Video Poker in the UK: Guides, Pay Tables, and Where to Play
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Video poker is the casino game in which your decisions count. You are dealt five cards, you keep the ones you like, the machine replaces the others from the same deck and the finished hand is paid according to a table on the screen. No opponent is involved, so that table is the whole contest, and two machines that look identical can charge very different prices for the same hour of play. This hub gathers our eight guides for UK players, compares the versions you are most likely to meet in a licensed lobby, explains where the game stands in British law and suggests first habits for keeping a session affordable. The figures come in two kinds: published facts, and results we worked out by examining all 2,598,960 possible starting hands. None of them predicts how one session will go.
The Eight Video Poker Guides for UK Players
Pick the guide that answers your question, or read all eight in order for the full picture.
- How to play video poker in the UK: from the buttons on the screen to a full deal examined card by card, with the price of an hour in pounds.
- Reading a video poker pay table: the ten paying hands, the exact odds of each and five checks for spotting a trimmed game.
- Jacks or Better and its bonus relatives: the parent game and its variants, ranked by return and swing, with the holds that change between them.
- Wild-card games: Deuces Wild and Joker Poker: what a wild card does to a table, three Deuces Wild versions and hands that look finished but are not.
- Multi-hand, Ultimate X and Spin Poker: one deal feeding several hands, multipliers and grids, and what they do to your stake.
- Video poker maths, RTP and volatility: return, hit rate and swing turned into pounds per hour, plus the odds of finishing ahead.
- Video poker strategy and common mistakes: which cards to keep, six deals where instinct fails and what each slip costs.
- Online video poker regulation and player safety: what the Gambling Commission requires, how fairness is protected and the tools you can switch on.
Versions of Video Poker and What They Return
Lobbies list the same few games under many names. The table below names the pay table to hunt for, the return when every hand is held perfectly, the swing of a single hand and how often a hand pays at all. The two numbers in a label such as 9/6 give the prize for a full house and then for a flush, per coin bet. Every return was worked out by solving all 2,598,960 starting hands, and each agrees with the published figure for that pay table.
| Version | Pay table | Return, best play | Swing | Hands that pay |
| Jacks or Better | 9/6 | 99.54% | 4.4 | 45.5% |
| Jacks or Better | 8/5 | 97.30% | 4.4 | 45.5% |
| Bonus Poker Deluxe | 9/6 | 99.64% | 5.7 | 45.2% |
| Bonus Poker | 8/5 | 99.17% | 4.6 | 45.5% |
| Aces and Faces | 8/5 | 99.26% | 4.6 | 45.5% |
| Double Bonus Poker | 10/7 | 100.17% | 5.3 | 43.3% |
| Double Double Bonus Poker | 10/6 | 100.07% | 6.5 | 44.7% |
| Double Double Bonus Poker | 9/6 | 98.98% | 6.5 | 44.7% |
| Triple Double Bonus Poker | 9/7 | 99.58% | 9.9 | 43.3% |
| All American Poker | 35/8 | 99.60% | 5.1 | 41.8% |
| Deuces Wild | Full pay | 100.76% | 5.1 | 45.3% |
| Deuces Wild | NSUD | 99.73% | 5.1 | 44.3% |
| Loose Deuces | Four deuces pay 500 | 101.60% | 8.4 | 45.2% |
| Joker Poker, Kings or Better | 20/7/5 | 100.65% | 5.1 | 44.4% |
A few labels need translating. Full pay and NSUD are two versions of Deuces Wild, and in 20/7/5 the digits are Joker Poker’s prizes for four of a kind, then a full house, then a flush. Swing is the spread of a single hand’s payout, measured in bets: a figure near 4.4 belongs to a game that pays often in small amounts, and one near 9.9 stretches that pattern a long way. Read it beside the return, since a rougher game is not automatically a kinder one.
Turning a return into money takes one multiplication, by what you stake. With five 20p coins a hand costs £1, and at the 600 hands an hour used throughout this series, a hand every 6 seconds, you stake £600 an hour. On 9/6 Jacks or Better, flawless play is expected to cost £2.74 of that, while 8/5 costs £16.21. Averages hide wide variation, though, and our maths guide to what an hour really costs shows how far an actual hour can drift from them.
Five of the fourteen tables return more than 100%: Loose Deuces, full-pay Deuces Wild, Joker Poker 20/7/5, Double Bonus 10/7 and Double Double Bonus 10/6. Read that as a mathematical curiosity and not as an invitation. Each figure is an average over a vast number of hands, it presumes the best hold every time and it says nothing about one session, which can finish far above or far below it. Tables this generous are also scarce in practice, so read the screen before you assume.
Three more names turn up in lobbies from time to time. Tens or Better lowers the first paying hand to a pair of tens. Double Joker adds two jokers to the deck. Deuces and Joker Wild counts the four deuces and a joker as wild at once. None of them shares a pay table or a strategy chart with the games above, so learn each one separately.
Is Online Video Poker Legal in Great Britain?
Yes. Online casino gaming is regulated nationally in Great Britain, so the same rules apply in England, Scotland and Wales. A business that offers casino games to British players needs a remote casino operating licence from the Gambling Commission, which works under the Gambling Act 2005, and players must be at least 18. Licensed casinos usually list video poker alongside their slots and table games.
The Commission publishes licence conditions and technical standards that licensed casinos must follow, and it keeps a public register on which you can check an operator’s licence number, usually shown in the site footer. A site that is not on the register is not bound by those rules and sits outside GamStop, so check before you deposit. Our guide to UK regulation and player safety explains what the standards cover.
The Commission’s jurisdiction under the Act covers England, Scotland and Wales. Gambling in Northern Ireland is governed by separate legislation, so readers there should check the local position before they play.
Where to Play Video Poker Online in the UK
The casinos that list video poker, and the pay tables they use, differ from one site to the next. The cards below show the licensed operators open to you.
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Play Responsibly: Limits, GamStop and Support
Most video poker tables keep an edge, and the few that return more than 100% do so only with perfect play over a very long run, so think of the game as a paid leisure activity and never as a way to earn. Fix a deposit ceiling and a session length before you open a game, and stop when either is reached. Licensed casinos offer deposit limits, time-outs and their own self-exclusion, and GamStop blocks every online gambling company licensed in Great Britain in one go. Our safer gambling pages explain each tool.
If gambling stops being enjoyable for you or someone close to you, the National Gambling Helpline run by GamCare is free, confidential and open 24 hours a day on 0808 8020 133.
Author:
Lucas Portela
Owner, BoldGambler • Avanhandava/SP
Oddsmaker, affiliate and content creator in the iGaming industry.