Unlike slots, video poker players can look at a paytable and immediately estimate the return to player, or RTP. This requires some memorization and an understanding of each hand’s payout values as they apply to the overall return. While that may seem complicated, it is simpler than it sounds, as you will see below.
Start by Memorizing the Full-Pay Version of Your Favorite Games
The first step in understanding a video poker game’s return is memorizing the full-pay version. Players do not need to do this for every game at first. Simply learn the best paytable for your favorite game(s).
Below are some of the most common non-wild cards full-pay paytables. The percentage next to it is the theoretical return for betting five coins using the perfect strategy. The payouts are for every coin wagered.
Double Bonus (100.17%)
- Royal flush: 800
- Straight flush: 50
- Four aces: 160
- Four twos, threes, or fours: 80
- Four fives to kings: 50
- Full house: 10
- Flush: 7
- Straight: 5
- Three of a kind: 3
- Two pair: 1
- Pair of jacks or better: 1
Double Double Bonus (100.06%)
- Royal flush: 800
- Straight flush: 50
- Four aces with a 2, 3, or 4 kicker: 400
- Four twos, three, or fours, with an ace, 2, 3, or 4 kicker: 160
- Four aces: 160
- Four twos, threes, or fours: 80
- Four fives to kings: 50
- Full house: 10
- Flush: 6
- Straight: 4
- Three of a kind: 3
- Two pair: 1
- Pair of jacks or better: 1
Jacks or Better (99.54%)
- 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
- Pair of jacks or better: 1
Bonus Poker (99.17%)
- Royal flush: 800
- Straight flush: 50
- Four aces: 80
- Four twos, threes, or fours: 40
- Four fives to kings: 25
- Full house: 8
- Flush: 5
- Straight: 4
- Three of a kind: 3
- Two pair: 2
- Pair of jacks or better: 1
The Double Bonus and Double Double Bonus paytables are typically only found in Nevada. The Jacks or Better and Bonus Poker ones are more common.
Learn the Terminology
Video poker paytables without wild cards are typically described by the full house and flush payouts. The Double Bonus example above is 10/7, while the Double Double Bonus one is 10/6. Jacks or Better is 9/6. The Bonus Poker paytable above is 8/5. Learning these makes it easier to keep shorthand notes and discuss games with other players.
Bonus Poker
I recommend checking out Bonus Poker before the other games. The reason is that it is often the best game on any random video poker machine, even those with inferior paytables.
The best Bonus Poker paytable is 8/5. Its return is 99.17%. That version may be hard to find outside Nevada. Inferior paytables are 7/5 and 6/5. The 7/5 paytable returns 98.01% with five coins and perfect play. The 6/5 one is 96.87%. This puts the return’s loss of one coin’s payout on a full house around 1.15%. This is common when the full house is downgraded.
Jacks or Better
Jacks or Better has several lower paytables than the full-pay 9/6. Two have almost identical returns, even though they have different full house and flush payouts. The 9/5 paytable returns 98.45% with perfect play, 1.09% below the 9/6 version. The 8/6 game returns 98.39%, a drop of 1.15% from 9/6.
Worse paytables include 8/5 (97.3%), 7/5 (96.15%), and 6/5 (95%). Note that the drop when the full house or flush drops one coin is about 1.1% to 1.15%.That is in the same range as Bonus Poker.
Double Double Bonus
Full-pay 10/6 Double Double Bonus returns 100.06%. The next paytable is 9/6. It returns 98.98%, a drop of 1.08%. At 9/5, the game returns 97.87%, 1.11% lower than the 9/6 game. The next stop is 8/5, which returns 96.79%, a drop of 1.08%.
The full house and flushes cause a drop of about 1.1% in return for every coin lost. That is common for Jacks or Better and Bonus Poker, too.
Double Bonus Poker
Double Bonus is a bit more complicated due to the flush paying 7 coins at full-pay games. The 9/7 game returns 99.11%, a drop of 1.06%. When the flush drops from 7 to 6 on the 9/6/5 paytable (straights pay 5 in better Double Bonus games), the return goes down to 97.81%, a decrease of 1.2%.
The straight paying five gets a bit tricky. The 9/6 version that pays four on a straight returns 96.38%. That is a difference of 1.4%, the largest drop of the paytables on the four games listed.
Stick With 1.1% for Each Lower Payout
For ease of learning the paytable difference, stick with a decrease of 1.1%, and you will be very close without needing to memorize each game. This allows you to compare the four most common non-wild card video poker games to determine which is best.
This means you can estimate a video poker game’s return quickly by doing this:
- Check the full house and flush on a game without wild cards
- Compare it to the full-pay version
- Subtract 1.1% for each coin missing from the full house and flush
- Compare it to other available games
Play Intelligently and Responsibly
The paytable’s return is only one piece of the video poker puzzle. It is important to know the proper strategy for each game. Making many mistakes can be worse than playing a bad paytable on a game you mastered. While Jacks or Better and Bonus Poker have simple strategies, Double Bonus and Double Double Bonus have some complicated moves to learn.
It is also important to play within your bankroll. It can be better to play a worse paytable on a lower denomination than a good paytable at a higher one, especially if you do not have the bankroll to survive the variance.
Regarding the video poker post, the 250 credits shown for straight flush is for five credits played not one credit. All the other payouts are shown for payout of one credit played. It would be nice if it paid 250 for one credit played!
Thanks for the catch Marcia! We’ve updated the article to correct those numbers.