Video poker pay tables can be tricky

16 August 2025

By Jerry Stickman

In the Golden Age of video poker, there were only a few types of games and they all had good pay tables. Video poker was a new game and casinos competed with each other to attract players.
The “full pay” version of Jacks or Better returned 99.54 percent with perfect play. This game pays 4,000 credits for a royal flush when five credits are played per hand. Competition caused some casinos to install games that paid 4,700 credits for a royal with five coins played. On a 25¢ game the total amounted to $1,175 coming in just under the $1,200 limit where a W2-G must be issued. This game returns 99.9 percent with perfect play. In the long run, a person playing this game will only lose ten cents for every $100 played.

The full pay version of Double Bonus Poker actually pays over 100 percent – 100.17 percent – with perfect play. That is right, by playing perfect strategy you will make money in the long run playing this game.

The classic full pay Deuces Wild game does even better, returning 100.76 percent with perfect play.
When these games were first introduced, players did not know how to play them. They simply played what their gut told them. As research was done and books written on how to maximize returns playing video poker, casinos saw their profits dwindle on video poker. To compensate, they tweaked the pay tables. Rather than paying 9-for-1 for a full house and 6-for-1 for a flush on Jacks or Better, they reduced the payout to 8-for-1 for a full house and 5-for-1 for a flush. This reduced the return to 97.30 percent from 99.54 percent.

With most video poker games, the casinos change only one or two paybacks to improve their house edge. These are fairly simple to see and fairly intuitive to understand. However, with some games, several paybacks are changed with some being increased and others being reduced.

Consider these two Deuces Wild pay tables.

Hand/Game A/Game B
Royal Flush (No Deuces)/800/800
Four Deuces/200/200
Royal Flush w/Deuces/25/25
Five-of-a-Kind/15/16
Straight Flush/9/10
Four-of-a-Kind/5/4
Full House/3/4
Flush/2/3
Straight/2/2
Three-of-a-Kind/1/1

Which game has the better return?

Game B pays one credit more for five-of-a-kind, straight flush, full house, and flush, and pays one credit less for four-of-a-kind. Normally the hands near the bottom of the pay table occur more frequently. The only hand that pays less in game B is the four-of-kind and it is in the middle of the pay table.

Surely Game B has a better return – right?

Wrong! Game A is the full pay version of Deuces Wild returning 100.76 percent. Game B is Not So Ugly Deuces returning 99.73 percent.

How can this be? It is certainly not intuitive. Let’s look a little closer.

Here is the same table with a column for the percent of return added. The additional column was determined using a video poker software program.

Hand/Game A/% of Retn/Game B/% of Retn
Royal Flush (No Deuces)/800/1.77/800/1.84
Four Deuces/200/4.07/200/3.73
Royal Flush w Deuces/25/4.49/25/4.77
Five-of-a-Kind/15/4.80/16/4.97
Straight Flush/9/3.71/10/5.14
Four-of-a-Kind/5/32.47/4/24.42
Full House/3/6.37/4/10.45
Flush/2/3.32/3/6.23
Straight/2/11.31/2/11.47
Three-of-a-Kind/1/28.45/1/26.72

The differences caused by changing the payback are shaded. However, there are also differences in other return percentages because the strategy changes to favor the highest paying returns. While the shaded differences slightly favor Game B, when you add in the other changes based on strategy changes, the results are Game A – 100.76 percent and Game B – 99.74 percent (because of rounding it is slightly higher than the actual 99.73 percent).

The moral of the story is you may not be able to tell by simply looking at the pay tables which game has the higher return. In order to take full advantage of a video poker game you need a software program to determine the best game. You should also use a software program to make sure you are playing the best strategy for that game. A little preparation can pay big dividends.

As always, may all your wins be swift and large, and your losses be slow and tiny.

Jerry “Stickman”

Jerry “Stickman” is an expert in craps, blackjack and video poker and advantage slot machine play. He is a regular contributor to top gaming magazines and 888casino.com. He authored the video poker section of Everything Casino Poker: Get the Edge at Video Poker, Texas Hold'em, Omaha Hi-Lo, and Pai Gow Poker! You can contact Jerry “Stickman” at stickmanjerryg@gmail.com