Video poker strategy: paytables, holds & examples

You are playing the paytable, not another player

In standard draw video poker, you receive five cards, choose which to keep, and replace the rest. The final hand pays according to the game’s paytable. There is no opponent to bluff and no pot to win.

For a conventional 52-card game, replacements come from the 47 cards not in the original hand. Discarded cards do not return on that draw. The five cards you were dealt therefore matter even when you keep only one or two.

The goal of strategy is to choose the hold with the highest expected payout: the average across its possible replacement cards. That is not always the hold most likely to produce any paying hand.

Read the paytable before choosing a strategy

“9/6” refers to the full-house and flush payouts: 9 and 6 per coin. Those two numbers are a useful shortcut, but check the whole table, including the royal payout.

These are total payouts, not profit added to the stake. A high pair returns five coins on a five-coin wager, so you break even. Two pair returns ten coins, leaving a five-coin profit.

With this paytable and optimal play, the theoretical return is approximately 99.54%. That still leaves a house edge of about 0.46%. This benchmark comes from the published 9/6 analysis; it does not apply to every game called Jacks or Better.

Five coins does not have to mean a large dollar bet

On a common paytable, a royal returns 250 per coin at one through four coins, then 800 per coin at five. The five-coin bonus improves the return per dollar. It is a payout-rule difference, not a reward for chasing losses.

Check that bonus on the actual game. Five coins at a $0.25 denomination cost $1.25 per hand; five at $1 cost $5. Choose an affordable denomination rather than increasing your spending to reach a payout column.

Four hands that explain the decisions

Read each hand as a choice between possible draws. The hold labels show the best decision for the exact cards displayed, using the paytable above.

How to use a complete strategy chart

Match the chart to the exact paytable. Find every applicable hold, then choose the one ranked highest. If you have both a pair and a four-card draw, compare them rather than stopping at the first pattern you notice.

Full charts include close decisions involving high cards, gaps in straight draws and discarded cards. Use a complete 9/6 Jacks or Better chart for those cases. The four examples here are not a substitute for that detail.

Deuces Wild needs a different set of decisions

In Deuces Wild, every two is wild. A two can stand in for another rank or suit to make a paying combination. A natural royal uses no wild cards; a royal made with a deuce is a different, lower-paying result.

Standard Deuces Wild pays from three of a kind upward. A high pair is no longer a made winner, so a Jacks or Better chart will give the wrong priorities.

For the specific full-pay version analyzed by Wizard of Odds, optimal play gives about 100.76% theoretical return. That figure is not a general Deuces Wild return or a claim that this paytable is currently available at your casino.

Use the chart for the actual version, starting with the number of deuces dealt. Even familiar decisions such as keeping two pair can change. A favorable published return assumes the corresponding strategy; it does not guarantee a profit or eliminate the need to fund losing stretches.

Avoid habits that quietly give up value

Keeping an extra card “just in case”

When the right play is to keep a pair in Jacks or Better, holding an unrelated kicker uses up a draw that could improve it. Keep the cards the strategy calls for. Do not transfer this rule blindly to bonus variants where kickers can affect awards.

Judging the decision by the next card

A correct discard can be followed by a loss. An incorrect hold can land a jackpot. Review the expected value at the moment of the decision, not whether the draw happened to work.

Practicing the wrong version

A chart for 9/6 Jacks or Better is not automatically correct for a lower-paying table. Changing variants without changing strategy can surrender some of the return you chose the game for.

A bankroll is a spending limit, not a royal-flush countdown

Rare hands account for part of theoretical return. You can therefore play correctly and still have a long losing stretch. There is no bankroll amount that guarantees you will last until a royal.

Decide what you can afford to lose before playing. Lower the denomination if a five-coin wager is too large, and do not treat losses as a reason to raise the stake. A risk-of-ruin estimate needs the game, strategy, bet size, time horizon and stopping rules; a generic “safe number of bets” leaves too much out.

Questions readers ask

Sources & calculation notes

Compare available paytables

These are documented standard schedules, not a survey of which machines are currently available. Match every award before choosing a preset. The simulator keeps its original Jacks or Better 9/6 and 100-hand defaults.

A reduced full house or flush changes the value of drawing to those hands. The 9/6 examples elsewhere on this page are not a complete optimal chart for 9/5 or 8/6. Each preset has its own optimal-play frequencies.

Changing denomination changes USD amounts, not these credit awards or probabilities. A 4,000-credit royal at $0.25 per credit returns $1,000 after a $1.25 wager. Every added schedule uses its own integer-weight analysis; no other paytable's frequencies are reused. The analysis assumes optimal play, while this automatic simulator samples final categories and does not teach or grade holds.

The source's 9/5 total-combinations cell contains zero, a transcription error. Its individual category counts sum to 19,933,230,517,200 and reproduce the reported return; those individual counts define the added 9/5 model.