Deal and draw
The player receives five cards, chooses any cards to hold, and replaces the rest from the remaining deck. The final five-card hand is paid according to the displayed table.
Standard machines model a 52-card deck and reshuffle between hands, but wild-card variants and special features change the deck or rankings.
Pay-table notation
A label such as 9/6 Jacks or Better refers to nine-for-one on a full house and six-for-one on a flush. Small changes to these frequent hands materially change return.
Bonus Poker families shift value toward four-of-a-kind categories and therefore require different holds.
Credit and royal treatment
Many games pay a disproportionately larger royal flush award when five credits are wagered. A one-credit royal may pay 250-for-one while five credits return 800 per credit.
The higher full-coin return does not justify a wager beyond the player’s budget. Choose a denomination where the qualifying amount is acceptable.
Theoretical return
Return is calculated by enumerating every initial hand, applying the optimal hold, and evaluating every possible draw. It assumes the player actually follows that strategy.
A published percentage is not a session promise and does not transfer to a different pay table.
Where the expensive difference hides
The name on the cabinet is only a starting point. The complete pay schedule and the strategy used with it determine the return.
For Video Poker Rules and Pay Tables, compare every row, not the largest prize. Frequent small changes can outweigh a rare headline payout.
In Video Poker Rules and Pay Tables, the useful comparison is the probability-weighted value of the full schedule—not whichever award is easiest to advertise.
What to record for Video Poker
- Complete schedule
- maximum-bet condition
- caps and aggregate limits
If one row of the Video Poker Rules and Pay Tables schedule is missing, label the return unresolved rather than filling the gap from a similarly named game.
Video Poker Rules and Pay Tables is reviewed against the Video Poker rules described above. A different pay table or procedure is a different model. Editorial review updated September 24, 2026.