How to Read a Video Poker Paytable in 30 Seconds

Two Jacks or Better machines sit next to each other. One returns 99.54% with perfect play; the other 97.30%. The only visible difference is the row labeled Full House.

Video poker is the only casino game where you can know your exact long-run return before you ever sit down. The machine prints the paytable on the screen. The paytable is the entire game — combine it with optimal play and you have your expected return to the dollar.

Most players never check. They sit down at the first Jacks or Better machine they see, play 1,000 hands, and bleed at five to six times the rate they had to. This article is the 30-second test that fixes that. Two numbers on the paytable — Full House and Flush — tell you whether the machine is worth playing.

The 9/6 test

On a Jacks or Better machine, look at the per-coin payouts for Full House and Flush (column 1, one coin bet). A 'full-pay' or 9/6 machine pays 9 coins for a Full House and 6 coins for a Flush. The Royal Flush should pay 250 coins on one coin bet and 4,000 on max coins (five coins).

9/6 Jacks or Better: 99.54% return with perfect play
8/6 Jacks or Better: 98.39% return
8/5 Jacks or Better: 97.30% return
7/5 Jacks or Better: 96.15% return
6/5 Jacks or Better: 95.00% return

Most Strip casinos run 8/5 or 7/5 on quarters. Off-Strip and downtown casinos run 9/6 more often. The 30-second test: look at the Full House and Flush rows. If they're 9 and 6, sit down. If they're 8 and 5, walk past.

Why one row is worth 2.24% of your bankroll

The Full House and Flush hit about 1.15% and 1.10% of the time with optimal play. Cutting the Full House payout from 9 to 8 means you collect 1 fewer coin per 87 hands on average — that's worth roughly 1.15% of total return. Cutting Flush from 6 to 5 costs another 1.10%. The 9/6 vs 8/5 difference is the combination of those two: 2.24% of every dollar you wager.

Concretely: a $1-denomination 9/6 machine at $5 max bet, 600 hands an hour, $3,000/hr in action. The 9/6 returns 99.54% — you lose $13.80/hr in expectation. The 8/5 returns 97.30% — you lose $81/hr. Same machine, same hands per hour, six times the bleed.

If a machine is at 95% return, you're paying the same edge as roulette on the Strip (5.26%). At 92% you're paying slot-machine rates. The video-poker brand makes players think they're at advantage; the paytable decides whether that's true.

Bonus Poker, Double Bonus, and the 8/5 variants

Jacks or Better isn't the only video poker game. Bonus Poker pays extra for four-of-a-kind. Double Bonus pays even more. Double Double Bonus adds bonuses for specific kickers. Each one shifts the strategy and changes the paytable economics.

Full-pay Bonus Poker: 8/5 paytable (8 for Full House, 5 for Flush), 4-of-a-kind 25/40/80 coin payouts depending on rank → 99.17% return
Full-pay Double Bonus: 9/7/5 (Full House / Flush / Straight) with quad bonuses → 100.17% return (yes, positive)
Full-pay Double Double Bonus: 9/6 with kicker bonuses → 98.98%
These full-pay versions are vanishingly rare in modern casinos

The general rule: the more bonus on the high hands, the lower the bonus on the low hands. Reading the full paytable means scanning the entire column, not just the Full House and Flush rows. Bonus Poker variants reward you for quads but punish you on Two Pair (often paying 1 coin instead of 2) — which kills a high-frequency hand.

Deuces Wild: NSUD and the five paytable tiers

Deuces Wild uses a completely different paytable structure because all 2s are wild. The standard payouts are: Natural Royal 4,000 / Four Deuces 1,000 / Wild Royal 125 / Five of a Kind 75 / Straight Flush 45 / Four of a Kind 25 / Full House X / Flush X / Straight 10 / Three of a Kind 5 / Two Pair 0 (yes, Two Pair pays nothing in Deuces).

The X-X-X variable rows determine the game's return:

Full-pay Deuces (FPDW): 25/15/9/5/3/2 — 100.76% return (positive)
Not So Ugly Deuces (NSUD): 25/16/13/4/3/2 — 99.73%
Illinois Deuces: 25/16/10/4/3/2 — 98.91%
Ugly Deuces: 25/15/9/4/3/2 — 96.77%
Bonus Deuces variants: 99-100% depending on the wild-card and four-of-a-kind kickers

Full-pay Deuces is the only commonly-available video poker game with a positive return for perfect play — but you need a perfect Deuces strategy chart (different from Jacks or Better) and access to FPDW machines, which mostly live in downtown Vegas and a few off-Strip locals casinos.

The paytable cheat sheet

Jacks or Better: 9/6 plays at 99.54%, 8/5 plays at 97.30%. Bonus Poker variants: scan the 4-of-a-kind row AND the 2-pair row. Deuces Wild: full-pay is 25/15/9/5/3/2 at 100.76%, NSUD is 25/16/13/4/3/2 at 99.73%, anything else is worse. Always check before sitting.

What 'short pay' means and where it hides

Casinos hide bad paytables in plain sight by changing one number from full-pay. The machine still says 'Jacks or Better' on the top glass; the paytable underneath reads 8/5 instead of 9/6. The player who doesn't check sees 'Jacks or Better' and assumes it's the same game. It isn't.

Common shortpay patterns:

8/5 JoB on the Strip (97.30%) — extremely common
7/5 JoB at off-brand locals (96.15%)
6/5 JoB at airports and convenience locations (95.00%) — almost slot-machine territory
Bonus Poker with 1-coin Two Pair (98.0% to 96.5% depending on quad payouts)

The denomination matters less than the paytable. A $5-denomination 8/5 machine has worse expected return than a $0.25-denomination 9/6 machine. Always scan the paytable, never assume.

Run the number yourself

If you don't want to memorize every common paytable, TableSharp's /reference/vp-paytable scanner lets you punch in the payouts from any machine and computes the exact RTP. Sit in front of a video poker game, type in the column of numbers, and see whether the machine is 99.5% or 95.0% before you commit a session bankroll.

The 30-second paytable scan is the single most profitable habit in video poker. Drill the recognition on /train/video-poker; verify any machine in the wild with /reference/vp-paytable. The math does the rest.