Video Poker
Video Poker Pay Tables: 9/6 Against 8/5
Two lines separate a 99.54% video poker machine from a 97.30% one: what a full house pays and what a flush pays. Everything else on the two pay tables is identical, and so is the cabinet, the artwork, and the name on the screen. Both tables are shown side by side below.
Written by the Moes Almanac editorial team
2.24%
Two lines of a pay table — full house and flush. On 100 units wagered an hour that is roughly two extra units lost every hour, from a difference most players never read.
What the numbers mean
Each figure is a payout per coin wagered. A full house at 9 pays nine coins for each coin bet, so a five-coin bet returns 45. This is why the game is named after those two lines: a "9/6" machine is one paying 9 for a full house and 6 for a flush.
Only the royal flush breaks the pattern. It pays 250 per coin on bets of one to four coins but 800 per coin on a five-coin bet, and that single step is the reason maximum coins is not optional.
The two pay tables
| Hand | 9/6 | 8/5 |
|---|---|---|
| Royal flush Paid 800 per coin at five coins, 250 per coin below that | 250 | 250 |
| Straight flush | 50 | 50 |
| Four of a kind | 25 | 25 |
| Full house | 9 | 8 |
| Flush | 6 | 5 |
| Straight | 4 | 4 |
| Three of a kind | 3 | 3 |
| Two pair | 2 | 2 |
| Jacks or better | 1 | 1 |
| Return to player, optimal play | 99.54% | 97.30% |
Checking a machine in ten seconds
Look at two lines only. Find the full house and the flush in the one-coin column. If they read 9 and 6, the machine returns 99.54% with optimal play. If they read 8 and 5, it returns 97.30%. If they read 6 and 5, it is closer to 95%.
That is the entire check. No other line on a Jacks or Better pay table varies between common versions, so no other line tells you anything you did not already know.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does a reduced pay table actually cost?
- Moving from 9/6 to 8/5 Jacks or Better lowers the return from 99.54% to 97.30% — a difference of 2.24 percentage points. On 100 units wagered per hour that is roughly two extra units lost every hour, from two lines of a pay table that most players never read.
- Why does the royal flush pay more at five coins?
- It is the mechanism that makes maximum-coin play correct. The royal pays 250 per coin at one to four coins and 800 per coin at five, and a large share of the game's advertised return sits in that single line. Betting fewer coins costs roughly 1.5 percentage points of return.
- Do these tables apply to other video poker games?
- No. Deuces Wild, Double Double Bonus, and other variants have their own pay tables, their own returns, and their own optimal strategies. The method transfers — read the pay table before playing — but the specific numbers on this page belong to Jacks or Better only.