Video Poker Hands and Pay Tables Explained

Learn how video poker pay tables work: hand rankings, exact odds for 9/6 Jacks or Better, and how to spot short-pay machines.

The pay table is the rulebook and the price list of video poker at once: it names every hand that pays, says how much each one pays per coin and, through those numbers, decides how much of your money the game keeps over time. This guide ranks the hands, shows how often each one lands in 9/6 Jacks or Better and how much return each supplies, explains labels such as 9/6 and 8/5 and shows how to spot a short-pay game from the screen.

Video Poker Hand Rankings

Video poker uses the ranking of five-card poker. A hand is judged on its five cards alone, with no kickers and no comparison with anyone else. An ace counts high or low in a straight, so A-2-3-4-5 and 10-J-Q-K-A are both straights, but a straight cannot wrap around, so Q-K-A-2-3 does not count. In Jacks or Better the hands that pay are, from best to worst:

1. Royal flush: 10, J, Q, K and A of one suit.
2. Straight flush: five cards in sequence, all of one suit.
3. Four of a kind: four cards of the same rank.
4. Full house: three of a kind plus a pair.
5. Flush: five cards of one suit, not in sequence.
6. Straight: five cards in sequence, not all of one suit.
7. Three of a kind: three cards of the same rank.
8. Two pair: two different pairs.
9. Jacks or better: one pair of jacks, queens, kings or aces.

Anything weaker pays nothing, including a pair of tens and an ace-high hand with no pair, which is where the name comes from. Other versions move that line, and wild-card games rank hands differently, as our guide to how wild cards change video poker explains.

How Often Each Hand Lands in 9/6 Jacks or Better

The table comes from an exact count of every possible final hand when the game is played perfectly. The last column shows how much of the total return each hand supplies, which is its chance multiplied by its pay.

Three hands do most of the work. A pair of jacks or better, two pair and three of a kind supply 70% of the return, because they land often even though each pays little. The royal flush, the hand everyone chases, supplies 1.98% of the 99.54%, and without it the same game would return 97.56%. A royal arrives about once in 40,391 hands, which at 600 hands an hour is roughly 67 hours of play.

What 9/6 and 8/5 Mean

Players name a Jacks or Better pay table with two numbers. The first is what a full house pays and the second is what a flush pays, for each coin bet, so 9/6 means 9 for the full house and 6 for the flush. Those are the rows operators most often reduce, because the cut is easy to miss on the screen. Every other row is the same in all six versions below.

Each step down costs real money. Moving from 9/6 to 8/5 raises the expected cost per $1,000 wagered from $4.56 to $27.02, almost six times as much. At $1.25 a hand and 600 hands an hour, that is the gap between $3.42 and $20.26 for the same hour of play.

The Same Label on Different Games

A label like 9/6 only means something inside one game. It is the full-pay table of Jacks or Better, but on other games the same two numbers name a different table and a different return:

So the label alone does not tell you the return. Name the game first, then read the two numbers. Our guide to Bonus Poker and its cousins lists the full-pay table of each family.

How to Spot a Short-Pay Game

A short-pay game looks like the full-pay one with a few numbers lowered. Check the screen in this order:

• The royal flush column for five coins. It should read 4,000, which is 800 for each coin.
• The full house and flush rows, compared with the full-pay label for that game.
• The four of a kind rows, which are the next place a bonus game hides a cut.
• The straight, three of a kind and two pair rows, which sit under the label and rarely get checked.
• The lowest paying hand, because a game that starts at jacks pays on fewer hands than one that starts at tens.

Never assume that two similar-looking games share a pay table, even at one operator. Look at the table on the screen every time you open a game, because it is the one place the game states its price. The video poker hub keeps the full-pay tables of the best-known versions in one place.

The Rest of the Video Poker Series

This guide is one of eight in the video poker guide directory. Seven more cover the rest of the game, from the versions to the rules:

• the video poker starter guide: the deal, the hold and the draw, with one hand worked out in full.
• Jacks or Better, Bonus Poker, and Double Bonus: how each version rewards four of a kind and what that does to the return.
• the wild card video poker guide: full-pay and short-pay Deuces Wild, Loose Deuces and Kings or Better Joker Poker.
• modern video poker formats explained: Ultimate X, Spin Poker, progressive royals and double up.
• video poker RTP, volatility, and bankroll: what the return means in dollars per hour and how far real sessions stray.
• the video poker hold guide: a ranked list of holds with worked examples and exact values.
• the regulation and fairness guide: random decks, pay table honesty and the tools licensed casinos offer.

A Pay Table Is a Price List

A pay table does not promise anything except what each hand pays. Video poker is paid entertainment with an expected cost on every hand, and no label, row or version can promise a profit. Set a budget before you play, and use the limits described on our responsible gaming page if play ever stops being fun.

Author:

Lucas Portela

Owner, BoldGambler • Avanhandava/SP

Oddsmaker, affiliate and content creator in the iGaming industry.

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