Video poker
Video poker is structurally one of the highest-EV games available, full-pay Jacks or Better with optimal strategy runs at 99.54% RTP, comparable to perfect blackjack. The catch: 'full-pay' variants are increasingly rare, and most casinos run reduced paytables that quietly inflate the house edge. The other catch: there's a memorizable optimal strategy chart for each variant, and most players don't use one. Played correctly on a full-pay machine, video poker is among the best games on the floor. Played casually on short-pay, it's mediocre.
How to play video poker
- 1You're dealt 5 cards from a standard 52-card deck.
- 2Choose which cards to "hold." The rest are replaced with new cards.
- 3Final hand is compared against the paytable. Pair-of-jacks-or-better is the minimum payout in Jacks or Better; better hands pay more.
- 4Full-pay Jacks or Better: full house pays 9:1, flush pays 6:1. 'Short-pay' variants pay less (e.g. 8:1 / 5:1), significantly worse.
- 5The strategy is per-variant. Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, Bonus Poker, etc. each have different optimal hold patterns.
What the numbers actually say
| RTP. Full-pay 9/6 Jacks or Better Among the highest-RTP games on the floor | 99.54% |
| RTP, 8/5 Jacks or Better (short-pay) 2.24 percentage points worse, significant | 97.30% |
| RTP. Full-pay Deuces Wild Theoretical positive expectation with perfect play. Almost never available. | 100.76% |
| RTP. Casual play (no strategy chart) Even on full-pay variants, casual play loses 2-3 percentage points to suboptimal holds | ~96–97% |
| Probability of dealt royal flush | 1 in 649,740 |
The rules that actually matter
Always check the paytable BEFORE sitting down
Why · Full-pay Jacks or Better (9/6) vs short-pay (8/5) is a 2.24 percentage-point swing. On $1,000 of turnover, that's $22 lost.
Use a per-variant optimal strategy chart
Why · Each video poker variant has a memorizable hold-decision chart. Jacks or Better is simplest; Deuces Wild is the most complex. Casual hold decisions cost ~2-3 percentage points.
Always hold a low pair over high cards
Why · Common mistake: discarding a pair of 4s to chase high-card pairs. Holding the pair has higher EV in nearly all situations.
Bet max coins to qualify for the bonus royal-flush payout
Why · Royal flush usually pays 250 coins for 1-coin bets but 800 coins for 5-coin bets. Bet less than max and you give up the multiplier on the rare big hit, meaningfully reduces RTP.
Common mistakes that cost real money
Our take, scored
Gamsites editorial rating · weighted aggregate combines all four dimensions · see manifesto for the rubric
Casinos with video poker
How we sourced this
RTP figures are standard video poker math derivations for stated paytables. Crypto-casino video poker is generally RNG-based with paytable variants matching land-based equivalents.
Video poker questions, answered
What is the house edge in video poker?+
With optimal strategy, Video poker carries a house edge of ~0.5% (full-pay variants, optimal play). Typical (non-optimal) play runs at ~3–5% (suboptimal play or short-pay variants). The gap between the two is the recoverable EV, see the strategy section.
Can you beat video poker with strategy?+
Always check the paytable BEFORE sitting down Full-pay Jacks or Better (9/6) vs short-pay (8/5) is a 2.24 percentage-point swing. On $1,000 of turnover, that's $22 lost.
What is the most common mistake in video poker?+
Playing short-pay variants without checking Cost: ~2 percentage points lower RTP. On extended play this is significant.
Where can I play video poker?+
Video poker is carried by 4 of the casinos we cover. See the "where to play" section on this page for the full list with tracked sign-up links.