Video Poker Strategy: Jacks or Better and Multi-Hand Play

Video Poker combines the speed of a slot with the decision-making of poker. With a full-pay machine and correct strategy, the edge collapses to a fraction of a percent.

How the game works

You are dealt five cards face up, choose which to hold, and the discards are replaced from a fresh deck. Payouts depend on the poker hand you finish with. In Jacks or Better, the lowest paying hand is a pair of jacks, queens, kings or aces, which returns your bet – hence the name.

The critical variable is the paytable. A 'full-pay' 9/6 machine returns nine coins for a full house and six for a flush, producing a 99.54% return with perfect play. Switch to 8/5 and the return drops to about 97.3% – a difference of more than two percentage points for the same game, caused purely by the paytable.

The strategy that matters

Optimal video poker strategy is a priority list, not a set of instincts. The top of the list is uncontroversial: keep any royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind or full house. Lower down, four cards to a royal flush outranks a made flush, and a low pair outranks three high cards.

The single biggest mistake casual players make is discarding a low pair to chase a straight or flush. Holding the pair is correct in almost every version of the game.

Multi-hand and single-hand formats

Multi-hand video poker plays the same initial five cards across three, five, ten, fifty or a hundred separate hands, each drawing its own replacement cards. Your decision is identical; only the variance changes.

Multi-hand play concentrates results: a royal flush becomes much more likely to appear, but a single losing hand is multiplied across every line. Single-hand play is smoother and cheaper per spin of the same total stake.

Frequently asked questions