The first video poker game was simply called Draw Poker. The first payoff was for two pair, resulting in only about 85% maximum payback, so it got very little extended play. In response, the manufacturer modified the game to return the player's bet on a pair of jacks or better. This accomplished two things: it turned a push (no exchange of money) into an apparent win, and it increased the maximum payback to about 99.5%. This combination resulted in the still-popular game now called Jacks or Better, and thus began the video poker revolution.
Following is the payoff schedule of what is commonly called the full pay game.
(Note: Payoffs shown are per coin for five coin play.)
| Final hand |
Payoff |
Probability |
Contrib. |
| Royal Flush |
800 |
.0000248 |
.0198 |
| Straight Flush |
50 |
.0001093 |
.0055 |
| Four-of-a-Kind |
25 |
.002363 |
.0591 |
| Full House |
9 |
.01151 |
.1036 |
| Flush |
6 |
.01102 |
.0661 |
| Straight |
4 |
.01123 |
.0449 |
| Three-of-a-Kind |
3 |
.07445 |
.2234 |
| Two Pair |
2 |
.1293 |
.2586 |
| Pair of Jacks or better |
1 |
.2146 |
.2146 |
| Zilch |
0 |
.5454 |
.0000 |
| Total payback |
|
|
0.9954 |
Where: Payoff is the per-coin payoff. Five coins typically must be bet to qualify for the 4000 coin (800-for-1) jackpot on a royal flush. Probability is the chance of each final hand as determined by a game analysis computer program, assuming perfect play. Contrib is the contribution to the total payback for each hand type, computed as its Payoff multiplied by its Probability. Each figure may be multiplied by 100 to convert to percent. For example, we see that over 25% of the game's payback comes from two pair final hands, while slightly less than two percent comes from the royal flush. The total of the Contribution column gives the game's maximum payback. In this case, it indicates that in the long run you can expect to average $0.9954 back for each dollar played, or 99.54% payback. Since these calculations assume perfect play, you can typically expect one or two hundredths of one percent less with real human play. That begs the question of just how accurately one should endeavor to play. For this game it is possible to generate a hand rank table that would enable perfect play, but that is not practical for most of the attractive games, so we won't bother with it for a sub-100% game. Instead, I will present the strategy in the form of what I call Precision Play� rules. Here are the streamlined Precision Play rules for Jacks or Better video poker:
(Always start at the top of this list of rules, and follow the first rule that applies to the dealt hand.)
- Never break any made pay of Two Pair or better, except break anything other than a pat Straight Flush for any 4-card Royal.
- Break a High Pair only for a 4-card Royal or any 4-card Straight Flush.
- Break a low pair or a 4-card Flush or Straight draw only for a 3-card Royal, or any 4-card Flush or Straight Flush.
- If you have both a 4-Flush and a 4-Straight, go for the Flush.
- Break A-K-Q-J only for a pair or three suited high cards.
- Break any three of A, K, Q and J for any two suited high cards.
- Hold all high cards (jacks through aces), except discard the Ace from A-K-Q, A-K-J or A-Q-J.
The complete Precision Play rules in my book will yield about 99.53% payback on a machine with the payoff schedule shown above, which is less than 0.01% short of perfect play. Although the above rules have been simplified a bit, they will yield quite close to that payback. For most people, it's not worth the effort to further perfect the play since the complexity of the rules may lead to inadvertent errors which would cost more than the simplifications. For anyone who wants to be serious about video poker, the next step is to get "the book" -- Video Poker - Optimum Play (see Additional Reading below).
Short pay variations of this game abound, especially in Indian casinos and cruise ships. The basic Jacks or Better discussed above is commonly called a "9/6" machine because of the 9-for-1 payoff for a full house and 6-for-1 for a flush. More common in many casinos is the short pay "8/5" version; that is, the payoffs for the full house and flush are each cut by one. Looking at the payoff schedule above, we see that shorting the full house by one unit costs 1.151%, and shorting the flush costs 1.102%. Deducting these from the full pay game, we find the maximum payback is only 97.29%, so you would expect to lose an average of 2.71 cents for each dollar played. Even so, this is probably higher payback than any reel slots in that same casino, and it's certainly more fun. The same strategy is applicable to these games, but there's obviously no long term profit potential.
Some casinos are even worse, cutting the full house to 7- or even 6-for-1, so be sure to check the payoff schedule before playing. But don't stop there. Some casinos are more subtle, cutting the payoff elsewhere, so check the whole payoff schedule before starting to play.
Bonus Poker is basically a Jacks or Better game, but bonus payoffs are made for some four of a kind hands. Instead of 25-for-1, four deuces through fours pays 40-for-1, and four aces pays 80-for-1. It would be great if these bonuses were added to the full pay 9/6 schedule, but Bonus Poker has the basic 8/5 schedule mentioned above. The net result is a total payback of about 99.2% (using the same strategy), but in many casinos this is the best game available. |
