Jacks or Better: How Video Poker's Classic Game Plays

Jacks or Better is five-card draw poker played against a machine's pay table. You are dealt five cards, decide which to keep, replace the rest once, and the final hand is paid according to a printed schedule. The smallest paying hand is a pair of jacks, which gives the game its name. Unlike a slot, the choices you make between deal and draw affect the result, so a little knowledge goes a long way.

How a hand is played

1. Choose your bet. Most machines take between one and five coins per hand, and you also set the value of each coin.
2. Deal. Five cards appear face up from a freshly shuffled virtual deck.
3. Hold. Tap the cards you want to keep. You may hold all five, none, or anything in between.
4. Draw. The cards you did not hold are replaced from the same deck.
5. Payout. If the final hand appears on the pay table, the machine pays the listed amount per coin bet.

There is no dealer hand and no other player. The deck is reshuffled for every new hand, so nothing carries over from one deal to the next.

Hand rankings, top to bottom

A pair of tens or lower pays nothing on its own, even though it is a pair in ordinary poker terms.

What "9/6" on the machine means

Jacks or Better machines are often described by two numbers, such as 9/6 or 8/5. The first is what a full house pays per coin; the second is what a flush pays per coin. The rest of the table usually looks the same from one machine to the next, which is why these two figures are used as a shorthand.

A 9/6 machine and an 8/5 machine can look identical on screen, yet the second one pays less on two hands that turn up regularly. Over many hands that difference adds up, so the version with the higher numbers returns more of what is staked. If two machines offer the same game, check the label first. Our guide to payout rates in online slots explains why small differences in return matter over a long session.

Many machines also pay a much larger royal flush prize per coin only when the maximum number of coins is bet. If that applies, lowering the coin value is a better way to reduce cost than playing fewer coins.

A simplified order for which cards to hold

Detailed strategy tables for full-pay Jacks or Better run to dozens of lines. A widely shared simplified version works from the top of this list down; hold the first item that matches your five cards:

1. A made royal flush, straight flush or four of a kind.
2. Four cards to a royal flush.
3. A made full house, flush, straight or three of a kind.
4. Four cards to a straight flush.
5. Two pair.
6. A pair of jacks or higher.
7. Three cards to a royal flush.
8. Four cards to a flush.
9. A low pair (tens or below).
10. Four cards to a straight that is open at both ends.
11. Two high cards of the same suit.
12. Two or more high cards of mixed suits (keep the lowest two).
13. A single high card.
14. Nothing: draw five new cards.

Following an order like this removes guesswork. It does not overcome the margin built into the pay table, and no hold pattern makes the game profitable over time.

Common mistakes at the machine

• Holding a kicker. Keeping an ace alongside a pair reduces the chance of improving the pair. Hold the pair alone.
• Breaking a low pair for a long shot. Three cards to a flush or straight are weaker than a small pair.
• Playing a short pay table. Same game, lower numbers on the label, lower return.
• Letting speed take over. A hand takes only a few seconds, so the number of hands in an hour, and the cost of that hour, can be far higher than the coin value suggests. The habits in our list of common slot mistakes apply here too.

Video poker compared with slots

Video poker is an adults-only game. Check what the rules are where you live, decide on a fixed spend before the first deal, and stop when it is used up.