Photo: Vanessa V. / Pexels

Video Poker Strategy: Jacks or Better Explained

How Jacks or Better pay tables work, why the five-coin bet matters, and the 16-step hold ladder that gets within 0.08% of perfect play.

By the Gambling Hero editorial team · October 25, 2026 Industry

Video poker strategy for Jacks or Better means holding the cards that give the highest expected return on each deal. On a full-pay 9/6 machine with five coins bet, correct play returns 99.54%, so the house edge is only 0.46%.

In short

Jacks or Better is a single-player video poker game based on five-card draw. The player is dealt five cards, chooses which to hold, and draws replacements once. A pair of jacks or higher pays even money. The pay table decides the return: 9/6 pays 9 for a full house and 6 for a flush and returns 99.54% with optimal play, while 6/5 returns 95.00%. A 16-step hold ranking gets within 0.08% of perfect play. The royal flush pays 800 per coin only when five coins are bet.

What is Jacks or Better video poker?

Jacks or Better is the base video poker game. A machine deals five cards from one 52-card deck, the player holds any of them, and one draw replaces the rest. The final hand is paid from a fixed pay table, starting with jacks.

Unlike a slot, a video poker machine shows its pay table, and the card odds of a standard deck are known. The return of every hold decision can therefore be calculated. Hand order is covered in Poker Hand Rankings: Every Hand from Royal Flush to High Card. The Wizard of Odds table for 9/6 gives these frequencies (the “1 in” column is our conversion, 1 ÷ probability):

Final hand	Pays per coin	Roughly 1 in
Royal flush	800	40,390
Straight flush	50	9,148
Four of a kind	25	423
Full house	9	87
Flush	6	91
Straight	4	89
Three of a kind	3	13
Two pair	2	7.7
Jacks or better	1	4.7
Nothing	0	1.8

More than half of all hands (54.5%) end with nothing.

How do you read a Jacks or Better pay table?

A Jacks or Better pay table is identified by its full house and flush payouts. “9/6” means 9 coins for a full house and 6 for a flush. Lower numbers in either row cut the return, while the other rows usually stay identical.

The Wizard of Odds return table gives these totals with optimal strategy. The loss column is our calculation: amount bet × (1 − return).

Pay table	Return	Expected loss per $10,000 bet
9/6 (full pay)	99.54%	$45.61
9/5	98.45%	$155.02
8/6	98.39%	$160.73
8/5	97.30%	$270.16
6/5	95.00%	$500.39

Moving from 9/6 to 6/5 multiplies the expected loss by about 11. The RTP and house edge calculator converts any return figure the same way.

Editor’s insight

The Wizard of Odds figures show that one unit off the full house costs slightly more than one unit off the flush: 9/6 to 8/6 drops the return by 1.15 points, 9/6 to 9/5 by 1.09 points. Each of those gaps is more than 13 times the 0.08% lost by using the simple strategy instead of perfect play. Checking the pay table before the first hand therefore matters more than memorising rare strategy exceptions.

Why does betting five coins matter in video poker?

Betting five coins matters because the royal flush pays 250 per coin with one to four coins but 800 per coin with five, according to CardPlayer. The published 99.54% return for 9/6 Jacks or Better assumes the five-coin bet.

Royal contribution at 800 per coin: 0.00002476 × 800 = 1.98 percentage points of return.
Royal contribution at 250 per coin: 0.00002476 × 250 = 0.62 percentage points.
Difference: about 1.36 points, so a 9/6 game played with fewer than five coins returns roughly 98.2%.

This is our approximation, because optimal strategy shifts slightly when the royal pays less. The practical rule holds: a smaller coin size with five coins beats a larger coin size with four.

What is the simple strategy for Jacks or Better?

The simple strategy for Jacks or Better is a ranked list of 16 holds published by the Wizard of Odds. The player finds the highest-ranked option in the five dealt cards and holds it. It returns 99.46% on 9/6, against 99.54% for perfect play.

We call it the hold-ladder method: read from the top and stop at the first rung the hand matches. A “high card” is a jack, queen, king or ace.

Four of a kind, straight flush, royal flush
4 to a royal flush
Three of a kind, straight, flush, full house
4 to a straight flush
Two pair
High pair (jacks or better)
3 to a royal flush
4 to a flush
Low pair
4 to an outside straight
2 suited high cards
3 to a straight flush
2 unsuited high cards (if more than 2, keep the lowest 2)
Suited 10/J, 10/Q or 10/K
One high card
Discard everything

A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ J♦: 4 to a royal (rung 2) beats the paying pair of jacks (rung 6). Hold the spades. One of the 47 unseen cards completes the royal, a 2.1% chance.
K♥ Q♥ J♥ 5♥ 2♣: 3 to a royal (rung 7) beats 4 to a flush (rung 8). Hold K♥ Q♥ J♥.
7♣ 7♦ 9♠ 10♥ J♣: a low pair (rung 9) beats 4 to an outside straight (rung 10). Hold the sevens.

How much do strategy mistakes cost in video poker?

Strategy mistakes in Jacks or Better cost little when the simple strategy is followed. The Wizard of Odds puts its cost at 0.08%, or one total bet every 1,178 hands. Short pay tables and short coin bets cost far more than that.

Measured against 9/6 with perfect play, the gaps are: simple strategy 0.08 points, fewer than five coins about 1.4 points (our estimate), 8/5 2.25 points and 6/5 4.55 points. Even 99.54% leaves a house edge, and the Wizard of Odds standard deviation of 4.42 bets per hand means short sessions swing widely. Our guide to which casino games have the best odds compares that edge with other games.

Important

Video poker is gambling for money, and every pay table listed here has a negative expected result. Real-money online video poker is legal only where online casinos are licensed. Set a loss limit before playing and use the tools on our responsible gambling page if play stops feeling like entertainment.

Is video poker random like a slot machine?

Video poker is random in the same legal sense as a slot: a random number generator picks the cards. Nevada Gaming Commission Regulation 14.040 requires each element of a game representing a live game to appear with the live game’s probability.

For video poker, the live game is a 52-card deck, so a machine that dealt royals less often than a real deck would breach the rule. Regulation 14.040(1)(a) also sets a 75% minimum payout per wager, far below any table above. Our RNG glossary entry explains the draw.

Our take

Jacks or Better is one of the few casino games where the player’s own decisions move the return by whole percentage points. Our editorial view: refuse any table below 9/6 where a 9/6 version exists, and always bet the coin count that unlocks the 800-per-coin royal. The 16-rung ladder then closes almost all of the remaining gap to perfect play. None of this creates an income. A 0.46% edge still favours the casino over time, and variance decides any single session.

Key takeaways

9/6 Jacks or Better returns 99.54% with optimal play; 6/5 returns 95.00%.
The royal pays 800 per coin only with five coins; with fewer, the return drops by about 1.4 points.
The 16-step simple strategy returns 99.46%, just 0.08% below perfect play.
4 to a royal outranks a paying high pair; the completing card arrives 1 time in 47.
A royal flush appears about once every 40,390 hands on 9/6.

FAQ

What does 9/6 mean in video poker?

9 coins per coin bet for a full house and 6 for a flush. It is the full-pay Jacks or Better table and returns 99.54% with optimal play and five coins.

Should you hold a high pair or four to a flush?

Hold the high pair. It ranks 6th on the simple strategy ladder; 4 to a flush ranks 8th.

Can you beat Jacks or Better in the long run?

No. Even 9/6 keeps 0.46% of the amount bet over time with perfect play. Lower pay tables keep up to 5.00%.

How often do you get a royal flush in Jacks or Better?

About once every 40,390 hands on 9/6, based on the Wizard of Odds probability of 0.00002476.