payback percentages and offers the opportunity for really massive winnings when the “Magic Deal Card” shows up on your screen.

Most video poker games are played as a simulation of five card draw poker that you might play at home with a deck of cards. You get your deal, make your decisions, and draw what hopefully turns out to be a winning hand. And, for many people, that is all the excitement that they need, especially since video poker can be a well-paying game in casinos and on top gambling websites.

But many people crave a little bit more excitement and the chance to reap big winnings in a very short time. That is why video poker manufacturers came up with both Bonus poker games, which amped up the payouts for rare hands and wild card games, which offered the chance for players to make those rare hands with more regularity.

On top of that are the video poker games which add an extra feature to spice up normal play. Magic Deal Poker video poker sits in that category. And like most of these games, it requires a higher bet on each hand for you to set the extra feature into motion.

But that extra feature makes it worth your while. On the deal, you have the chance to receive one, two, or even three cards that are labelled as Magic Deal Cards. These cards can then be transformed into whatever cards help your hand the most on the draw.

Keep in mind that Magic Deal Poker video poker is played in multiple play mode, where you can play three, five, or ten hands at a time. A single deal governs all of those hands. That means that Magic Deal Cards almost ensure you of a winning hand for each of those distinct draws.

In the following article, we shall explain basic video poker and how to play multiple hands at a time, since they will both come into play in Magic Deal Poker video poker. We’ll talk about how the Magic Deal Cards work and how they can absolutely ignite your hands. Then, we’ll look at the various pay tables that you can use within this game and how you can strategize to max out your possible winnings.

Playing Video Poker

One of the cool things about video poker is how, by learning the basic game and the rhythm of play, you can easily segue into playing other variations of the game like Magic Deal Poker video poker. And once you learn how to play the basic game, you also might discover all of the cool benefits there are to playing the game. You’ll find that video poker takes some of the best elements of both slot machines and table games and mashes them up into unique entertainment.

In terms of payouts, video poker generally outranks slot machines and stands with the best of table games. It resembles slot machines in that you can play it in a solitary fashion. You play against the machine with the ability to avoid any hassles from other patrons or casino employees.

Slot machines feature random results and don’t allow you any chance to affect the outcome of each spin. The results of video poker are largely determined, over the long haul, by the probabilities you have of making winning hands. You can also impact whether or not you win a specific hand by the decisions you make while playing.

Video poker takes only minutes to learn, really, especially if you have a little bit of a background in poker hands. You can learn quickly even if you’ve never played a hand of poker in your life. Here is a step-by-step walkthrough of how to play.

Step 1: Inserting Your Money

You’ll need some sort of bankroll to play video poker if you wish to make some money playing the game. The bankroll will come from the money, or redemption ticket, that you insert into the game to begin. If you are playing online at a gambling website, you’ll need to establish an account to play.

Many video poker machines come with a set denomination, which will equal the amount of a credit or coin in the game. Or you might come upon a machine which allows you to choose your denomination. Denominations can run from a small amount like a penny or nickel or a larger amount like a dollar or more.

The amount of credits that you have to start will be equal to the amount that’s been entered in the machine divided by the denomination of the machine. For example, if you put $20 in a machine that has a denomination of 25 cents, you would have 80 credits (20 divided by .25).

Remember that you should base your bankroll on how long you wish to play. Video poker can be played pretty quickly, so you can blow through a small bankroll in a hurry. You should also be aware of the style of the game you’re playing. For instance, Magic Deal Card Poker video poker will be an expensive game to play with the extra feature in action.

Step 2: Making Your Bet

In most video poker games, you will be tasked with choosing how many credits you want to bet per hand, and that number is usually between one and five. As we will explain a little bit later, Magic Deal Card Poker video poker offers you the chance to increase your bet so that you can activate the Magic Deal Cards.

It is important to note that the maximum bet is always the most beneficial one to make for the gambler. That is because the payment for a royal flush is significantly higher in terms of odds for five coins or, in the case of Magic Deal Poker video poker, ten coins played. You will be short-changing yourself if you don’t go with the max bet when you can afford to do so.

Step 3: Playing Your Hand

Once you have made your bet and hit the “Deal” or “Max Bet” button, five cards will appear on your screen, as if from a standard deck of 52 playing cards. These cards will ideally comprise one of the winning hands on the pay table of the game that you’re playing. While some pay tables differ a bit, here are the hands that will generally pay you something back in video poker:

• Pair of jacks or better
• Two pair
• Three of a kind
• Straight (five cards in consecutive order)
• Flush (five cards of the same suit)
• Full house (three of a kind and a pair in one hand)
• Four of a kind
• Straight flush (straight with cards of the same suit)
• Royal flush (ten through ace of the same suit)

Sometimes, you’ll have a winning hand right off the bat. But more often than not, you’ll need to try to improve to a winning hand with the help of the draw round. On the draw, you can discard the cards that you don’t feel are helping you and have them replaced with new cards from what is remaining in the deck you were dealt from.

The decision about what cards you want to hold and which you want to discard is the moment that you’ll be able to affect gameplay in video poker. Your decision should be based on your probabilities of reaching certain winning hands and how much those winning hands will pay out. For example, you might receive these five cards on the deal:

In this hand, you don’t have any winning hands right off the bat. But you could certainly improve it on the draw. The key is to make the right choice about which possible winning hands you’ll be aiming for on the draw.

For instance, you can keep the pair of sixes which could lead to two pair, three of a kind, a full house, or even four of a kind. You also are just one shy of a flush, since you have four diamonds in your hand. And you also have the frame of a straight flush in place, since you would need just the ten of diamonds and the queen of diamonds to complete it.

These kinds of decisions can be difficult for a novice player. You can learn about how to play with the correct strategy below. But in this case, you will decide which cards (if any) you want to hold out of the five and press the “Hold” button underneath those cards.

At that point, the machine will draw your replacement cards from the 47 remaining in the deck. Your hand is complete at that point. You will be credited for any wins that you manage.

Step 4: Playing More or Quitting

You can continue to play video poker as long as there are some credits left in the machine so that you can make a wager. If not, you’ll have to insert more money to keep on going. You can also quit by hitting “Cash Out” to receive a redemption ticket with any credits that you still have left in the machine.

Now that you know how to play basic video poker, it’s time to learn multiple play video poker. After all, multiple play is the only way that you can play Magic Deal Poker video poker.

Multiple Play Video Poker

Magic Deal Poker video poker allows you to play three, five, or ten hands at a time. The key to understanding this is to realize that you will be receiving a single deal for all of the hands that you play. The choice that you make about what cards to hold and which ones to discard from that deal will then be the basis for all of the hands that you are playing.

You also have to realize that you will be betting on each of the hands that you play. That makes any multiple play video poker game a bit more of an expensive proposition than single play games. Of course, if you get some good deals early on, you can easily build some hefty winnings and not have to worry so much about the bets that you’ll have to make.

In the case of Magic Deal Poker video poker, your multiple play options are to play three, five, or ten hands at a time. When you do the math on that, it can seem a little daunting when you consider betting every hand. For example, if you were playing ten-play video poker on a dollar machine and were betting the max bet of five coins (without the extra bet for the Magic Deal Card), you would essentially be wagering $50 on a single deal.

Some people love that kind of excitement. And for some people, the thought of such an expense riding on a five-card deal and subsequent draws can be intimidating. That’s why you might want to consider a lower denomination if you settle in to play Magic Deal Poker video poker, since that will mitigate the money you’ll be betting on each hand.

Let’s talk now about how the multiple play works using three hands as an example. Remember our deal from a little bit earlier? It was:

Let’s say that you decide to keep the four diamonds in an effort to play for a possible flush. Once you make the decision, it will be in place for all three hands. You can’t decide to play different cards for each of the subsequent draws.

You press the “Draw” button and you receive three draws using the four diamonds that you kept as the base. Here is what you might receive:

Hand 1:

Hand 2:

Hand 3:

You made your flush on the first hand. On the second hand, you didn’t get the flush, but you did pair up the kings which is a winning hand. Alas, on the third hand, you came empty.

Let’s see how that might work in terms of payouts, using a common Jacks or Better pay table and assuming that you bet five coins per hand:

• Hand 1: 30 coins
• Hand 2: 5 coins
• Hand 3: 0 coins

Adding them up, you came away with 30 coins on a single hand. Considering that you bet 15 coins total, your profit was 15 coins.

You can imagine how your winnings can really skyrocket with an even better deal. And, by contrast, you can probably imagine that a lousy deal will hurt you more when playing multiple play than if you were playing just one-hand video poker. And those facts are really amplified further when you are playing five or even ten hands at a time.

One other thing you should note when playing multiple play video poker is that the draws will come from decks containing the 47 cards still remaining after the five cards you held. But they will be separate decks containing those cards, so you could conceivably end up with the same card on the draw in multiple hands.

We’ve now taken you through basic play and multiple play when it comes to video poker. Now, we can show you what Magic Deal Poker video poker looks like once you activate the special feature.

Playing With the Magic Deal Cards

When you double your original bet while playing Magic Deal Poker video poker for each of the hands that you are playing, you will give yourself the possibility of receiving Magic Deal Cards on the deal. Let’s talk about the betting first.

If you wanted to do a max bet for all of your hands and activate the feature, you would have to wager 10 coins per hand. That’s equal to five coins times two. In multiple play mode, that means 30 coins for three hands, 50 coins for five hands, and 100 coins for ten hands.

Keep in mind that you will only be receiving pay based on a five-coin bet, however. In other words, if you bet the ten coins per hand on a Jacks or Better pay table and receive a pair of kings, you will still only bet winning five coins on that hand. You essentially have to pay that fee for the chance at the Magic Deal Cards.

You can wager less than the max bet and still activate the Magic Deal Card. To do this, you would simply double the wager from one through four coins. In other words, to receive the one-coin payouts on the pay table, you would have to wager two coins, and to receive the two-coin payouts on the pay table, you would have to wager four coins, and so on.

It might not seem beneficial to you to double a bet and receive the payout for a normal bet. But the twist in Magic Deal Poker video poker actually increases your payout percentage from if you were playing the game with normal wagers in place. That’s how advantageous the Magic Deal Cards can be.

Once the twist is activated with the extra bet, you have the possibility of getting a Magic Deal Card in your hand. How much of a possibility depends on the pay table you’re using. Remember that Magic Deal Poker video poker gives you the chance to choose between many different types of video poker pay tables, including the following:

• Jacks or Better
• Bonus Poker
• Bonus Poker Deluxe
• Double Bonus Poker
• Double Double Bonus Poker
• Triple Double Bonus Poker
• Deuces Wild
• Deuces Wild Bonus

In general, your best chances of receiving a Magic Deal Card comes in Jacks or Better or Deuces Wild, where you can expect one a little less than 15% of the deals that you have. By contrast, Triple Double Bonus will only give you a Magic Deal Card less than 5% of the time. But the way that the pay tables are constructed, the bonus in terms of payback percentage that you will receive when playing with the Magic Deal Cards is similar no matter what game you choose.

Let’s assume that you’re playing Magic Deal Poker video poker with a basic Jacks or Better pay table and have wagered 10 coins for each of your triple play hands. Here is a deal with a Magic Deal Card that you might come across:

The Magic Deal Card will be transformed into whichever hand will help you on your various draws the most. It is automatically held by the game. Since the other cards on your deal don’t show too much promise, you decide to discard them all and go forward with just the Magic Deal Card in place.

Here’s how the draws could potentially work out for you:

In Hand 1, the Magic Deal Card will be changed over into one of the two remaining jacks in the deck (it doesn’t matter which one and the game will randomly decide) to give you a full house. Hand 2 will be transformed into a flush, as the Magic Deal Card will become the fifth heart in the hand. And in Hand 3, the Magic Deal Card will become either an eight or a king to make your straight.

Let’s total up the payouts on those three hands:

• Hand 1: Full house = 40 coins
• Hand 2: Flush = 30 coins
• Hand 3: Straight = 20 coins

That comes out to 90 coins of winnings in total. Minus the 30-coin wager, you ended up with a profit of 60 coins.
Now, imagine what could happen if you receive two Magic Deal Cards on the deal. Or even three, which happens on rare occasions.

That is why it is worth it to activate the Magic Deal Poker video poker twist. Those Magic Deal Cards will essentially transform into whatever each particular draw needs the most. When you see even one in a deal, you can expect a quick, tidy profit, one that will be exponentially boosted the more hands that you’re playing.

One note on Magic Deal Poker video poker and the extra feature: You will only receive one of the special Magic Deal Cards on the deal. Don’t expect any to come on the draw.

Even with that caveat, you can see how exciting the twist of Magic Deal Poker video poker can be. Now, let’s talk about some of the different pay tables that you might choose to play.

Pay Tables and Payback Percentages for Magic Card Poker Video Poker

We talked above about all of the different pay tables that you might choose that sit underneath the Magic Deal Poker video poker umbrella. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages. For a more complete discussion of these benefits and drawbacks, check out our video poker page and look for specific explanations of each game.

As a quick explanation, Jacks or Better is the most conservative game in terms of payouts. In other words, you won’t have too many chances at a big payout with the game. Because the game pays out for lesser hands well, you can usually get away with playing the game for a long time despite starting with a relatively small bankroll.

As you move on through the Bonus games, the payments get aggressive as you move up the ladder. From simply Bonus poker to Double Bonus all the way to Triple Double Bonus, the payments for rare hands get higher and higher. To compensate for those higher payouts on the top end, however, these games pay less for more common hands, making them more volatile.

Here is a look at a sampling of some of the pay tables you will be able to play under the umbrella of Magic Deal Poker video poker:

Jacks or Better Pay Table

Coins/Hand	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	8	16	24	32	40
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

Bonus Poker Pay Table

Coins/Hand	1 Coin	2 Coins	3 Coins	4 Coins	5 Coins
Royal flush	200	400	600	800	4,000
Straight flush	50	100	150	200	250
Four of a kind (aces)	80	160	240	320	400
Four of a kind (2s, 3s, or 4s)	40	80	120	160	200
Four of a kind (any other)	25	50	75	100	125
Full house	7	14	21	28	35
Flush	5	10	15	20	25
Straight	4	8	12	16	20
Three of a kind	3	6	8	12	15
Two pairs	2	4	6	8	10
Jacks or better	1	2	3	4	5

Double Double Bonus Pay Table

Coins/Hand	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 aces without any 2,3,4	400	800	1,200	1,600	2,000
Four 2s, 3s, or 4s without any A,2,3,4	160	320	460	640	800
Four aces	160	320	460	640	800
Four 2s, 3s, or 4s	80	160	240	320	400
Four 5s through Ks	50	100	150	200	250
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
Pair of jacks +	1	2	3	4	5

Deuces Wild Pay Table

Coins/Hand	1 Coin	2 Coins	3 Coins	4 Coins	5 Coins
Royal flush	250	500	750	1,000	4,000
Four deuces	200	400	600	800	1,000
Wild royal flush	25	50	75	100	125
Five of a kind	15	30	45	60	75
Straight flush	9	18	27	36	45
Four of a kind	4	8	12	16	20
Full house	4	8	12	16	20
Flush	3	6	9	12	15
Straight	2	4	6	8	10
Three of a kind	1	2	3	4	5

You’ll notice that Deuces Wild features a higher standard for a winning hand. That is because the wild cards make difficult hands easier to reach. Playing with wild cards and Magic Deal Cards can really put big hands within reach.

Each pay table comes attached to a payback percentage. This is an average amount that you can expect to take back from a game after playing it for a long time. Any payback percentage over 99% is highly recommended, since you can easily make up the minimal losses that you might suffer by earning casino and online rewards.

The interesting thing about Magic Deal Poker video poker is that the 99% threshold is only achieved when you activate the game’s special feature. That feature adds anywhere from a half to a full percentage point of payback when activated, as opposed to the normal versions of the game. While that might not seem like a lot, it can make the difference between a profit and a loss playing video poker over a long period of time.

Always remember that a payback percentage is only an average and might not reflect your experiences playing the game. If you only play Magic Deal Poker video poker for a short time, you might end up doing significantly better or worse than a quoted payback percentage because luck will play a large part in your results. Over the long haul, you are probably going to come close to those percentages if you can play with perfect play, which we’ll explain now.

Strategy for Magic Deal Poker Video Poker

Perfect play in video poker can be attained if you make the correct hold and discard for every single hand that you play. By “correct,” we mean the choice that is mathematically right in terms of probabilities and payouts. You can get lucky making the wrong play every once in a while, but over time, the right plays will bring you the best expected value for each deal that you receive.

On one hand, the strategy for Magic Deal Poker video poker is made a little bit easier when you activate the twist. After all, the Magic Deal Cards will automatically be held by the game. You just have to decide which cards deserve to be held along with them.

Of course, the Magic Deal Cards only appear on a small percentage of the hands. You need to know how to play the rest of them, and you’ll need to know the right plays for each pay table. For example, there are certain deals which you would play differently on a Jacks or Better pay table compared to a Triple Double Bonus pay table.

Your best bet of developing a good strategy is to concentrate on a single pay table that you prefer within Magic Deal Poker video poker, and then learn the strategy for that. To do that, you need to employ one of these two methods:

• Video Poker Trainers: A video poker trainer is software that you can download for any connected device that allows you to simulate video poker play. As you play, you will be alerted whenever you are making a strategically incorrect play. The best video poker trainers allow you to customize your instruction according to specific pay tables.
• Strategy Charts: These act as instruction manuals on how to play each deal you might receive while playing under a certain pay table. Each of these strategy charts list combinations of cards in order of highest expected value to lowest. When you look at your hand, you can see the combination that you possess, which means that you’ll know what to discard.

Pros and Cons of Playing Magic Deal Poker Video Poker

Conclusion on Magic Deal Poker Video Poker

Magic Deal Poker video poker brings some serious thrills when you see those special cards show up on the screen. Imagine playing in a casino or at a top gambling website and seeing two or three Magic Deal Cards on a deal and having them be in effect for three, five, or ten hands. Just try not to imagine what will happen to your bankroll if they don’t show up enough.