A video poker pay table tells you what each poker hand pays, and small changes in it make large differences in what the game costs. In the common Jacks or Better game, the “9/6” table, where a full house pays 9 and a flush pays 6 for one coin, returns 99.54% with correct play. Cut those to 6/5 and the return falls to 95.00%. The screen looks almost the same, and the cost per hour rises by a factor of about ten.
This guide shows how to read a Jacks or Better pay table, how the numbers in it translate into a return, what a missing coin on a full house costs you, and why correct strategy is part of the return. The return figures come from the Wizard of Odds analysis of Jacks or Better, and the cost calculations are our own with the working shown.
How does video poker work?
Video poker is a one-player poker game on a machine. You bet, the machine deals five cards, you choose which to hold, and the machine replaces the others from the same deck. The final five-card hand is paid according to the pay table. There are no opponents and no bluffing.
Unlike a standard slot, the cards behave like a real deck: each hand is a fresh shuffle, and the draw cards come from the 47 cards that remain. That makes video poker one of the few machine games where your decisions change the return. A player who keeps the right cards earns the published return, and a player who keeps the wrong ones earns less.
New Jersey’s slot machine standards address this point for games that require strategy choices. The game must either base its RTP on optimal play, disclose the optimal strategy, or give players enough information to work it out. In plain terms, a published return for a skill game usually assumes you play it correctly.
What is a “9/6” pay table?
In Jacks or Better, the two hands that vary most between machines are the full house and the flush. The pay table is named by those two numbers, with the full house first. A “9/6” machine pays 9 coins for a full house and 6 for a flush for a one-coin bet. It is called a full-pay machine.
The full 9/6 pay table, per coin bet, is:
| Hand | Pays (coins, per 1 coin bet) |
|---|---|
| Royal flush | 250 (800 when betting 5 coins) |
| Straight flush | 50 |
| Four of a kind | 25 |
| Full house | 9 |
| Flush | 6 |
| Straight | 4 |
| Three of a kind | 3 |
| Two pair | 2 |
| Jacks or better (a pair of jacks or higher) | 1 |
| Anything else | 0 |
The return depends on betting the maximum number of coins. The royal flush pays 250 times the bet at one to four coins and 800 times at five coins. Because the royal is so rare, that extra payout is a significant part of the return, so playing fewer than five coins lowers the return.
Read the machine before you sit down. The header on the screen often shows a pay table with a full house and flush column. If it says 9 and 6, you have found the full-pay version. If it says 8 and 5, or 7 and 5, or 6 and 5, you are on a lower-return machine of the same game.
How much do the pay table numbers matter?
A lot. Here are the return figures listed by the Wizard of Odds for several Jacks or Better pay tables. The first number is the full house payout, and the second is the flush.
| Pay table (full house / flush) | Return with correct play | Casino keeps |
|---|---|---|
| 9/6 | 99.54% | 0.46% |
| 9/5 | 98.45% | 1.55% |
| 8/6 | 98.39% | 1.61% |
| 8/5 | 97.30% | 2.70% |
| 7/5 | 96.15% | 3.85% |
| 6/5 | 95.00% | 5.00% |
Compare the neighbors. Dropping the full house by one coin (9/6 to 8/6) costs 1.15 percentage points of return, and dropping the flush by one coin (9/6 to 9/5) costs 1.09. Dropping both (8/5) costs 2.24 points. Each one-coin cut multiplies the casino’s share several times over.
What does the pay table cost per hour?
Turn the return into dollars. Assume a $0.25 machine, five coins per hand, so $1.25 a hand, and 500 hands an hour. These pace and bet figures are our own assumption, and your real pace may be faster or slower. That is $625 wagered an hour.
| Pay table | Return | Average loss per hour |
|---|---|---|
| 9/6 | 99.54% | $2.88 |
| 9/5 | 98.45% | $9.69 |
| 8/6 | 98.39% | $10.06 |
| 8/5 | 97.30% | $16.88 |
| 7/5 | 96.15% | $24.06 |
| 6/5 | 95.00% | $31.25 |
Going from 9/6 to 6/5 raises the average hourly cost from $2.88 to $31.25, nearly eleven times as much, for a game that looks identical. That is why experienced players check the pay table first.
Why does strategy matter?
A return percentage in a video poker table assumes correct play. Mistakes lower it. The standard decisions are about which cards to hold. For example, with a pair of jacks or better you keep the pair, and with four cards to a flush you generally keep the four rather than a single low pair, because of the payouts and the number of cards that complete each hand.
You cannot reduce this to a single rule, but three habits capture most of the value:
- Never break a made paying hand for a draw, with rare exceptions. A flush, a straight or better is usually kept as it is.
- Keep high pairs, and prefer four to a royal flush over a low pair. The royal payout is large enough to justify the draw.
- Discard unmatched low cards. A hand with nothing usually goes for five new cards, or for the best two-card high combination.
A printed strategy card for your pay table gets you most of the way. Different pay tables change the correct holds slightly, so use the card for the table you are playing. Our guide does not publish a full strategy chart, and strategy aids exist from gaming reference sites.
How rare are the big hands?
The number of five-card hands from a 52-card deck is 2,598,960, so any specific starting hand has the same chance as any other. The royal flush has four versions, one in each suit, so being dealt a royal flush straight away happens once in 649,740 hands. Hands also reach a royal by drawing, which is why the overall chance of a royal with optimal play is higher than the dealt chance.
The top prize is rare, but it is part of the return. That makes video poker volatile despite its high return, in the same way as a slot with a big top prize. A machine returning 99.54% will usually not make a player whole in one session.
How do you compare a video poker machine with a slot?
Both are machines, and both cost money on average. The differences are what make video poker worth understanding. In a video poker game, the pay table is fully visible, the return can be worked out from the game’s rules, and your decisions affect the result. In a typical reel slot, the return comes from a hidden reel layout, and the only decisions are the bet and the pace.
That does not make video poker a winning game. A 9/6 machine still keeps 0.46% of what you wager, and a lower table keeps far more. What it does is move the cost within your control: choosing a full-pay table, playing the maximum coins and holding the right cards bring the cost close to the minimum, while ignoring them multiplies it. If you play, price the session first, and be wary of any machine where you cannot see the full house and flush numbers.
What are common video poker mistakes?
- Playing a short-pay table without noticing. Check the full house and flush numbers before you sit.
- Betting fewer than the maximum coins. The royal flush bonus at five coins is part of the return.
- Holding a kicker. Keeping an extra card with a pair rarely helps.
- Treating the draw as a slot spin. The cards you hold matter, so decide every hand.
- Forgetting the cost of speed. More hands per hour means more wagered, even on a 99% game.
- Assuming the game is breakeven. Even 9/6 returns 99.54%, so it still costs money on average, with winnings possible only through luck.
What does it cost, and how do you keep it in check?
A 9/6 machine at the pace above costs about $2.88 an hour on average, and a 6/5 machine costs about $31.25. In both cases, a single session can finish well above or below those figures. Decide your budget and time before you sit down, and stop when you reach your limit. Our guide to setting a gambling budget and time limit shows how, and the Safer play toolkit lists tools and support. If gambling is causing harm, visit our get help page.
Video poker and other machines are legal in some places and not in others. See is gambling legal where you live before you play.
Where should you go next?
To understand how hand rankings work, read poker hand rankings. For the arithmetic of return and volatility on an ordinary slot, read how slot machines work. And for the general idea of odds, read probability and odds in plain language.