Added: August 27, 2015
Speed is the name of the game today and everyone wants to do things more quickly. For video poker players who want to get in more games in a short time, online casino software providers offer the games in multi hand formats. Each software provider has its own set of multi hand video poker variants, but the number goes up to 100 games at a time in some cases. Some software providers offer video poker games with different number of hands as separate titles. Others allow online casino players to select the number of hands from within the game. This is more convenient because you can choose different number of hands after each game.
After selecting the number of hands you proceed in a manner similar to single hand video poker. You select the coin size and the number of coins to be wagered. In multi hand video poker your total bet will be the product of the coin size, the number of coins and the number of hands. When you click the Deal button, five cards will first be dealt to the main hand. You click on the cards that you want to hold. These cards will be transferred to the corresponding positions in all the hands. You then click the Draw button. The remaining cards in the main hand will be replaced. Cards will be dealt to the empty spaces in all the other hands. The cards in each hand are dealt from a separate single deck. Finally each hand is independently compared with the payout table and the amounts won on each hand are added to give your total win.
Sometimes you may get lousy cards in the main hand with little chance of getting a paying hand after replacement. Then you will be stuck with bad cards in all the hands. On the other hand if you are dealt a winning combination in the main hand, you are sure that each of the other hands will also result in a payout. In the long run this will even out, but multi hand online video poker definitely has more volatility. Unless you are willing to take this risk you should avoid 100-hand and 50-hand games and settle for the 4-hand or 10-hand ones.
Online multi hand video poker variants also offer the double option. This option is voluntary and has zero house edge. If you guess right you will double the payout won, but if you guess wrong then you will lose the original payout. If you have already won more than your bet it does not make sense to invoke this option. Otherwise it depends on the risk you are willing to take.
