What a pay table is
In video poker you are dealt five cards from a standard deck, choose which to keep, and receive replacements for the rest. The final hand is paid according to a pay table, a printed list of winning hands and what each pays per coin bet. The deal itself is a shuffled 52-card deck with the replacements drawn without replacement from the cards that remain, so the probability of each hand category is fixed by the deck. The only thing that varies between machines of the same game is the payout attached to each hand.
That makes the pay table the main design lever. Two machines can look identical and deal the same cards while returning different amounts in the long run.
Reading a Jacks or Better table
In the Jacks or Better game, the lowest paying hand is a pair of jacks or higher. A common full-pay table shows these payouts for a one-coin bet:
| Hand | 9/6 table | 8/5 table |
|---|---|---|
| Jacks or better | 1 | 1 |
| Two pair | 2 | 2 |
| Three of a kind | 3 | 3 |
| Straight | 4 | 4 |
| Flush | 6 | 5 |
| Full house | 9 | 8 |
| Four of a kind | 25 | 25 |
| Straight flush | 50 | 50 |
| Royal flush | 250 | 250 |
Players name tables by the full house and flush payouts, so “9/6” means a full house pays 9 and a flush pays 6 per coin. Because these two hands are the ones most often changed, a quick look at them tells you much about the table. On most tables, a royal flush pays more per coin when the maximum number of coins is bet (800 per coin on the standard five-coin table in this layout), and the stated return normally assumes that maximum bet is used.
How a small change moves the return
Return to player is the long-run share of money wagered that the game pays back, assuming a particular playing strategy. For the 9/6 Jacks or Better table played with the best possible strategy, a return of about 99.54 percent is commonly quoted. The 8/5 table is commonly quoted at about 97 percent. These are figures reported for the games in general, not something you can see on a given machine, so any particular machine’s own stated figure should take precedence.
The reason one coin matters can be shown with a rough estimate. A flush and a full house each arrive in roughly 1 percent of hands. Taking one coin off each payout therefore removes about 0.01 coins from the average return of each, for around 0.02 in total, or roughly two percentage points. That is consistent with the gap between the two quoted figures. This is an estimate based on rounded frequencies, not an exact calculation, but it shows why a change that looks small on the screen is large in the arithmetic. It is also why the pay table is the first thing worth checking on a machine.
Even the best commonly quoted figure is below 100 percent, so it is still a negative expectation. On average the player loses money, only more slowly than at many other games.
What a quoted return assumes
The percentage in the previous section depends on several conditions:
- Optimal strategy. The return is calculated assuming that, for every deal, the player keeps the cards that give the highest expected value. Strategy tables for each pay table exist because the best holding can change with the payout structure. Playing by feel, or by habits that do not match the table, lowers the actual return, sometimes by a lot.
- Maximum coins. The bonus on the royal flush is what lifts the figure to its quoted level. Betting fewer coins typically lowers the return.
- A very large number of hands. The return is an average, not a promise for a session. The royal flush is rare, and a long stretch without one is normal. Because much of the theoretical return comes from rare hands, short sessions can finish well above or below it, which is a feature of volatility and return.
Other games, same idea
Other variants, such as those with wild cards, use different pay tables and different strategies. The principle is the same: the payouts, not the dealing, set the cost of the game. A table that pays less for a common hand will return less over time, whatever it is called.
Because the hands are determined by the deck, the probability of each category follows from counting, in the same way as the usual hand rankings odds for five-card poker (video poker adds the draw, so its frequencies are not identical). The pay table then turns those frequencies into a return.
A note on caution
A higher return figure means a lower expected cost, not a profit. No pay table makes the game a source of income, and outcomes in any session are uncertain. Pay tables also change from one machine to the next, and checking one carefully before play is worth the minute it takes.
Gambling can be harmful. Decide on a spending limit beforehand, treat it as the price of entertainment, and stop when you reach it. If gambling is causing problems for you or someone close to you, a local support service can help.