Video poker
Draw poker against a pay table, where your choices change the payback.
How to play
- You get five cards and choose which ones to hold. The others are replaced once, and the final hand is paid from the pay table.
- In Jacks or Better, the lowest paying hand is a pair of jacks, queens, kings or aces.
- The pay table sets the game's return. A full house that pays 9 and a flush that pays 6 make the full-pay version, called 9/6.
- The royal flush pays 800 for each coin when you play five coins, and 250 for each coin with fewer.
Odds
Full-pay 9/6 Jacks or Better returns 99.54% with perfect play, which is a house edge of 0.46%.
The 8/5 version, with a full house paying 8 and a flush paying 5, returns 97.30%.
The practice game pays the 9/6 table and treats every bet as five coins.
| Bet | Pays |
|---|---|
| Royal flush | ×800 |
| 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 | ×1 |
The house edge is the share of every bet that the casino keeps over time. With a 2% edge you lose 2 of every 100 you bet on average over a long run. Any single session can still go either way.
Best play
- Play only full-pay 9/6 tables. Check the full house and flush lines of the pay table before you play.
- Play five coins, because the royal flush pays far more for each coin at the maximum bet.
- Keep a pair of jacks or better rather than chasing four cards to a flush or a straight.
- Keep four cards to a royal flush, even when that breaks up a pair, a flush or a straight.
- When you have nothing better, keep your high cards, jack or better, at most two of them, rather than drawing five new cards.
Practice
Play money only. Nothing on this page is real money.