Video Poker Pay Tables: How One Payout Changes Your Odds
Two video poker machines can sit side by side, display the exact same game name, use the exact same strategy chart, and still hand the house a meaningfully different edge — because one single number on the pay table is different. Video poker is unusual among casino games in that the entire house edge is printed right on the screen, in the payout schedule for each hand, if you know which line to check. Most players never check it, which is exactly why pay table literacy is one of the highest-value things you can learn before sitting down at a machine.
In this guide
How a video poker pay table is built
Every video poker variant runs off a fixed pay table: a grid listing every winning hand category — royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, and so on down to the game's minimum paying hand — next to how many coins it pays per coin wagered. The game itself is a fair draw from a standard deck with no house-controlled outcome manipulation; the entire house edge comes from how generously or stingily that pay table is set for each hand category. Change the numbers in that grid and you've changed a completely different game mathematically, even if the cards, the draw mechanics, and the name on the cabinet are identical.
"Full pay" Jacks or Better and the 9/6 shorthand
Jacks or Better is the most studied video poker variant, and its pay table is commonly described in shorthand by just two numbers: the full house and flush payouts, in that order, both quoted per coin for a max-coin bet. A "9/6" Jacks or Better machine pays 9 coins for a full house and 6 coins for a flush per coin wagered, and with mathematically perfect play, that specific pay table returns roughly 99.5% — among the best odds available on the casino floor for any game, video poker or otherwise. That's why "9/6" gets called full pay: at that combination, the full house and flush payouts are as generous as the standard version of the game gets.
Drop the full house payout to 8 coins and the flush to 5, producing an "8/5" table, and the return falls to roughly 97.3% with the same perfect strategy — a full two-percentage-point swing from changing exactly two numbers on the pay table, out of a dozen or more hand categories on the full grid. Every other line on the table can be completely identical.
Why changing one payout moves the whole edge
The reason a single payout swings the overall return so much comes down to frequency. Full houses and flushes are common enough winning hands in Jacks or Better that they occur regularly across a long session, which means even a small per-hand payout cut gets multiplied across a large number of occurrences over time. A rarer hand category, like a straight flush or a four-of-a-kind on a specific rank, could have its payout changed and move the overall return by only a tiny fraction, precisely because it happens so infrequently that the change barely accumulates. Full house and flush sit in the sweet spot of being common enough to matter and specific enough that operators can quietly adjust them without changing the game's name or the strategy chart's overall shape.
A side-by-side comparison of common pay tables
| Jacks or Better variant | Full house / flush payout | Approx. return (perfect play) |
|---|---|---|
| 9/6 ("full pay") | 9 coins / 6 coins | ~99.5% |
| 8/5 | 8 coins / 5 coins | ~97.3% |
| 6/5 | 6 coins / 5 coins | ~95.0% |
The gap between 9/6 and 6/5 is bigger than the gap between many entirely different casino games, which is a useful way to reframe the decision: choosing which pay table to sit down at can matter more to your long-run results than choosing which casino game to play in the first place. Other video poker variants — Deuces Wild, Bonus Poker, Double Bonus — carry their own full-pay benchmarks and their own shorthand, but the underlying lesson is identical in every one of them: check the specific payout grid, not just the game's name.
How to actually find and read a pay table
On a physical or digital video poker machine, the pay table is displayed directly on the game screen, usually as a grid with hand categories down one side and coins-per-bet across the top for one through five (or max) coins wagered. To identify what you're looking at quickly, check the full house and flush lines specifically for Jacks or Better variants — those two numbers alone tell you which version of the pay table you're on, without needing to compare the entire grid line by line. For other variants, the "tell" numbers differ (Deuces Wild strategy guides typically point to the four-deuces and wild-royal payouts as the quick identifiers), but the same principle of checking a couple of diagnostic lines applies.
Why the pay table changes correct strategy, not just the math
A subtlety that trips up players who've memorized a strategy chart for one pay table: the mathematically correct decision on a given hand can change when the pay table changes, because the chart is optimized around the specific payouts in front of you. A hold-or-discard decision that's correct on a 9/6 table isn't automatically correct on a 6/5 table, since the relative value of drawing toward a flush versus a pair shifts along with the payouts. Playing a memorized full-pay strategy chart on a short-pay machine won't produce full-pay returns — you'd need the matching chart for that specific pay table to actually realize its (lower) optimal return, which is one more reason identifying the pay table before you sit down matters more than it might seem.
Frequently asked questions
Is 9/6 Jacks or Better still common at casinos and online?
It exists, but it isn't the default — plenty of floors and platforms run 8/5, 6/5, or other variants instead, since those pay tables cost the operator less. It's worth actively looking for full-pay machines rather than assuming any Jacks or Better cabinet is 9/6.
Do online video poker games use the same pay table concept as physical machines?
Yes. Online video poker runs on the identical idea of a fixed payout grid per hand category, and reputable regulated platforms disclose the pay table on the game screen the same way a physical cabinet does.
Does betting the max coins change the pay table itself?
Not usually for the per-hand payout ratios, but many video poker games pay a disproportionately larger jackpot for a royal flush specifically at max coins, so betting less than max can quietly cut your effective return on that one hand category.
Can I tell a machine's pay table just from its cabinet or name?
No — the game name and cabinet art describe the variant (Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, and so on), not the specific payout schedule. You have to check the on-screen pay table itself to know which version you're actually playing.
Is video poker's edge better than slots in general?
A full-pay video poker game with correct strategy typically beats the return on most slots, which commonly run in the low-to-mid 90s. A short-pay video poker table, though, can land in the same range as an average slot — the specific pay table is what determines where any given machine actually falls.