Video Poker Pay Tables
A variant's rules and the deck fix how often each hand is dealt. The pay table fixes what each hand is worth, so it alone sets how much of every stake comes back over the long run. In this guide a "point" means one percentage point of that return.
The games in our own library show how much the table matters. Jacks or Better from Platipus, Playtech and Dragon Gaming runs the 9/6 table, which returns 99.54% under perfect play, while Habanero's version is set to 7/5, at 96.15%. The rules are the same and the correct holds all but identical; at the maximum bet the two tables part company on the full house and the flush alone.
A game's title names its rules, not its table, and sometimes not even the rules. AUXO Game's "Bonus Poker" is a different game altogether: a royal of 600 times the bet, a straight flush of 100, one four-of-a-kind payout of 60 and a side feature built on bonus numbers. Read the table on the screen you are playing. The free-play library lists every game with the table it runs.
Reading Any Pay Table
Hands run down the side and the columns show what each pays at one to five credits. Every figure is paid "for one": the lowest line pays 1 per credit, which hands back your stake and no more. Many online games show one column of multipliers such as "x800" instead, applied to the total bet, or money amounts at the current bet, which you can divide by the stake.
The three checks: Three checks cover almost every game: the column for the bet you will place, whether the royal row jumps at the top bet, and the few lines that separate that variant's higher-return tables from its lower ones.
Within one variant, how often each hand is dealt never depends on the table, because the deck and the rules fix it; how often it lands after the draw shifts only slightly, through the holds each table calls for (the how-to-play guide explains the deal).
Notation and Fingerprint Lines, Variant by Variant
"Full pay" names a variant's traditional reference table. It is a label, not a promise that no better table exists. The returns of these tables and their cut-down versions are in the ladder below.
What One Credit on a Line Is Worth
Each figure compares two neighboring tables that differ only on the lines named, both played perfectly at the maximum bet. As a rule of thumb, when two tables differ by one credit on one line, the return moves by about as many points as that hand lands per 100 hands: in 9/6 Jacks or Better a full house arrives 11.51 times per 1,000 hands and a flush 11.01 times. That is why one credit off the Bonus Deuces Wild full house costs 2.50 points while a credit off its straight flush costs 0.41.
Max Coin Against Short Coin
On a classic coin-column table, a bet of one to four credits gets a royal of 250 per credit (250, 500, 750 or 1,000 in all), and five credits get 4,000, which is 800 per credit. On such a table every other line is a straight multiple of the stake. Returns above 100% hold only as long-run averages with perfect play; no session is promised them.
Games That Break the Royal Rule
Several games in our library depart from that pattern. Platipus (Jacks or Better, Bonus Deuces Wild, Aces and Faces) and Dragon Gaming (Jacks or Better) pay a flat 800 times the bet for a royal at every bet size, so their return is the same at any stake. Urgent Games' Joker Poker Mania pays a flat 750, for 95.89% at any bet.
Others use a different short-coin royal. Habanero's Tens or Better pays 500 per credit below five credits, so betting short only takes its return from 96.95% to 96.20%, where a 250 royal would take it to 95.61%. Its Bonus Deuces Wild does the same, 96.85% against 96.18%. Its Joker Poker pays 750 per credit below five credits and 5,000 at five, which is 1,000 per credit (96.50% against 95.89%). InOut's Joker Poker pays 300 per credit below the top bet (97.95% against 96.89%). Arrow's Edge's Triple Triple Bonus Poker pays a straight 800 per credit at every bet, and a linked progressive jackpot means no pay-table figure describes its return.
The Cross-Variant Return Ladder
Every return assumes the maximum bet and perfect play. Each band includes its lower bound and stops short of its upper one.
Video Poker Pay Tables: FAQs
Yes. Every return in this guide is the long-run average for that exact table when every hand is held correctly for it. A strategy learned on a different table plays below that figure, and the strategy guide measures by how much.
No. Double Double Bonus 10/6 returns 100.07% with a standard deviation of 6.49 bets per hand (a bet meaning the amount staked on one hand), while Jacks or Better 9/6 returns 99.54% with 4.42. The bonus game pays more of its return through rare four-of-a-kind hands, so its results swing more widely.
No. Habanero's Joker Poker pays 1,000 per credit for a royal at five credits, yet its 20/5/4 table returns 96.50%, against 100.65% for 20/7/5 with an 800 royal. A royal lands too rarely for its size to make up for the cuts to the full house and flush, which land far more often.
Divide the five-credit column by five. A royal of 4,000 for five credits is 800 per credit, the same as a flat x800.