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Double Double Jackpot Poker Strategy. Double Double Jackpot Poker is the counter part of Double Jackpot Poker. It also has a unique range of five card winning combination, linked to the four-of- a-kind poker hand.

Double Aces and Faces could be called the video poker game with 2 names.
Depending where you play, it’s also sometimes called Double Jackpot video poker.
No matter which name is used, the game is the same.

Double Aces and Faces video poker is basically a variation of Bonus Poker
which offers increased payoffs for a 4 of a kind made up of faces cards – the
jack, queen, or king.

This page hopes to be the most detailed and comprehensive guide to Double
Jackpot video poker on the internet. We’ve included a full overview of how to
play, how the pay tables vary and affect the odds, and what kinds of strategies
can increase your chances of walking away a winner. We include observations
about where to find Double Aces and Faces, too.

The Basics of Double Aces and Faces Video Poker: How to Play

If you know how to play Jacks or Better or Bonus Poker, you’re familiar with
the basics of Double Aces and Faces already. We’ll go into some detail about how
to play anyway, for those who are just getting started in video poker.

Video poker games resemble slot machine games, but they use playing cards
instead of arbitrary symbols like fruit or bars. The probability algorithm for
the game uses a 52-card deck as its reference point, too.

As a result, you can calculate the probabilities in a video poker game like
Double Jackpot with a degree of accuracy that’s impossible to duplicate when
calculating probabilities for slot machine games.

Here’s why:

The payback percentage for a gambling game is the theoretical return to the
player over lots of trials. When we say long-term, we mean thousands of hands,
not just hundreds of hands.

The math behind this calculation is easy – you multiply the probability of
winning by the amount you’ll win. That gives you the expected return for each
potential payout.

On a slot machine game, you have no way of ascertaining the probability of
getting a specific symbol. Cherries might come up 1/64 of the time, or 1/32 of
the time, or 1/8 of the time.

But with a video poker machine game like Double Jackpot, the probability of
getting a specific card is always 1/52. The probability of getting a card of a
specific rank is 1/13. The probability of getting a specific suit is 1/4.

The payback percentages for video poker games are almost always better than
the payback percentages for video poker games, too. A typical slot machine game
might have a payback percentage of 94% or 95%. You’ll usually run into video
poker games where the payback percentage is 95% or more.

To play Double Aces and Faces, or any other video poker game, you start by
putting money into the machine. The game comes in a specific denomination, just
like a slot machine does. Quarter machines are common, and so are dollar
machines.

The game converts the money you insert into credits based on its
denomination.

You’re playing a $5 Double Aces and Faces game. You put $500 into the
machine. You have 100 credits.

You then decide how many credits you want to wager on each hand. You can play
for between 1 and 5 coins on each hand, but you should always play for 5
coins – the max.

The reason for this is tied into the pay table. Video poker games, Double
Jackpot included, reserve their highest payout for a royal flush. This hand pays
off at 200 for 1 if you bet 1, 2, 3, or 4 coins.

But if you bet 5 coins, a royal flush pays off at 800 for 1.

This is such a huge increase in payout size that it has a major effect on
your overall payback percentage for the game. You should, therefore, always bet
5 coins per hand.

Once you’ve hit the deal button, which is also sometimes labeled “bet max”,
the game deals you a virtual hand of 5 cards on a video screen.

You decide which of those 5 cards to keep by pressing the “hold” button that
corresponds to each card. Most modern games also have touchscreen technology, so
you can hold cards just by tapping the screen, too.

Once you’ve decide which cards to keep and which to throw away, you press the
deal button again. The game deals replacement cards from what’s left in the
deck. It then compares the poker hand ranking of your final hand to the pay
table and awards your payout.

On most video poker variations, the major difference from game to game
involves the payouts for the various hands. We go into more detail about that in
the next section.

Video Poker Pay Tables: Odds and Probability in Double Jackpot Video Poker

Here’s a typical pay table for Double Jackpot video poker. We’ll go into some
detail about why this pay table matters so much after you’ve had a chance to
look at it:

This is called a 9/7/5 Double Jackpot (or Double Ace and Faces) pay table.
The 9/7/5 refers to the payoffs for the full house, flush, and straight,
respectively. In this game, these are the payoffs that are usually adjusted by
the manufacturers and casinos to adjust the payback percentage for the game.

The payback percentage for a Double Jackpot video poker game with this pay
table is 99.24%, which means that the house edge is only 0.76%. (When you add
the house edge and the payback percentage together, you get 100%, every time.)
This makes this version of Double Aces and Faces comparable to one of the better
games of blackjack, in terms of odds.

But keep in mind that this payback percentage assumes you’re playing with
perfect strategy. That means you must make the mathematically optimal decision
on every hand. Any mistakes you make will lower that payback percentage.

How is that payback percentage determined?

It’s based on a concept of expected return. The expected return on a bet is
the chance of winning multiplied by the payoff when you win. In the case of a
video poker, you have multiple potential prizes, each of which has a
probability. You add the expected return for all the potential prizes to get the
overall expected return for the game.

A pair of jacks or better pays off at even money (1 for 1). You’ll see that
hand about 19.8% of the time. 19.8% multiplied by 1 is 19.8%. That’s the
expected return for that hand.

2 pair also pays off at even money. It doesn’t show up as often – about 11.9%
of the time. The expected return for that hand is 11.9%, so the total payback
percentage for the game (so far) is 19.8% + 11.9%, or 31.7%.

3 of a kind, though, pays off at 3 for 1. The probability of winding up with
that hand is about 7.3%. Multiply 7.3% by 3, and you get 21.9%. Add that to what
we have so far, and you get a total of 53.6%.

You can make an interesting observation just knowing the expected return for
these 3 hands, and it’s this:

More than half of the payback on this game comes from just those 3 hands.

In fact, the 3 of a kind represents the highest expected return of any
specific hand in the game.

A straight comes up a lot less often – about 1.5% of the time. With a payoff of
5 for 1, this adds another 7.5% to the payback percentage for the game.

Double Double Poker Practice

And so on, until you get to the royal flush.

Like most video poker games, Double Aces and Faces is just a variation of
Jacks or Better. The big difference lies in the payoff for the various 4 of a
kind hands. In a standard Jacks or Better game, the payoff for a 4 of a kind is
the same regardless of rank – 25 for 1.

The minimum payoff for a 4 of a kind in this game is 50 for 1, but it can be
more if you have face cards – 80 for 1.

And if you have a 4 of a kind made up of aces, the payoff is 160 for 1.

These huge payoffs sound like they’d have a massive effect on the payout for
the game, but these hands come up so seldom that they don’t make much of a
difference. In Jacks or Better, you’ll see a 4 of a kind about 0.2% of the time.

That increases slightly when you adjust your strategy for Double Aces and
Faces, but only to 0.22%.

But you’re taking an expected return of 5.8% and converting it into an
expected return of 16.9%. The expected return for this hand has tripled from one
game to another.

But the payback percentage for the overall game is almost the same.

How Does That Happen?

Notice the payoff for a hand made up of 2 pair. The payoff for that hand on a
standard Jacks or Better game is 2 for 1, and the expected return for that hand
is 25.8%.

In Double Jackpot, the payoff has been halved. Also, you’ll wind up with 2
pair less often, because you’ll make strategy adjustments based on the
differences between the 2 games. The expected return for 2 pair in Double
Jackpot is only 11.9%.

That difference alone is enough to pay for these bonus payoffs on the 4 of a
kind hands.

In fact, this is a standard way for a pay table to increase the payoff on a
low probability hand. Bonus Poker games in general do this – they reduce the
payoffs for 2 pair, a commonly seen hand, to “pay” for the increased payoffs for
4 of a kind.

Of course, this isn’t the only pay table available for Double Aces and Faces,
either. Like all other VP variations, you can find multiple pay tables.

Here’s another example pay table for the game:

The only difference between this pay table and the other example pay table is
the payoff for a straight, which has been reduced from 5 for 1 to 4 for 1. This
reduces the expected value for that hand from 7.5% to 4.9%.

This also reduces the overall payback percentage for the game from 99.24% to
97.9%. The house edge jumps from 0.76% to 2.1%.

The implication of this is important to mention. When you’re talking about
percentages, the numbers seem small, but when you add them up over hundreds of
bets, the effect on your bankroll is anything but small.

Here’s why

You calculate your expected loss per hour on a game by multiplying the number
of bets you make by the size of those bets. You multiply that by the house edge
to get your expected hourly loss. Your actual results will vary wildly from this
mathematical expectation in the short run. But in the long run, your actual
results will eventually start to mirror your mathematical expectation.

Let’s look at the expected loss in dollars on both these versions of the same
game:

An average video poker player plays 600 hands per hour. We’ll assume you’re
playing a dollar machine for the max bet, which means you’re betting $5 per
hand. That’s $3000 per hour in action.

With a house edge of 0.76%, your expected loss is $22.80. That’s not great
news, but considering how much action you’re getting, it’s not bad news, either.

Increase the house edge to 2.1%, though, and your hourly loss skyrocket to
$63.

What a difference a couple of percentage points make, huh?

But those aren’t the only pay tables. You can also find Double Aces and Faces
with the following pay tables and overall payback percentages:

• 9/6/5 – 98%
• 9/6/4 – 96.5%
• 9/5/4 – 95.4%

Notice that the payout for the flush and the straight are the ones that are
changed. The house edge on these games, and the expected hourly loss on a dollar
game, look like this:

• 2% – $60
• 3.5% – $100.50
• 4.6% – $138

It should be clear from these examples that choosing a game with the right
pay table is an important part of your overall strategy for the game. We
recommend sticking with games with a 99% payback percentage or better. In some
casinos, you might only be able to find video poker games with a 98% payback
percentage. That’s still better than playing a slot machine, but you should be
willing to shop casinos as well as pay tables within a casino.

Speaking of strategy…

Double Aces and Faces Strategy

All the payback percentages we’ve discussed so far assume you’re playing with
perfect strategy. When we say perfect strategy, we mean that you make the
optimal decisions on every hand – the decisions with the highest expected return.

There are 32 ways to play every video poker hand. You have the option of
holding or discarding each of 5 cards. That’s 2 decisions for each card, but you
have an array of combinations. Here’s what the math looks like:

In many cases, the correct mathematical decision will be obvious. Most of the
time, for example, you’ll hold the cards which make up a pat hand. (A pat hand
is a hand that’s going to pay out without improving.)

Obviously, you’d be a fool to discard any of your cards if you were dealt a
royal flush on the deal. If you were dealt any 4 of a kind on the deal, you’d
want to hold that, too.

But other decisions get trickier. What if you have 4 cards to a straight, but
you also have a pair of jacks? Do you keep the pat hand, or do you hold on to
the jacks and hope to improve to a 3 of a kind or 4 of a kind?

That’s where strategy comes in handy. A video poker strategy table is
a list of hands in order of how desirable they are. You start at the top and
read down until you get to a hand that matches what you have. When you get to
that point, you stop and hold on to those cards.

Here’s what a somewhat simplified strategy list for Double Jackpot looks like:

• Royal flush, straight flush, or 4 of a kind

  If you get any of these pat
  hands, you should hold on to them and take your payoff.

• 4 cards to a royal flush

  Any time you have a 4 card draw to a royal
  flush, you should draw to this hand, even if it means breaking up a
  lower-paying pat hand. This will usually mean breaking up a pair of jacks or
  higher. For example, you might have a hand with the jack of spades and the
  jack, queen, king, and ace of hearts. If you keep the 2 jacks, you have a
  guaranteed even money payoff. You also have a chance to improve to a 3 of a
  kind or a 4 of a kind. But if you improve to a royal flush (which you’ll do
  about 2% of the time), you’ll get an 800 for 1 payoff. That’s an expected
  value of 16 units, which is hard to beat.

• 3 of a kind

  Not only is this a pat hand, but you have a chance of
  drawing to a 4 of a king.

• Straight, flush, or full house

  These are also pat hands. The only time
  you won’t hold on to one of these hands is if you can draw to a royal flush,
  which will sometimes be the case with a straight or a flush. For example,
  you might have the ace, king, queen, jack, and 7 of hearts. The correct move
  is to discard the 7 and hope to fill the royal flush. But with any other
  flush, you’d hold on to the flush.

• A pair of aces

  Since the payoff is so much higher for a 4 of a kind
  made up of aces, a pair of aces has special value as a hand to hold on to.
  In fact, if you have 2 pairs, and one of them is a pair of aces, the correct
  strategy is to discard the other pair to give yourself a shot at the 4 of a
  kind.

• 2 pairs

  But aces are the only pair you’d hold in favor of 2 pairs. If
  you have 2 pair, you hold on to it and draw to that other card, hoping to
  make a full house. Most of the time, you’ll miss the full house, but you
  still have a guaranteed payoff on this pat hand.

• A pair of jacks, queens, or kings

  Obviously, these are pat hands, but
  they also have the potential to make a 4 of a kind made up of face cards.

• 4 cards to a flush

  At this point, you’re looking at speculative
  hands – we’ve covered all the pat hands at this point. This is a relatively
  easy hand to draw to, as you 9 cards left in the deck which will complete
  your hand.

• 3 cards to a royal flush

  This one’s a real long shot, but you have the
  potential to fill so many hands that it’s the next one on the list. You
  could hit a big pair, a 3 of a kind, a flush, or a straight. You’ll rarely
  hit the royal flush, but when you do, it’s a huge payoff.

• 4 cards to a straight

  You’re looking for an open-ended straight draw
  here, not an inside straight draw. An example of an outside straight draw is
  3456. You can fill your hand with any 2 or any 7. That means 8 possible
  cards can make your hand. (An inside straight draw is like 3467, where you’d
  need a 5 to fill your hand. There are only 4 of those in the deck.)

• 3 cards to a straight flush

  Now we’re getting even more speculative,
  but this is still a better option than an inside straight draw.

• A low pair

  Any pair of 10s or lower has the potential to become 3 of a
  kind or 4 of a kind, or even a full house. But there are other speculative
  hands that provide a better expectation. That’s why they’re higher on this
  list.

• Super speculative hands

  After this point, you’ll be focusing on super
  speculative hands like inside straight draws and 3-card and 2-card draws to
  bigger hands. The thing to keep in mind is that you want to pay a lot of
  attention to hands with face cards or aces in them, because of the potential
  for hitting those 4 of a kind hands.

The above strategy for Double Aces and Faces isn’t mathematically optimal,
because such a strategy would be unwieldy, overly long, and impossible to
memorize. Practical considerations matter. We’re confident that the above
strategy will get you within a few tenths of a percentage of the optimal return
for the game, though.

It’s hard to overstate a couple other strategic considerations, though:

1. Finding good pay tables.
2. Using your slot club membership.

We’ve already talked about the importance of shopping for good pay tables,
but let’s talk about the slots club membership.

The players’ club at the casino is the mechanism that the casino uses to
incentivize their players. They do this by giving you a card to insert into the
gambling machines as you play them. This card tracks how much action you’re
bringing to the casino.

The card does NOT track how much money you’re winning or losing. The casinos
don’t want to incentivize you based on wins or losses. They want to incentivize
you based on how much you play, regardless of whether you’re winning or losing.

Remember that the casino is working in the long run, so the more customers
they have playing more often, the closer their actual results are going to
resemble the mathematical expectation. And since the casino has a mathematical
edge on every game – including Double Aces and Faces – the more they expect to win
the more you play.

The incentives take the form of rebates based on your play. Casinos calculate
it as a percentage of your action. Often you get 0.1% or 0.2% back in the form
of rebates, but casinos also often have periods where you can earn double or
triple rewards.

Find a casino where you can get 0.3% back in rebates on your slots club card,
and play when they’re offering triple rewards, and you get to add 0.9% to the
expected payback percentage for the game.

On a game like Double Jackpot video poker, with a payback percentage of
99.24%, adding 0.9% to your return can result in a game with an actual return of
more than 100%. This means you’re playing with an edge – albeit a small one – over
the casino.

You won’t be able to make a living playing video poker – at least, you probably
won’t – but wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy a bit of gambling without having the math
stacked entirely against you?

Even if you can reduce the house edge to less than 0.4%, you can enjoy some
of the best odds in the casino.

Always join the slots club, and always play with your card inserted.

And don’t be shy about shopping from casino to casino looking for the
players’ clubs with the best rewards.

Where to Find Double Jackpot Video Poker Online, for Free or Real Money

Double Aces and Faces, or Double Jackpot, is a relatively unusual video poker
game. We don’t know of any online casinos offering free or real money versions
of the game.

But this game is so much like Bonus Poker or Double Bonus Poker – or any other
member of that family of games – that you can get a similar experience playing any
of those games. Just compare the pay tables to the ones we’ve shared here.

If you’re looking for an online casino at which to play video poker, we
recommend several reputable gambling sites. Our reviews are as comprehensive and
even-handed as any you’ll find on the web, too. Not all offshore casinos offer
great customer service, so consider sticking with our recommendations. Most of
them have excellent video poker selections, too.

Conclusion

Double Aces and Faces, which is also often called Double Jackpot, is a
relatively obscure variation of Bonus Poker that’s not widely available. With
the right pay tables and strategies, it’s a playable game with a payback
percentage of over 99%. It also has the benefit of being easy to understand. If
you already enjoy Bonus Poker variations, and if you come across this game, give
it a whirl.

Double Double Bonus Poker is a variation of Double Bonus Poker. In fact, you
can trace the lineage of this game back to Bonus Poker and its father, Jacks or
Better.

Jacks or Better video poker, of course, is the most basics form of video
poker. Bonus Poker games resemble Jacks or Better closely, with a major
difference – you get bigger payouts on 4 of a kind hands. These bonus payouts vary
based on the ranking of the cards in the 4 of a kind. In Double Double Bonus,
the kicker also affects how big the bonus payout is.

This page is meant to be the most comprehensives guide to Double Double Bonus
Poker on the internet. We go into detail about the basics of gameplay – even if
you’ve never played video poker before, you should be able to play a smart game
of Double Double Bonus Poker using no other information than what we’ve included
on this page.

We also go into detail about the pay tables, probabilities, and payback
percentage for the game.

The Basics of Double Double Bonus Poker

If you’ve never played video poker before, you might be forgiven for thinking
that a game like Double Double Bonus Poke is just a tricked-out slot machine
with a playing card theme.

But the differences are bigger and more significant than that.

Both slot machines and video poker games use symbols on a payline. They also
both use random number generators to determine which symbols come up in which
combinations on any given “spin” or “hand”.

But on a slot machine, the symbols and associated probabilities are
determined arbitrarily by the slot machine manufacturer. You might have a cherry
symbol with a 1/24 chance of appearing, a bar symbol with a 1/12 chance of
appearing, and a wild symbol with a 1/48 chance of appearing.

You have no way of knowing what the probability of getting a specific symbol
is. That’s a crucial piece of information if you want to get an idea of the odds
for the game, by the way.

The way you calculate the payback percentage for a gambling machine (or any
other gambling game, for that matter), is to compare the probability of winning
with the amount you win. In almost all casino games – besides slot machines – you
know both the payoff and the probability of winning.

Double Double Bonus Video Poker

In roulette, a single number bet pays off at 35 to 1. The odds of winning are
37 to 1. You have 38 numbers on a roulette wheel, so you have 1/38 probability
of getting a specific number.

On a slot machine, you know what amount you win with various combinations,
but you don’t know what the probability of winning is.

Video poker, on the other hand, uses the same probability as a deck of cards.
We know there are 52 cards in a deck. We also know that there are 4 suits with
13 ranks within each suit. The probability of getting a specific card is 1/52, a
specific suit, 1/4, and a specific rank, 1/13.

Slot machines have opaque probabilities, but video poker games have
transparent probabilities.

We prefer games where we have more information about our chances of winning.

You measure the odds on a gambling machine by looking at its payback
percentage. We’ll discuss that in detail in the next section, but for now,
understand that the payback percentage is an estimate of how much money you’ll
get back, on average, every time you bet. It’s a long-term expectation. The
higher the payback percentage, the better the game.

Slot machines average a payback percentage of 94% or 95% or less.
But video poker games average a payback percentage of 95% or more.

If you
play well and stick with the games with the right pay tables, you can even find
video poker games with a 99% payback percentage or greater.

As a result, we’re big fans of playing video poker games instead of slot
machines.

Video poker games like Double Double Bonus Poker also offer the player the
chance to make meaningful decisions. The games are based on draw poker, so you
get to choose which cards to keep and which cards to discard. Make good
decisions, and you’ll win more often. Make bad decisions, and you’ll lose more
often.

The gameplay for a video poker game like Double Double Bonus couldn’t be
easier, either. Let’s break it down, step by step:

1. You choose a machine.

   Smart players
   account for the denomination of the machine, their knowledge of the strategy for
   the game variation, and the pay table.

2. You insert money, and the machine
   converts that money into credits.

   For example, if you’re playing a quarter
   machine, and you insert $100, you’re given 400 credits to play with.

3. You choose how many coins you’re going
   to bet per hand.

   You can bet between 1 and 5 coins on every hand, but you should
   always bet 5 coins. The payoff for the royal flush is the big jackpot for the
   game, and it pays off at 800 for 1 when you make the 5-coin bet. If you bet 1,
   2, 3, or 4 coins, you only get 200 for 1 or 250 for 1. That’s a huge difference
   to your bottom line.

4. You press the “DEAL” button.

   When you
   do this, the machine deals you a 5-card hand. The game uses the same probability
   as if you were dealing yourself a poker hand from a real deck of cards.

5. You decide which cards to keep and
   which ones to discard.

   To keep a card in video poker, you can press the “HOLD”
   button which corresponds to that card. Or you can just touch the screen,
   although older video poker machines don’t offer that option.

6. You press the “DEAL” button again, and
   the machine replaces your discards.

   The machine then compares your final hand
   with the pay table and pays you off based on the hand you wind up with.

It can be useful to think of Double Double Bonus and other VP variations as
being a video game mash-up of solitaire and 5-card draw poker. The game
resembles solitaire because you’re not competing with other players or other
hands. And the game resembles 5-card draw because you get a 5-card poker hand
and get to discard cards.

It’s appropriate to go into some detail about payouts and pay tables, and
that’s what we cover in the next section.

Pay Tables, Payback Percentages, and Double Double Bonus Poker Probabilities

Here’s an example of a pay table for a Double Double Bonus video poker game:

The first thing you should notice is the huge disparity between the payoff
for a royal flush when you’ve bet 5 coins as opposed to the other options you
had. That 4000-coin jackpot is the goal when you’re playing almost any video
poker game. Always bet 5 coins.

The next thing to notice is the multiple possible payouts based on 4 of a
kind. In a standard Jacks or Better game, a 4 of a kind pays off at 25 for 1.

The reason this is a Bonus Poker variation is because you get bigger payoffs
based on the ranking of the cards in the 4 of a kind.

And the Double Double comes into play when you account for the kicker to get
even bigger payouts.

This is also a good example of how video poker differs from traditional
poker. The hand rankings are roughly the same in general, but in a real poker
game, you’d prefer a higher rank for your 4 of a kind. A hand with 4 kings would
beat a hand with 4 deuces.

But in Double Double Bonus Poker, the hand with the 4 deuces pays off quite a
bit more.

The pay table, by the way, is the crux of the game. Since we know the
probability of getting certain hands, we can calculate the expected return for
each of them. When you add all those possibilities together, you get the overall
payback percentage for the game.

Here are some examples:

A pair of jacks or better comes up about 21.1% of the time. Since it pays off
at even money (1 for 1), the expected value for that hand is 21.1%.

2 pair only happens about 12.3% of the time, and it also pays off at even
money. That’s worth 12.3%.

3 of a kind, though, pays off at 3 for 1. The hand comes up less frequently,
only 7.5% of the time, but you get to multiply that by the payoff of 3 for
22.5%.

Those 3 hands combined make up 21.1% + 12.3% + 22.5%, or 55.9% of the payback
percentage. All the hands above that make up less of the game’s payback
percentage.

The payback percentage for the Double Double Bonus game listed above is
98.98%. We always recommend that players stick with video poker games where the
payback percentage is 99% or higher, but we’re not going to quibble over 0.02%,
either.

That’s a common enough pay table for the game, but you’ll see other, less
favorable pay tables often. Here’s an example of one of those:

The payback percentage for this pay table is only 97.9%, which is
significantly lower than the first pay table we shared with you.

How Big a Difference Is It?

Let’s project how much a player expects to lose per hour on each of the 2
games. We’ll assume that the player is playing on a dollar game and making the
full 5-coin bet. She’s betting $5 per hand.

We’ll also assume she’s playing with perfect strategy, and that she’s playing
about 600 hands per hour (which is average).

We’re looking at $3000/hour in action.

If you subtract the payback percentage from 100%, you get the house edge. On
the first pay table, the house edge is 100% – 98.98%, or 1.02%. On $3000 worth
of action per hour, that’s a projected loss of $30.06 per hour.

On the second pay table, we’re looking at 100% – 97.9%, or 2.1%. That’s
$62/hour in projected losses.

It’s the same game and presumably has the same entertainment value for the
player.

But one version of it costs $30.06/hour to play, while the other costs
$62/hour to play.

We suggest that players treat gambling like any other entertainment expense
and make decisions accordingly. Let’s look at these 2 games from that
perspective.

You’re at a movie theater, and you can choose to watch the new Star Wars
movie in theater A for $30.06, or you can watch it in theater B for $62. You’d
clearly choose theater A.

But most gamblers don’t bother to educate themselves well enough to know what
the tickets cost. Many of them wander unknowingly into theater B.

Don’t be one of them.

Where Does the Change in Payback Percentage Come From?

If you were paying close attention, you probably saw that the payoffs for the
following hands were reduced by 1 coin each:

• Full house
• Flush
• Straight

Those hands come up 10%, 11%, and 12% of the time, respectively. Reducing the
payoff on each of those results in a net loss on your overall expected return of
1%.

Of course, those are numbers you won’t see in the short run, anyway.
Probabilities represent long-term expectations. The entire casino industry works
on this basis, by the way. If no one ever won in the short term, no one would
play. And if everyone won in the long run, the casinos couldn’t stay in
business.

And when we say long run, we’re talking about thousands and tens of thousands
of hands. You’ll only see a royal flush, on average, once every 40,000 hands,
for example.

Of course, to see even these kinds of returns, you must make the
mathematically correct decisions. We’ll discuss that in the strategy section.

Double Double Bonus Strategy

Double Double Bonus strategy doesn’t differ much from other games. If you’re
familiar with the basic strategy for Jacks or Better, you’re most of the way
there.

But there are some differences.

Let’s first talk about why there’s a strategy in the first place.

Double Double Bonus is a game of decisions. You have 5 cards. You have 2
possible decisions for each card. This leaves you with 32 total ways to play
each hand.

Each of those possible decisions has an expected return. The correct play
(mathematically) is the one with the best expected return.

That sounds harder than it is. Most of the time, the right move is easily
understood, especially if you’ve spent some time playing cards in your life.

Video poker strategy charts are organized into hierarchies of hand types. You
start at the top and look for a hand that matches yours. Those are the cards you
keep. In many cases, especially when you’re dealt a pat hand, the right decision
is obvious.

But not always.

Here’s an example strategy list for this game:

• Royal flush

  Of course, if you’re dealt a royal flush, you’ve hit the jackpot. You’ll naturally just hold
  this hand and thank your lucky stars.

• 4 of a kind with aces, 2s, 3s, or 3s WITH an ace, 2, 3, or 4 kicker

  This is the 2nd best pat hand you can
  hope for. You don’t try to improve this hand.

• 4 of a kind

  This is a pat hand, yes, but you’re going to often draw on that 5th card that isn’t part of
  your 4 of a kind to try to improve your kicker. This is different from most
  video poker games where the kicker doesn’t matter.

• Straight flush

  Another pat hand that needs no improvement. Notice that you won’t draw to a royal flush
  with this hand even if you can. An example is a hand with the 9, 10, jack,
  queen, and king of spades. You might be tempted to discard the 9 and hope for an
  ace, but that’s not the right move.

• 4 to a royal flush

  You’ll always go for the royal flush over any other pat hand on the list, besides the
  ones already listed. This sounds like a lot to remember, but keep in mind that
  the 4 of a kind will never also be 4 to a royal flush. It’s impossible.

• 3 of a kind, aces

  You are, of course, hoping to trade up to a 4 of a kind made up of aces, which is a
  big hand. Notice that you’ll even break up a full house in favor of 3 aces to go
  for that 4 of a kind.

• Full house, flush, or straight

  These are all good hands and make up some of the bread and butter of
  the game. You will break up a pat straight or a pat flush if you have a chance
  at 4 to a royal flush, though.

• 3 of a kind

  Any other 3 of a kind falls into this category – we already talked about what you do with 3
  aces.

• 4 cards to a straight flush

  No explanation should be needed here. This hand has a big payout, so it’s
  worth drawing to if you don’t have anything better.

• A pair of aces

  This is listed differently from other pairs, because even if you have 2 pair, you’ll
  discard the other pair for the shot at 4 of a kind.

• 2 pair

  Unless one of them is a pair of aces – see above.

• JQK suited

  This is, of course, 3 cards to a royal flush. It’s speculative, but there’s potential for
  improvement to 3 of a kind or a big pair. You could also hit a flush or a
  straight.

• A pair of kings
• TJQ suited

  Like JQK suited, but not as good. If the 10 pairs, you don’t get paid.

• A pair of jacks or queens
• 4 cards to a flush draw

  This is a relatively easy draw to make. After all, you have 9 cards left in the
  deck which can fill your hand.

• Any other 3 cards to a
  royal flush
• 4 cards to a straight draw

  The straight payoff isn’t that impressive, but if it’s an open-ended straight
  draw, you have 8 cards which can complete your hand. You don’t draw to an inside
  straight here. The difference is where the missing cards are. 6789 is an
  open-ended straight draw. Any 5 or 10 will complete your straight. But 5679 is
  an inside straight draw – the only card that will make your hand is an 8. And
  there are only 4 of them in the deck.

• Any other pair

  You are, of course, hoping to hit 3 of a kind or 4 of a kind. You can also hit a full
  house with one of these pairs.

• Inside straight draw
• 3 to a straight flush
• Speculative hands

  Once you get this far down the list, it’s time to make judgment calls. You should be
  more aggressive with draws that have remote possibilities of hitting one of the
  big hands with the big payouts above.

The strategy, as presented, isn’t perfect, and you’ll be losing a percentage
point or so over a perfect strategy. But memorizing a perfect strategy would
involve memorizing over 40 lines or strategy, which is unwieldy and probably not
worth it for most casual players.

The more important strategy considerations here involve game choice and slot
club membership.

If you choose a version of Double Double Bonus Poker with a lousy pay table,
it doesn’t matter how well you play each hand. The best possible payout
percentage for the game won’t be enough to make it worth your while.

Playing at a casino where the slots club pays off well is worth thinking
about, too. Casinos use slot machine clubs to reward players who bring a lot of
action. They assign you a card which you insert into the machine to track your
play.

Some people who don’t know what they’re talking about think inserting this
card interferes with the players’ chances of winning. They don’t understand that
the best indicator of profitability on a gambling machine is time spent on the
machine. The casino doesn’t care if you’re winning or losing in the short term.
If you keep playing, they’ll eventually make their money because of the house
edge.

How Most Slots Clubs Cards Work

The casino rebates you a tiny percentage of your hourly action in the form of
comped meals, hotel stays, event tickets, and travel perks.

This percentage usually averages around 0.2%, but with specials, it can be
even more. Many casinos try to ramp up business during slow periods by offering
triple points during certain hours. For example, a casino offering triple points
between 1pm and 4pm is offering 0.6% instead of 0.2%.

You get to add that to the expected return for the game. In some cases, this
can turn a negative expectation game into a positive expectation game – one where
you have the edge over the casino.

This requires near-perfect play on your part, of course. It also requires a
great pay table.

But don’t quit your day job, yet.

Any edge gained this way is likely to be less than 0.2%. Which means
projected winnings of $6/hour or so on the Double Double Poker games we’ve
discussed on this page.

But in terms of getting the most for your entertainment dollar, being a
member of the slots club is critical to your success.

Where to Find Double Double Bonus Poker

Double Double Bonus Poker is a common video poker variation. You can find the
game at almost any casino online or off. If you’re playing at online casinos,
you can play free versions. The only drawback to the free version is that it’s
impossible to win any money when you’re playing. (And honestly, isn’t that the
reason we’re playing in the first place?)

Double Double Bonus Poker Machine

Still, if you want to get a feel for the game, playing the free version is a
fun way to practice.

We recommend several online casinos on our site. All of them have been vetted
for honesty and good customer service. Most of them offer Double Double Bonus
Poker, as it’s one of the more common variations available.

Conclusion

Play Double Double Bonus Poker

Double Double Bonus Poker is a commonly-found variation of Bonus Poker, which
is, in turn, a variation of Jacks or Better. The difference in this game and
other Bonus Poker games is the extra payoff for a 4 of a kind with a certain
kind of kicker.

Double Double Poker Free

Finding a variation of this game with a pay table that provides a 98.98%
payback percentage is relatively easy, too. You just need to play with a strong
enough strategy to realize this potential return.

In many casinos, Double Double Bonus Poker is the best option available.