One important part of video poker strategy has nothing to do with what cards to hold or discard. Optimal play starts with being able to tell the higher-paying games at a glance.
That means comparison shopping to find games with the highest paybacks on winning hands. The most common way for a casino to raise or lower the payback percentage if offers video poker players is to change the returns on full houses and flushes.
But be aware that changes also can be found elsewhere on the pay table. As a rule, changes on more common hands that rank low on the pay table have the biggest effects on your overall return.
With that in mind, let's look at pay table variations that have the biggest impact on payback percentage and your shot to win in non-wild card games.
Two Pairs
Ever wonder how a game such as Double Double Bonus Poker can pay at least 50-for-1 on four of a kind with jackpots up to 400-for-1 on four Aces with a 2, 3 or 4 as the fifth card? For a five-coin bet, that's a whopping 2,000-coin bonanza, while Jacks or Better pays only 25-for-1, or 125 for five coins, on any quads.
Some players think four of a kind must be rarer in Double Double Bonus than in Jacks or Better, but that's not it at all. Nothing in the composition of the deck or the frequency of cards dealt is changed at all.
The difference is in the payoff on two pairs. Jacks or Better pays 2-for-1, or 10 coins for a five-coin bet. Double Double Bonus reduces the two-pair pay to 1-for-1, or 5 for a 5-coin wager. That's enough to cover all the bigger payoffs on four of a kind hands.
In 9-6 Jacks or Better – with the "9-6" standing for a 9-for-1 pay on full houses and 6-for-1 on flushes – the average return with expert play is 99.5%. If the two-pair return was dropped to 1-for-1 with no other payoff changes, that average return would plummet all the way to 86.7%.
A fall of 12.8% drop in payback is enormous, plenty to pay for bigger four of a kind returns. In 9-6 Double Double Bonus Poker, the paybacks on all winning hands except two pairs and four of a kind are the same as in Jacks or Better. Two pairs drop to 1-for-1. Four 5s through Kings rise from 25-for-1 to 50-for-1, four 2s, 3s or 4s to 80-for-1, four Aces with most fifth cards to 160-for-1 and four Aces with the low-card kicker to 400-for-1.
Offset those huge quad paybacks with the reduced two-pair pay, and 9-6 Double Double Bonus returns 98.98% with expert play.
Jacks or Better and Bonus Poker are the only standard games that pay 2-for-1 on two pairs. There are many games that reduce the return to 1-for-1, including Double Bonus Poker, Super Bonus Poker, Bonus Poker Deluxe, Super Aces and White Hot Aces. All have big increases in quad pays, and the smaller return on two pairs makes those increases possible.
Full Houses & Flushes
Let's take these two together since full houses and flushes are the most common pays changed when casinos raise or lower payback percentages. Players in the know refer to games by returns on those hands, with a number for the full house return followed by the flush return. A 9-6 Double Double Poker game pays more than an 8-5 version of the same game, and 8-5 Bonus Poker pays better than 7-5 Bonus Poker.
You can find multiple versions of each game online, and sometimes in live casinos you can find higher and lower paying versions on different machines on the same casino floor.
Neither has as profound an effect as the two-pair reduction. Each unit changed in payback on a full house or flush raises or lowers the overall return by a little more than 1 percent.
If you started with 9-6 Jacks or Better with its 99.5% average return to experts and dropped the full house payback to 8-for-1, the resulting 8-5 JB game would drop to 98.4%. Then if you drop the flush by a unit, the resulting 8-5 Jacks or Better would offer experts an average return of 97.3%.
Though the payback change isn't a steep as on two pairs, full houses and flushes are important because variations are so common. Virtually every wild card game is available with a many full house-flush payback combinations.
It's the first place you should look when comparison shopping among non-wild card games. If all other paybacks are the same, a Jacks or Better game with higher returns on full houses and flushes will average a higher overall return than those with lower paybacks. The same goes for Bonus Poker, Double Bonus Poker, Bonus Poker Deluxe or any other game. Look first at those hands, then compare the rest of the pay tables.
Four of a Kind
Video poker developed a loyal following from the moment Jacks or Better hit casino floors in the 1980s. But interest went through the roof when huge paybacks on four of a kind came into vogue, edging that way with Bonus Poker in the late 1980s, then really taking off with Double Bonus Poker, Double Double Bonus Poker and more in the 1990s.
Big returns on quads, and especially on four Aces, made players feel like there were attainable hands that could make a big winning session.
Nearly all common video poker casino games pay a big jackpot on royal flushes, usually 250-for-1 but jumping to a 4,000-coin windfall for a five-coin wager. On a 25-cent game, that's $1,000 making for a great day in the casino. But royals occur only once in about 40,000 hands, with the exact amount depending on game and drawing strategy.
Next on the Jacks or Better pay table is straight flushes, paying 50-for-1 – 250 coins for a five-coin bet that amounts to $62.50 on a 25-cent game. That's not an overwhelming return and it comes up less than once per 9,000 hands.
Four of a kinds occur a little less often than once per 400 hands. Given that most experienced players get in more than 500 hands per hour, a majority of sessions will include quads. But in Jacks or Better, they pay only 25-for-1, 125-for-5, or $31.25 in a quarter game. That'll keep you going for a while, but it won't send you home feeling like a big winner.
Video poker needed an attainable secondary jackpot to go with the royals. Four of a kind did the trick. Bonus Poker was a start. It raised four 2s, 3s or 4s to 40-for-1 and four Aces to 80-for-1, $100 for a five-coin bet on a 25-cent game. Then Double Bonus Poker doubled all quad payoffs, upping four Aces to 160-for-1, or $200 for five coins on quarter machine.
That did the trick, catching interest from players who hadn't caught video poker mania. Other games upped the voltage, such as Double Double Bonus Poker paying 2,000 coins for a five-coin bet – $500 on a quarter game – when four Aces are accompanied by a 2, 3 or 4.
Quads are attainable, but not so common that a small increase on the pay table with make a big impact on the payback percentage. Four of a kind returns have to be huge to offset the effect of reducing the two-pair return.
So the quad returns are enormous on many games, drawing in players with jackpots other than royals that can make your day.
Minor Changes
Two pairs, full houses, flushes and four of a kinds have common pay table variations that make a big impact on our shot to win.
Returns on straights and three of a kind are less commonly changed, but are important to their specific game.
Original versions of Double Bonus Poker paid 5-for-1 on straights instead of the 4-for-1 common to other games. That's important enough that players refer to Double Bonus games by three numbers instead of just the full house and flush returns.
The first release of Double Bonus was a 10-7-5 game, paying 10-for-1 on full houses, 7-for-1 on flushes and 5-for-1 on straights. That's rare today, though sometimes seen in Nevada. The best you're likely to find in most of the U.S. and online is 9-7-5, and even that's not everywhere.
Watch out when the pay table goes lower. A 9-6-5 Double Bonus game has an average return with optimal play of 97.8%. Many casinos drop the straight payback to 4-for-1, reducing the overall return to 96.4%. If you're going play Double Bonus, look for that 5-for-1 return on straights.
Increasingly popular is Triple Double Bonus Poker, a roller coaster of a game that pays 4,000 coins for a five-coin bet on four Aces with a 2, 3 or 4 as the fifth card.
With other enhanced quad paybacks, it takes more than just the usual reduced two-pair return to offset the quad bonanzas. So three of a kind is reduced to 2-for-1 instead of the usual 2-for-1. That reduces overall return by a little more than 5%, enough to offset the jumbo four of a kind pays.
But the straight and three of a kind changes are special cases. The others are the bedrock of video poker variation. Look for those changes and choose wisely whenever you play.
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