Video poker pay tables, 2026
Full pay vs short pay, the real difference
Pick a full house and flush payout, or a common preset like 9/6 or 6/5, and see the exact return with optimal play, the single biggest lever on how good, or bad, a video poker machine actually is.
Every other payout, royal flush through jacks-or-better pair, is held constant at standard Jacks or Better values.
Let's start with the basics: what "9/6" actually means
It's always good to start with clear definitions. Video poker machines are commonly labelled by two numbers, like "9/6" or "8/5", shorthand for the full house and flush payouts on a 1-coin bet. On a 9/6 machine, a full house pays 9 coins and a flush pays 6. Every other payout on a standard Jacks or Better pay table, royal flush at 800, straight flush at 50, four of a kind at 25, straight at 4, three of a kind at 3, two pair at 2, and a jacks-or-better pair at 1, tends to stay fixed across versions. That's exactly why those two numbers alone are the fastest way to size up a machine before you sit down.
The pay tables, worked out properly
The figures below are calibrated against the published optimal-strategy returns for each pay table, cross-checked against Wizard of Odds' Jacks or Better return tables, the industry-standard reference for video poker maths, not a rough estimate.
| Pay table | Full house | Flush | Return (optimal play) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9/6 (Full Pay) | 9 | 6 | 99.54% |
| 9/5 | 9 | 5 | 98.45% |
| 8/6 | 8 | 6 | 98.39% |
| 8/5 | 8 | 5 | 97.30% |
| 7/5 | 7 | 5 | 96.15% |
| 6/5 | 6 | 5 | 95.00% |
You might be right to wonder how a one or two coin difference moves the needle by over a full percentage point each time. Full houses and flushes come up often enough under optimal play, roughly once every 90 and 90 hands respectively, that even a small per-hand payout cut adds up fast across thousands of hands. It's the same reason the calculator above lets you isolate each payout independently, seeing which one is doing the damage on a given machine is often more useful than the combined headline number.
Why the pay table matters more than almost anything else
There are some rough edges worth naming plainly here. A 6/5 machine and a 9/6 machine can sit side by side on the same casino floor, look visually identical, cost the same to play, and pay the same jackpot on a royal flush, but one returns 95% and the other 99.54% with identical, perfect play. That's a genuinely enormous gap by casino standards, roughly the same size as the entire difference between a great blackjack table and a terrible slot machine. Operators aren't hiding this, the pay table is printed right there on the screen, it's simply that most players never think to check it before feeding money in.
Perfect play is doing half the work
None of these return figures mean anything without the hold decisions to back them up. They all assume the mathematically correct hold on every single hand, no exceptions, no hunches. Real-world average play typically runs a percentage point or more below the theoretical number simply from suboptimal holds, holding a kicker with three of a kind, breaking a made flush for a longshot draw, that kind of thing. The optimal hold advisor on the video poker hub page exists specifically to close that gap, decide for yourself how much of it is worth chasing versus simply picking the best available pay table and playing for fun.
FAQ
Pay tables, answered plainly
What does "9/6" mean on a Jacks or Better machine?+
It's shorthand for the two payouts that vary most between machines: a full house pays 9 coins per coin bet, and a flush pays 6. Every other payout, from a royal flush down to a simple pair, is usually identical across versions, so these two numbers alone tell you almost everything about a machine's real return.
Why does such a small payout difference matter so much?+
Because full houses and flushes come up often enough in optimal play that even a 1-coin cut to either payout removes over 1% from the machine's overall return. Dropping from 9/6 to 6/5 alone accounts for a swing of roughly 4.5 percentage points, the difference between one of the best bets in a casino and a distinctly average one.
How do I find a full pay machine?+
Check the pay table printed on the machine's screen or glass before playing a single hand, look specifically at the full house and flush payouts for 1 coin bet. Full pay 9/6 Jacks or Better is increasingly rare on casino floors, short-pay versions like 8/5 or 6/5 are far more common because they're more profitable for the operator.
Does the return figure assume perfect play?+
Yes, every figure on this page assumes the mathematically correct hold on every single hand, no exceptions. Average players typically play a percentage point or more below the pay table's theoretical return simply from imperfect holds, which is exactly what the hold advisor on the video poker hub page is built to close.
Is there a video poker machine with a player edge?+
Rarely, but historically yes. A small number of promotional pay tables, bonus point multipliers, or progressive jackpots have briefly pushed the return above 100% with perfect play, professional video poker teams have specifically hunted these. They're uncommon, usually short-lived once discovered, and nothing to do with AI or prediction, purely a quirk of an unusually generous printed pay table.