How to Play Video Poker: Jacks or Better
Learn how Jacks or Better video poker works, why the paytable matters most, and which cards to hold. Rules, the 9/6 paytable and hold priorities.
Video poker looks like a slot machine, but it plays like poker, and it is one of the few machine games where your decisions change the odds. On a good machine played well, the house edge is under half a percent, one of the best bets on the casino floor. On a bad machine that looks identical, it can be ten times higher. This guide covers how a hand works, how to read the paytable, and which cards to keep.
Table Edge is a free practice site: everything here uses practice chips with no cash value, and nothing in this guide guarantees a win.
How a hand works
Jacks or Better is five-card draw poker against a fixed paytable instead of other players. There is no dealer hand to beat.
- You place a bet and are dealt five cards face up.
- You choose which cards to hold. Anything you don't hold is discarded.
- The discarded cards are replaced, once, from the same deck.
- Your final five-card hand is checked against the paytable. If it is a pair of Jacks or better, or any higher-ranked hand, you are paid according to the table.
A pair of Jacks is the lowest hand that pays anything, hence the name.
The paytable
The paytable lists what each hand pays, as a multiple of your bet. This is the full-pay version, called 9/6 (explained below), for a one-coin bet:
| Hand | Pays |
|---|
| Royal flush | 250 |
| 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 |
Anything lower than a pair of Jacks pays nothing. On most machines the royal flush pays much more when you bet the maximum number of coins (usually five), so playing fewer than the maximum gives up part of that jackpot and lowers your return. Always bet max coins if you can afford it, or play a lower denomination so that you can.
What "9/6" means
Machines are named after their full house and flush payouts, in multiples of your bet. A 9/6 machine pays 9 for a full house and 6 for a flush. That is the full-pay version. Many casinos quietly offer 8/5 or 6/5 machines that look exactly the same but pay less.
The gap is huge. With perfect strategy, these are the commonly published returns:
| Paytable (full house / flush) | Return with perfect strategy | House edge |
|---|
| 9/6 | 99.54% | 0.46% |
| 8/5 | 97.30% | 2.70% |
| 6/5 | 95.00% | 5.00% |
A 6/5 machine can look identical to a 9/6 machine from across the room: same cabinet, same game name, same cards. The only way to tell them apart is to read the paytable on the screen before you sit down. That one check is worth more than any hold you will ever make. The figures are published estimates from video poker strategy literature, not this site's own simulation.
Basic strategy: which cards to hold
Unlike blackjack, there is no dealer card to react to. Every decision is about your own five cards and the paytable. The chances of completing each kind of draw are fixed, so computers have worked out the best hold for every possible hand. The best hold is the one with the highest average return over every possible draw, not the one most likely to improve.
That distinction matters. A small chance at a big payout can beat a big chance at a small one. A 1-in-47 shot at the 250-credit royal flush is worth about 5.3 credits on its own, far more than a 19% shot at a 6-credit flush, which is worth about 1.1.
Roughly, hold in this order of priority:
- Royal flush
- Straight flush
- Four of a kind
- Four cards to a royal flush
- Full house
- Flush
- Three of a kind
- Straight
- Two pair
- A pair of Jacks or better
- Four cards to a flush
- Three cards to a royal flush
- A low pair
- Four cards to an open-ended straight
- Two suited high cards
- Two high cards
- One high card
- If none of those, discard everything and draw five new cards
This list is a guide, not an exact algorithm. Close choices are decided by the numbers, and a few hands break the pattern (for example, four to a royal flush beats a made flush, because of the 250 payout). The hold trainer shows the average return of every possible hold for each hand you are dealt, and tells you how much your choice cost.
Odds worth knowing
Five-card poker hands come in 2,598,960 combinations. Only 4 of them are royal flushes (1 in 649,740), and about half are no better than one pair. A full house is rarer than a flush, which is why it ranks higher in poker. The poker hand probabilities chart lists every hand's exact odds.
The machine's cards are random and every hand is independent. A machine is never "due" to pay, and a machine that just paid out is no less likely to pay again. There are no hot or cold machines, only the paytable you chose. The casino myths page covers this.
Money and mindset
Video poker is fast, and even a good machine loses on average. Perfect strategy on a 9/6 machine still gives the house about half a percent, and the swings are large: long losing runs are normal and the big hands arrive rarely. Decide how much you can afford to lose before you sit down, and treat it as the cost of the entertainment. The bankroll simulator shows how wide the swings can be.
If gambling is affecting your life, you can reach the National Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-522-4700.
Quick recap
- Read the paytable first. Look for 9/6 Jacks or Better, and leave 8/5 and 6/5 alone.
- Bet the maximum coins if the machine pays more on a max-coin royal flush.
- Hold the hand with the highest average return, not just the best-looking cards.
- Four to a royal flush beats a made flush; a pair of Jacks or better beats four to a flush.
- No machine is due, and no pattern changes the cards.
Ready to practise? Try the paytable and hold trainer, then play at the free video poker machine. To compare video poker with other games, see the best odds in the casino.
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