Video poker is the casino game that prints its odds on the screen and lets the player's decisions reach them. The machine below deals nine pay tables, from 9/6 Jacks or Better to Deuces Wild and Joker Poker, and its coach counts every card that could be drawn to show the exact value of all 32 holds and what any mistake cost. Below it: the casinos that deal full-pay tables for real money, how the returns are read off a pay table, the strategy list, the case against pokies and the rules that catch players out.
Free Video Poker: Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild and Joker Poker With an Exact-Odds Coach
The machine below deals video poker the way a casino machine does: five cards from a shuffled deck, hold any of them, draw, and the hand is paid from the table on the screen. Nine pay tables are on the shelf, from full-pay Jacks or Better to Double Double Bonus, two Deuces Wild schedules and Joker Poker, each with its published return. Behind the deal sits a coach that works out the exact expected value of all 32 possible holds, by enumerating every card that could be drawn, and reports the best one and what the hold actually made cost against it. Play chips, no account, nothing to download.
The video poker machine needs JavaScript. With scripts off, the rest of this page still reads as a full guide to the game.
Credits 1,000Bet 5 coins
Choose a pay table, set the bet and press Deal.
Coach
This session
How to Play
Pick a pay table and a coin. The table shows what each hand pays for one to five coins. The bet column is highlighted, and a winning row lights up after the draw.
Bet five coins. The royal flush pays 800 for one at five coins and 250 for one at fewer. Bet one and Bet max move between them. To bet less, lower the coin, not the coin count.
Deal, then choose what to hold. Tap a card or press 1 to 5 on a keyboard. Held cards are marked. With the hint on, the coach's best hold is starred and Auto-hold applies it.
Draw. The discards are replaced, the hand is paid, and the coach shows how the hold compared with the best one in coins per coin bet.
Credits start at 1,000 and are refilled on request. The session panel tracks coins in and out, the return so far against the pay table's published return, how many holds were optimal and what the mistakes cost. The pay table, coin and credits are kept in the browser between visits.
Best Video Poker Casinos in Australia: Where the Pay Tables Are Worth Playing for Real
Video poker is a thin shelf at most online casinos built for pokies, and the casinos we reviewed are no exception. The ranking below covers the ones that deal it, ordered by the pay tables on offer, whether a game can be opened in demo mode to read its table, the stake floor, and which promotion pays a video poker player anything, since welcome matches almost never do. The casinos without a video poker game on the test are left out rather than padded in.
Showing 3 of 3 casinos
1
Fair Go Five RTG Games, Aces and Eights at 99.78%
Best Pay Tables★ 4.8/5
Welcome offer100% up to AU$200 on each of 5 deposits
Five RTG video poker games with the pay table printed on the screen: Aces and Eights at 99.78%, Jacks or Better 9/6 at 99.54%, Sevens Wild, Loose Deuces and All-American
Every game opens in demo mode without an account, so the pay table can be read and the coach's advice tested before a dollar is staked
Bets from AU$1 a hand in an AUD account, with Apple Pay, Google Pay, Neosurf and cards from AU$10
Video poker is excluded while a bonus is active, so the game is played on a plain deposit, which is exactly what the 25% instant cashback on a lost deposit requires
Video poker games
Aces and Eights, Jacks or Better, Sevens Wild, Loose Deuces, All-American (RTG)
Pay tables
Full pay: Aces and Eights 99.78%, Jacks or Better 9/6 99.54%; All-American full pay reaches 100.72%
Promotion
25% instant cashback on a lost deposit made without a bonus, 30% at weekends, 40% VIP; comp points at 100 = AU$1
Banking
AUD; Apple Pay, Google Pay, Neosurf, cards, 5 coins; payouts from AU$100 within 2 business days
Fair Go is the video poker casino of the group and first by a distance: the only cashier here with full-pay tables above 99.5% on more than one game, a demo on each, and a cashback that fits the game because it asks for no bonus. The two-business-day payout from AU$100 is the one cost.
Rainbet is second for a crypto player: two standard games with the return on the panel, a rakeback that pays video poker by the hand, and the fastest payout in the ranking. Fewer games and a US-dollar balance keep it behind Fair Go.
Jacks or Better and its variants from the pokie studios on the table-games shelf, with the pay table in each game's info panel
Bets from well under a dollar a hand in an AUD account funded by PayID or crypto
Instant cashback on every bet, credited as cash with nothing to wager, from the first loyalty tier
Withdrawals approved in about an hour and paid to PayID, cards or crypto from AU$20
Video poker games
Jacks or Better and variants, from the pokie studios
Pay tables
Pay table in each game's info panel; check the full house and flush lines
Promotion
Instant cashback on every bet, no wagering; tables count 0% towards the welcome package
Banking
AUD; PayID, cards, Skrill, 5 coins; approval about 1 hour
Vegastars is third as the AUD cashier where a video poker hand can be played for cents and every hand earns a cashback that needs nothing cleared. The shelf is shorter than Fair Go's and the pay tables need reading game by game.
Fair Go leads because it is the one cashier here with full-pay tables on more than one game, a demo on each and a cashback that does not ask for a bonus. Rainbet follows for the crypto player who wants the return printed on the panel and a rakeback that pays every hand. Vegastars closes the ranking with Jacks or Better from cents in Australian dollars and an instant cashback that needs nothing cleared.
How Video Poker Works: One Deck, One Draw and a Return Printed on the Screen
Video poker is five-card draw against a pay table rather than against other players. The machine shuffles a 52-card deck, or 53 with a joker, and deals five cards. The player holds any number of them and draws replacements for the rest from the same deck, once. The final five cards are ranked as a poker hand and paid according to the table on the screen, and the next hand starts from a fresh shuffle. There is no dealer hand to beat, no bluffing and no second draw, so the whole game reduces to one decision per hand: which cards to hold.
That decision has an exact answer. For any dealt hand there are 32 ways to hold, and for each of them the cards that can be drawn and what they would pay can be counted completely. Holding a pair of jacks on a 9/6 Jacks or Better table is worth 1.5365 coins per coin bet, holding a low pair 0.8237, drawing five new cards from nothing 0.3602. The coach on the machine above does that count for every hand, so its advice is exact rather than a rule of thumb. Over many hands, the average of the best hold's value across all possible deals is the game's return, and for 9/6 Jacks or Better that figure is 99.54%.
How Often Each Hand Comes Up
The frequencies below are for 9/6 Jacks or Better with optimal holds. They explain two things players feel at the machine: about half of all hands lose, and the royal flush, which carries almost two percentage points of the return, arrives about once in 40,000 hands, or roughly 70 hours at a steady pace.
Hand
Pays (per coin)
About one in
Share of the return
Royal flush
800 (five coins)
40,400 hands
About 2.0%
Straight flush
50
9,100 hands
About 0.5%
Four of a kind
25
420 hands
About 5.9%
Full house
9
87 hands
About 10.4%
Flush
6
91 hands
About 6.6%
Straight
4
89 hands
About 4.5%
Three of a kind
3
13 hands
About 22.3%
Two pair
2
8 hands
About 25.9%
Jacks or better
1
5 hands
About 21.5%
No win
0
54.5% of hands
—
Two pair and three of a kind carry almost half the return between them, so a pay table that cuts two pair from 2 to 1, as the bonus games do, has to pay a great deal more on four aces to stay near even. The royal's 2% is the reason for the five-coin rule: at one to four coins it pays 250 for one and the return of the same table drops to about 98.4%.
Video Poker Pay Tables and Returns: Reading 9/6, 8/5 and the Rest
Two games with the same name can return 99.5% and 95%, and the difference is printed on the screen before the first coin. The convention names a table by its full house and flush payouts for one coin: 9/6 Jacks or Better pays 9 and 6 and returns 99.54%, 8/5 pays 8 and 5 and returns 97.30%. Everything else on the table is usually standard. The returns below assume optimal holds, which the coach above provides. A casual strategy gives up another 1% to 2%.
Game
Table to look for
Return
What to read on the screen
On the machine above
Jacks or Better
9/6 (full pay)
99.54%
Full house 9, flush 6, two pair 2
Yes
Jacks or Better
8/5
97.30%
Full house 8, flush 5
Yes
Bonus Poker
8/5 (full pay)
99.17%
Four aces 80, four 2s–4s 40, full house 8, flush 5
Yes
Double Bonus
10/7 (full pay); 9/7 common
100.17%; 99.11%
Four aces 160, full house 10 or 9, flush 7, two pair 1
9/7
Double Double Bonus
9/6 (full pay)
98.98%
Four aces with a 2–4 kicker 400, full house 9, flush 6, two pair 1
Yes
Aces and Eights (RTG)
Standard RTG schedule
99.78%
Four aces or four 8s 80, four 7s 50, full house 8, flush 5
Yes
Deuces Wild
Full pay; Not So Ugly common
100.76%; 99.73%
Four deuces 200, five of a kind 15 or 16, straight flush 9 or 10, quads 5 or 4
Both
Joker Poker
Kings or Better, 7/5
100.65%
Five of a kind 200, wild royal 100, quads 17, full house 7, flush 5
Yes
All-American (RTG)
Full pay
100.72%
Straight flush 200, flush 8, straight 8, full house 8, two pair 1
No
Tables above 100% exist on paper and are rare online. A casino that deals full-pay Deuces Wild or 10/7 Double Bonus is giving the game to a perfect player, and most online schedules sit a step below: Not So Ugly Deuces at 99.73%, 9/7 Double Bonus at 99.11%. Those are still better than almost anything else on a casino floor. The pay-table checker on the poker page gives the return and the cost per hour for a schedule read off any machine, including the short-pay versions that the table above leaves out.
How the Casinos in the Ranking Show Their Tables
Fair Go prints the full RTG schedule on the game screen and opens every game in demo mode, so the table can be read without an account. Rainbet and Vegastars deal third-party games whose pay table and return sit in the game's info panel, which is where to look before the first hand, since the same studio can supply a 9/6 and an 8/5 version of the same title.
Video Poker Strategy: The Holds That Carry the Return, and What Each Mistake Costs
Optimal strategy is a ranked list: find the highest entry that describes the dealt hand and hold those cards. The list for 9/6 Jacks or Better below covers nearly every hand, and the coach on the machine above resolves the rest exactly. The figures are the expected value of the hold in coins per coin bet, averaged over the hands where the entry applies.
Royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind: hold all five. (800, 50, 25)
Four to a royal flush: hold the four, even breaking a made flush or straight. (About 18.4 to 19.6)
Full house, flush, straight, three of a kind: hold all five, or the three of a kind. (9, 6, 4, about 4.3)
Four to a straight flush: hold the four. (About 3.5)
Two pair: hold both pairs, never one. (About 2.6)
High pair, jacks or better: hold the pair alone, never with a kicker. (1.5365)
Three to a royal flush: hold the three. (About 1.29 to 1.41)
Four to a flush: hold the four. (About 1.15 to 1.28)
Low pair: hold the pair. (0.8237)
Four to an outside straight: hold the four. (About 0.87)
Two suited high cards: hold both. (About 0.58 to 0.60)
Three to a straight flush: hold the three. (About 0.53 to 0.63)
Two unsuited high cards: hold the lower two if there are three. (About 0.49)
Suited 10 with a jack, queen or king: hold both. (About 0.47 to 0.50)
One high card: hold it. (About 0.47)
Nothing: draw five. (0.3602)
The Mistakes That Cost Most
Dealt
Common hold
Best hold
Cost per coin bet
Pair of jacks with an ace kicker
Pair and ace
Pair alone
About 0.12
Low pair with three to a flush
Three to the flush
The pair
About 0.30
Low pair with four to an outside straight
Four to the straight
The pair
About 0.05 (close)
Made flush with four to a royal
The flush
Four to the royal
About 12 to 13 in the other direction: holding the flush gives up that much
Two pair, one of them jacks
The high pair alone
Both pairs
About 1.0
Three to a straight, no high cards
The three
Draw five
About 0.05 to 0.10
Ace, king, queen unsuited
All three
King and queen
About 0.01 to 0.02
Two patterns run through the list. The expensive mistakes break a made or nearly made hand for a draw, or hold a kicker that cannot help. The cheap ones are the close calls between a low pair and a four-card draw, where the pay table decides and the cost is a few hundredths of a coin either way. The coach prices each one at the machine, which is the fastest way to learn which of a player's habits matter and which do not.
Wild Card Games Change the List
In Deuces Wild the pair pays nothing and three of a kind is the lowest paid hand, so the strategy is organised around the deuces: never discard a deuce, hold two deuces alone unless the hand already has four of a kind or better, and with no deuce hold any pair, four to a straight flush or three to a royal in preference to high cards, which are worth nothing on their own. Joker Poker, Kings or Better, keeps the pair but raises it to kings, and a joker with a king is already a paid hand. The coach handles both exactly, so the lists above are for reading, and the machine is for practising.
Video Poker Variants: Jacks or Better, Bonus Games, Deuces Wild and Joker Poker
Jacks or Better. The original and the benchmark: a pair of jacks is the lowest paid hand, two pair pays 2, and the 9/6 table returns 99.54%. The lowest variance of the family, so a bankroll lasts longest here.
Bonus Poker. Jacks or Better with four aces paid 80 and four 2s to 4s paid 40 instead of 25, financed by a lower full house and flush. The 8/5 table returns 99.17%.
Double Bonus and Double Double Bonus. Four aces pay 160, or 400 with a small kicker in Double Double Bonus, and two pair is cut to even money to pay for it. Returns of 99.11% and 98.98% on the common tables, with far larger swings than Jacks or Better: a player sees more losing hands and waits for the aces.
Deuces Wild. Every 2 is wild, the pair disappears from the pay table and four deuces pay 200. Full-pay Deuces Wild returns 100.76% and is almost never dealt online. Not So Ugly Deuces at 99.73% is the common good table.
Joker Poker. A 53-card deck with one wild joker and a pay table starting at kings or better. The Kings or Better 7/5 schedule returns 100.65% with perfect play. The pub game called Joker Poker in Australian venues is a different thing altogether, a ticket draw with a joker in a deck of cards, and has nothing to do with the video game.
Aces and Eights, Sevens Wild, Loose Deuces, All-American. RTG's family, dealt at Fair Go. Aces and Eights pays 80 on four aces or four 8s and 50 on four 7s and returns 99.78%. All-American pays 8 on the flush, straight and full house alike and 200 on the straight flush, and its full-pay table returns 100.72%.
Multi-hand and Ultimate X. Triple Play, Five Play and larger formats deal one hand, apply the same hold to every line and draw separately for each, which multiplies the bet and the variance without changing the return. Ultimate X adds multipliers earned on the previous hand. Neither is common at the casinos in the ranking.
Video Poker vs Pokies: Why the Odds Are Better and the Game Is Slower
Video poker
Online pokies
Return to player
97% to 99.8% on common tables, published on the screen
88% to 96%, set by the designer, often shown only in the help file
Player decisions
One per hand, and it moves the return by 1% to 3%
None that change the return
Odds knowable in advance
Yes, from the pay table
Only the headline RTP, if shown
Variance
Low on Jacks or Better, high on bonus games
Low to very high, by title
Hands or spins per hour
300 to 600
400 to 900
Expected cost per hour at AU$1.25 a hand or spin
About AU$2 to AU$10
About AU$20 to AU$75
Bonus eligibility
Usually excluded or counted at 0%
Usually 100%
The first two rows are the whole argument. A video poker player on a full-pay table who holds correctly gives up about half a cent in the dollar, against four to twelve cents on a pokie, and can confirm the figure from the screen before playing. What the pokie offers in exchange is the bonus round, the jackpot and the welcome match that counts its spins at 100%. A player who wants the longest session for the money chooses video poker. A player who wants a shot at a life-changing sum accepts the pokie's price for it. The one trap is the short-pay table, where a 6/5 Jacks or Better at 95% is no better than a mid-range pokie and looks identical from across the room.
Real Money Video Poker in Australia: Stakes, Promotions and the Rules That Catch Players Out
Playing video poker at an offshore casino sits on the same legal footing as every other game there: the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 regulates the operator, not the player, and winnings are not taxed. The practical questions are the stake, the promotion and the terms, and the casinos in the ranking answer them differently.
Casino
Games
Stake per hand
Demo
Bonus rule
Promotion that pays
Payout
Fair Go
Aces and Eights, Jacks or Better, Sevens Wild, Loose Deuces, All-American
From AU$1
Yes, no account
Video poker excluded while a bonus is active; 0% towards wagering
25% instant cashback on a lost deposit made without a code; comp points
Bitcoin or eZeeWallet from AU$100 within 2 business days
Rainbet
Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild
From US$0.50
Varies by studio
Counted as casino games; a no-wager welcome path exists
Rakeback on every bet
Crypto in 5–15 minutes from US$15
Vegastars
Jacks or Better and variants
From under AU$1
Varies by studio
0% towards the welcome package
Instant cashback on every bet, no wagering
PayID, cards, crypto from AU$20 after about 1 hour
Three Rules to Know Before the First Real Hand
Play without a bonus. At Fair Go a video poker hand played while a bonus is active breaks the terms, and at every casino here the game counts 0% or close to it towards clearing one. A plain deposit keeps the cashbacks, which is where the value is. The cashback page compares them.
Five coins, smaller coin. The published returns assume five coins. A player who wants AU$0.25 a hand sets the coin to AU$0.05 and bets five, not the AU$0.25 coin and one.
Read the panel, every game. The same studio supplies 9/6 and 8/5 versions of the same title to different casinos. The full house and flush lines take ten seconds to check and are worth more than two percentage points of return.
For bankroll, Jacks or Better at five coins runs through about 25 to 40 bets in a losing hour and the bonus games considerably more, so a session bankroll of 50 to 100 bets covers most sessions, and the responsible gambling page covers the deposit limits that keep it there.
Video Poker: Frequently Asked Questions
Is video poker good odds compared with pokies?
Yes, by a wide margin, on a good pay table. Full-pay Jacks or Better returns 99.54% with correct holds and Aces and Eights 99.78%, against 88% to 96% for most online pokies. The difference is that video poker publishes its odds in the pay table and lets the player's decisions matter, while a pokie's return is fixed by the designer and hidden. A short-pay video poker table, 8/5 Jacks or Better at 97.30% or worse, gives much of that advantage back, so the pay table is the first thing to read.
Is online video poker random?
Yes. A regulated video poker game deals from a virtual 52-card deck, or 53 with a joker, shuffled by a random number generator, and the ten cards used in a hand, five dealt and up to five drawn, are determined the same way a physical shuffle would determine them. The return is fixed by the pay table and the player's holds, not by a setting. The machine above works the same way and shows the exact expected value of every hold, which would be impossible if the deal were anything but random.
Which video poker game is best to play?
The one with the best pay table available, which usually means Jacks or Better 9/6 at 99.54%, Not So Ugly Deuces at 99.73% or, at Fair Go, Aces and Eights at 99.78%. Bonus and Double Double Bonus games trade a lower return on small hands for big payouts on four aces, which raises the variance without raising the return. A player who wants the longest session from a bankroll picks Jacks or Better. A player who wants the chance of a big hit picks a bonus game and accepts the faster losses between hits.
How do I play video poker?
Set the coin value, bet five coins, press Deal. Five cards appear. Choose which to hold, press Draw, and the discarded cards are replaced from the same deck. The final hand is paid according to the pay table on the screen, from a pair of jacks or better up to a royal flush, and the next hand starts. The only decision in the game is which cards to hold, and the coach above shows the best hold and what every other hold would have been worth.
Why always bet five coins?
Because the royal flush pays 800 for one at five coins and only 250 for one at fewer, and the whole published return depends on that. Jacks or Better 9/6 returns 99.54% at five coins and about 98.4% at one to four. A player who wants to bet less lowers the coin value, from AU$1 to AU$0.25 for example, and keeps five coins in play.
Can I play video poker for real money in Australia?
Yes, at offshore casinos, on the same legal footing as their blackjack and pokies: the operator is licensed overseas, the player breaks no law, and winnings are not taxed. Among the casinos we reviewed, Fair Go deals five RTG games with full-pay tables from AU$1, Rainbet deals Jacks or Better and Deuces Wild for crypto from US$0.50, and Vegastars deals Jacks or Better and variants from cents in an AUD account. The ranking above compares them.
Do casino bonuses work for video poker?
Mostly not. Welcome matches count table games, which include video poker, at 0% or 5% towards wagering, and Fair Go excludes video poker from play altogether while a bonus is active. The promotions that pay a video poker player are the ones that need no bonus: Fair Go's 25% instant cashback on a lost deposit made without a code, Vegastars' instant cashback on every bet, and Rainbet's rakeback. The cashback page compares them.
Video poker is the one casino game that prints its odds on the screen and lets the player's decisions reach them, and the machine above shows exactly what each decision is worth on nine pay tables. For real stakes, Fair Go deals five RTG games with full-pay tables and a demo on each, Rainbet deals Jacks or Better and Deuces Wild with a rakeback on every hand, and Vegastars deals Jacks or Better from cents with an instant cashback. The poker page covers the dealer-vs-player poker games and has a checker for any pay table, the cashback page compares the promotions that pay a video poker player, and the blackjack simulator does for blackjack what this page does for video poker.
Ready for a real pay table?
Fair Go deals Aces and Eights at 99.78% and Jacks or Better 9/6 at 99.54% from AU$1, with a demo on every game and 25% instant cashback on a deposit made without a code.
