Course contents
Reading Paytables
The paytable printed on the machine sets your theoretical return before you touch a card - a 9/6 Jacks or Better machine returns 99.54%, while an identical-looking 8/5 version costs you over two percentage points more.
Your video poker odds are printed right on the machine. The paytable, the grid listing what each hand pays, sets your theoretical return before you ever draw a card. Two machines can look identical and run the same game, yet pay back very different amounts over time.
Take Jacks or Better, the variant covered in how to play Jacks or Better. A full-pay 9/6 machine returns 99.54% with perfect play, while a common 8/5 version returns just 97.30%. Same game, same screen, but one costs you more than four times as much per bet. Learning to read the paytable puts you ahead of most players before you've made a single decision.
A paytable lists every winning hand and what it pays per credit bet. Games get named after their two key rows. In Jacks or Better, that's the full house and flush payouts — a "9/6" machine pays 9 credits for a full house and 6 for a flush; an "8/5" machine drops those to 8 and 5. Those two numbers are shorthand for the whole schedule, and they're the ones casinos most often quietly trim.
Return percentage (RTP) is the share of money a game pays back over the long run — the mirror image of the house edge. A 99.54% return means the house keeps about 0.46% of everything wagered on average. The math is simple in concept: multiply how often each hand appears by what it pays, add it all up. Change one payout and you change the whole sum. Because some hands hit often, even a one-credit cut can move total return by more than a full percentage point.
The paytable sets a ceiling; strategy is how you reach it. Play by feel instead of by chart, and your real return drops below the printed number — see strategy charts explained for the exact hold decisions that close that gap.
How the common variants compare, all figures at perfect strategy and max coins:
Game and paytable | Full house | Flush | Return |
|---|---|---|---|
Jacks or Better 9/6 (full-pay) | 9 | 6 | 99.54% |
Jacks or Better 9/5 | 9 | 5 | 98.45% |
Jacks or Better 8/6 | 8 | 6 | 98.39% |
Jacks or Better 8/5 | 8 | 5 | 97.30% |
Bonus Poker 8/5 | 8 | 5 | 99.17% |
Deuces Wild (full-pay) | 9* | — | 100.76% |
*Full-pay Deuces Wild uses a different payout structure with no separate flush shorthand — see Deuces Wild strategy for its full paytable.
Before you sit down, read the paytable, not the machine's name or theme. Two screens can look identical while one quietly pays back two percent less on every single bet.
One credit matters more than you'd think. Dropping a full house payout from 9 to 8 coins costs you 5 credits on a 5-coin bet the instant you hit that hand. As a rule of thumb, cutting one credit from a common payout row lowers a game's overall return by about 1.1%. The 9/6-to-8/5 drop specifically costs about 2.24 percentage points, roughly $22 more lost per $1,000 wagered.
Max-coin play matters too. In Jacks or Better, betting five coins unlocks a royal flush bonus that lifts the return from roughly 98% to the full 99.54%. Betting fewer coins quietly worsens your odds regardless of how well you play the cards.
Good odds don't guarantee good sessions. Even a 99.54% machine has real swings, since every hand comes from a random number generator and the return percentage is a long-run average, not a promise for tonight. Reaching that long run takes far more hands than most people expect. Set a budget you're comfortable losing before you sit down, and use Wild.io's responsible gambling tools to set limits ahead of time.
Sources
- Jacks or Better — Wizard of Odds (retrieved 2026-07-24)
- 9/6 vs 8/5 Jacks or Better — ReadyBetGo (retrieved 2026-07-24)
- Jacks or Better paytables compared — Video Poker Pal (retrieved 2026-07-24)
Frequently asked questions
What is the best video poker paytable?
For Jacks or Better, the 9/6 full-pay table is the benchmark, returning 99.54% with perfect play. Full-pay Deuces Wild goes even higher at 100.76%, but it demands flawless strategy to reach that number.
What do the numbers like "9/6" mean?
They're the payouts for two key hands. In Jacks or Better, the first number is the full house payout and the second is the flush, both per credit bet. So 9/6 pays 9 for a full house and 6 for a flush.
Does the paytable guarantee I'll win that percentage?
No. The return percentage is a long-run average you only approach with correct strategy over huge volume. Each hand is random, so short sessions can land well above or below the printed figure.
Why should I always bet max coins?
Because the top payout usually jumps at five coins. In Jacks or Better, max-coin play unlocks a royal flush bonus that lifts the return from about 98% to 99.54%. Betting fewer coins worsens your odds.
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