What each video poker paytable returns with optimal play. Why 9/6 and 8/5 Jacks or Better differ by more than two percent of everything staked.
Video poker looks like a slot machine and behaves like a solved card game: fixed paytable, standard deck, one best answer to every decision. That makes the long-run return knowable before you insert a coin. Returns below assume the maximum-coin bet and perfect play.
| Machine | Return | Cost per unit |
|---|---|---|
| Deuces Wild (full pay) — 25-15-9-5-3-2-2-1 — rare, and positive | 100.76% | +0.76% |
| Jacks or Better 9/6 — Full house 9, flush 6 — the benchmark | 99.54% | 0.46% |
| Jacks or Better 9/5 — Flush cut to 5 | 98.45% | 1.55% |
| Jacks or Better 8/6 — Full house cut to 8 | 98.39% | 1.61% |
| Jacks or Better 8/5 — The common online build | 97.30% | 2.70% |
| Jacks or Better 7/5 — Both cut | 96.45% | 3.55% |
| Jacks or Better 6/5 — Avoid | 95.18% | 4.82% |
Video poker looks like a slot machine and behaves like a solved card game. The paytable is fixed and visible, the deck is a standard fifty-two cards, and every decision has a computable best answer — which means the machine’s long-run return is knowable before you insert a coin, unlike any reel game.
Two lines on that paytable do most of the work. What a full house pays and what a flush pays give the machine its shorthand name: 9/6 Jacks or Better returns 99.54% with perfect play, and 8/5 — identical in every other respect, and far more common online — returns 97.30%.
The difference between a 9/6 and a 6/5 machine is 4.4% of everything you stake, which dwarfs any effect your play can have. Two cabinets side by side with the same name and the same artwork can differ by that much, and nothing on the screen announces it other than the numbers themselves.
Full-pay Deuces Wild is the exception that proves the rule: at 25-15-9-5-3-2-2-1 it returns 100.76% with flawless play. It is close to extinct, and the versions that remain are usually one line short of full pay, which drops the return below break-even.
The royal flush pays disproportionately more on the maximum bet — typically 4,000 coins for five rather than 250 each for one to four. Betting short cuts roughly 1.5% off the return, which is more than the gap between a good paytable and a mediocre one.
If the maximum bet is more than you want to stake, the correct move is a lower denomination at full coins, not fewer coins at a higher one.
Each of the 2,598,960 possible five-card deals has one best hold, and strategy charts encode them as an ordered list: keep the highest-ranked pattern present in your hand. The frequent errors are holding a kicker with a pair, breaking a made flush to chase a royal, and keeping three cards to a straight when nothing else is there.
Getting the list roughly right captures most of the value. The gap between decent play and perfect play on a 9/6 machine is a few tenths of a percent; the gap between a 9/6 and an 8/5 machine is more than two.
The machine pays nine coins for a full house and six for a flush per coin bet. With optimal play it returns 99.54%.
Full-pay Deuces Wild at 100.76% is the only common variant that returns more than it takes, and it is now rare. Among Jacks or Better builds, 9/6 at 99.54% is the benchmark.
Yes, or drop to a lower denomination. The royal flush pays disproportionately more on the full bet; betting short costs about 1.5% of your return.
On a good paytable, substantially. A 9/6 machine returns 99.54% against a typical online slot in the mid-nineties — but an 8/5 or 6/5 machine gives that advantage away.
No. Most of the value comes from the common holds. Perfect play beats reasonable play by a few tenths of a percent, while the paytable choice is worth ten times that.