🂡 Video Poker

One hand, start to finish

You start with 500 free-play points. Tap the Stake button to cycle your stake through 5, 10, 25 and 50 points, then hit Deal. Your stake comes out of your points straight away and you get five cards from a freshly shuffled 52-card deck.

Now the only decision that matters: tap each card you want to keep. A HELD tag appears on it, and tapping again releases it. Press Draw and every card you didn’t hold is replaced from the 47 cards still in that same deck. Your final five are scored against the pay table, the winning row lights up, and the win is added to your points.

You can’t change your stake once cards are on the table, so pick your stake before you deal. If your points drop below 5, the game offers a fresh 500, and the reset button in the corner does the same anytime. Your best-ever total is saved, so that’s the number to chase.

The pay table, and what it really means

Every win is a multiple of your stake. On a 10-point stake, the table on screen shows the exact point amounts, but the multipliers are always the same:

Here’s the catch most players miss: your stake has already left your points, so a pair of Jacks or better only gives your stake back. It’s a push, not a profit. Two Pair is your first real win, doubling your stake. That’s why turning pairs into Two Pair or Three of a Kind is where your points total actually grows.

• Royal Flush (10-J-Q-K-A, one suit): 250x
• Straight Flush: 50x
• Four of a Kind: 25x
• Full House: 9x
• Flush: 6x
• Straight: 4x (A-2-3-4-5 counts, but Q-K-A-2-3 does not wrap)
• Three of a Kind: 3x
• Two Pair: 2x
• Pair of Jacks, Queens, Kings or Aces: 1x

Hold priorities, best to worst

Every deal is a ranking problem: find the highest item on this list that your five cards contain, hold exactly those cards, and draw the rest. It’s a simplified version of the strategy charts serious players use for this pay table, and it fixes the vast majority of costly holds.

• Royal Flush, Straight Flush, Four of a Kind, Full House: hold all of it.
• Four cards to a Royal Flush: hold them, even if it means breaking a Flush, a Straight or a high pair.
• Three of a Kind: hold the three, draw two.
• Made Straight or Flush: keep it.
• Four cards to an open-ended Straight Flush, like 5-6-7-8 of one suit.
• Two Pair: hold all four, draw one.
• Four cards to an inside Straight Flush, like 5-6-8-9 of one suit.
• High pair (Jacks or better).
• Four cards to a Flush.
• Three cards to a Royal Flush (with the Royal paying only 250x here, this drops below four to a Flush).
• Low pair (2s through 10s).
• Four cards to an open-ended Straight, like 5-6-7-8.
• Two or three high cards (J, Q, K, A), preferably suited.
• One high card.
• Nothing: draw all five.

Worked example: breaking a paying pair

You’re dealt 10♠ J♠ Q♠ K♠ K♦. Your instinct says hold the Kings, a guaranteed push. Run the numbers instead. Holding the pair returns about 1.5 times your stake on average after the draw.

Now hold the four spades and toss the K♦. Of the 47 cards left, the A♠ makes a Royal (250x), the 9♠ makes a Straight Flush (50x), seven other spades make a Flush (6x), six non-spade Aces and 9s make a Straight (4x), and eight Jacks, Queens and Kings make a high pair (1x). Add it up and divide by 47: roughly 8 times your stake on average. Breaking the Kings is worth over five times as much.

The same maths says you should even break a made Flush for four to a Royal. With A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 4♠ in hand, tossing the 4♠ averages close to 7x versus a guaranteed 6x.

Beginner mistakes that drain your points

Most lost totals come from a handful of habits, not bad luck. Each one below quietly costs you value.

• Keeping a kicker. Holding K-K plus an Ace “for luck” cuts your chances of Three of a Kind and Two Pair. Hold the pair alone.
• Ditching a low pair for one high card. A pair of 4s already beats a lone Jack in expected value, because it can become Two Pair, Trips, a Full House or Quads.
• Chasing inside straights. 5-6-8-9 has only four cards that fill it, about an 8.5 percent shot. With no high cards in hand, you’re better off drawing five fresh cards.
• Holding three to a Flush. You need two perfect draws. Keep a high card or redraw instead.
• Holding all five rags. If nothing pays and nothing is close, hold nothing. A fresh five-card draw is far better than a dead hand.

How this version differs from a classic machine

The full house and flush pays here, 9x and 6x, match the classic “9/6 Jacks or Better” table, the version strategy players hunt for. The big difference is the Royal. Classic machines usually pay 250 per coin but jump to 800 per coin if you play the maximum five coins. Here the Royal pays 250x at every stake, so there’s no max-stake bonus to chase and your stake size doesn’t change the right play at all.

That flat Royal trims the long-run return to a little over 98 percent with good play, so your points will drift down over thousands of hands. A bigger stake simply swings your total faster in both directions, so drop to 5 when you’re protecting a record and raise it when you’ve got a cushion to play with.

Video Poker FAQ