How to play video poker in five steps
A hand of video poker is one deal and one draw against a fixed paytable; there is no dealer to beat and no other player. The free Jacks or Better game at Wizard of Odds, which we opened on 12 October 2026, shows the basic controls: BET ONE, BET MAX and DEAL.
- Check the paytable at the top of the screen before anything else: the full house and flush cells tell you which version you are playing (how to read it).
- Set the bet. BET ONE adds a coin, BET MAX plays five; the returns on this page assume five coins (why).
- Deal. The machine shows five cards.
- Hold the cards you want to keep, from none to all five.
- Draw. The other cards are replaced once, and the final five-card hand is paid by the paytable; a hand below the lowest line (a pair of jacks in Jacks or Better) pays nothing.
Which cards to hold is the whole skill, and it is set out game by game in strategy in one paragraph per game.
How to read a paytable in thirty seconds
Every video poker game shows a grid of hands and payouts. Two cells identify the version: the full house and flush payouts per coin, quoted as “9/6”, “8/5” and so on. In Jacks or Better those two cells move the return from 99.54% to 95.00% while the rest of the table stays identical. In Bonus and Double Bonus games the four-of-a-kind cells matter as well; in Deuces Wild it is the four-deuces, wild royal and five-of-a-kind lines. A casino that offers a game in a low paytable is not cheating; it is charging more for the same game, and the only reason it works is that players do not compare. Compare.
Returns by paytable
| Game | Paytable | Return, optimal play | Cost per A$100 bet |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jacks or Better | 9/6 (full pay) | 99.54% | A$0.46 |
| 8/5 | 97.30% | A$2.70 | |
| 7/5 | 96.15% | A$3.85 | |
| 6/5 | 95.00% | A$5.00 | |
| Bonus Poker | 8/5 | 99.17% | A$0.83 |
| Double Bonus | 10/7 | 100.17% | −A$0.17 (player edge) |
| 9/7 | 99.11% | A$0.89 | |
| Double Double Bonus | 9/6 | 100.07% | −A$0.07 |
| 8/5 | 98.98% | A$1.02 | |
| Deuces Wild | Full pay (25/15/9/5/3/2) | 100.76% | −A$0.76 |
| Joker Poker (kings or better) | Full pay | 100.65% | −A$0.65 |
| Tens or Better | Quads pay 25 | 99.14% | A$0.86 |
| Quads pay 20 | 97.96% | A$2.04 | |
| All American | 35/8 (quads 35, full house/flush/straight 8) | 99.60% | A$0.40 |
| Playtech 34/8 | 99.38% | A$0.62 | |
| 30/8 | 98.49% | A$1.51 | |
| 25/8 | 97.38% | A$2.62 | |
| 30/7 | 94.00% | A$6.00 | |
| Aces and Faces | 8/5 | 99.26% | A$0.74 |
| 7/6 | 99.20% | A$0.80 | |
| 7/5 | 98.10% | A$1.90 | |
| 6/5 | 96.96% | A$3.04 |
Returns above 100% exist on paper and almost never online: full-pay Deuces Wild, 10/7 Double Bonus and full-pay Joker Poker are Las Vegas paytables that online studios do not ship. Expect the 8/5 and 7/5 columns in an offshore lobby, and treat a 9/6 Jacks or Better as the best you will find. The “optimal play” qualifier is real: the figures assume the mathematically correct hold on every hand, and a casual player gives up a further 1–3%.
Which casinos carry video poker
Most Australian-facing lobbies are pokie catalogues with a handful of tables; video poker is a minority product and its presence is a fair signal of how much the operator cares about players who read paytables.
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| Casino | Video poker in the lobby (19 Sep) | Links |
|---|---|---|
| The largest section in the set: 31 poker titles including Jacks or Better 4000, Deuces Wild, Tens or Better, Joker Poker, Bonus Poker, Bonus Poker Deluxe, Double Bonus, Double Double Bonus, Double Jackpot, All American, Aces 6000, Kings & Queens, Nines or Better, Pick'em and Kansas City Lowball, several carrying the Microgaming Power Poker multi-hand brand. Withdrawal terms are the weakest part: a 24-hour hold, a 10,000-a-week cap and a 10% fee on unwagered cash-outs | Review | |
| Video poker category present; same platform and rulebook as King Johnnie | Visit ReviewHelp 1800 858 858 | |
| Video poker category present; same platform and rulebook as King Johnnie | Visit ReviewHelp 1800 858 858 | |
| Video poker category present (Microgaming heritage) | Visit ReviewHelp 1800 858 858 | |
| Realtime Gaming video poker (Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, Aces and Eights, Joker Poker and others); excluded from bonus play | Visit ReviewHelp 1800 858 858 | |
| Realtime Gaming video poker (Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, Aces and Eights, Joker Poker and others); counts at 10% toward wagering | Visit ReviewHelp 1800 858 858 | |
| Realtime Gaming video poker (Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, Aces and Eights, Joker Poker and others); excluded from bonus play | Visit ReviewHelp 1800 858 858 | |
| Realtime Gaming video poker (Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, Aces and Eights, Joker Poker and others); excluded from bonus play | Visit ReviewHelp 1800 858 858 | |
| Realtime Gaming video poker (Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, Aces and Eights, Joker Poker and others); excluded from bonus play | Visit ReviewHelp 1800 858 858 | |
| Realtime Gaming video poker (Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, Aces and Eights, Joker Poker and others); excluded from bonus play | Review | |
| A single “Video Poker” tile or category on a pokie-first lobby; the games exist but are not a feature. Bonus rules count them at 5% | Visit ReviewHelp 1800 858 858 | |
| A single “Video Poker” tile or category on a pokie-first lobby; the games exist but are not a feature. Bonus rules count them at 5% | Visit ReviewHelp 1800 858 858 | |
| A single “Video Poker” tile or category on a pokie-first lobby; the games exist but are not a feature. Bonus rules count them at 5% | Visit ReviewHelp 1800 858 858 | |
| A single “Video Poker” tile or category on a pokie-first lobby; the games exist but are not a feature. Bonus rules count them at 5% | Visit ReviewHelp 1800 858 858 | |
| A single “Video Poker” tile or category on a pokie-first lobby; the games exist but are not a feature. Bonus rules count them at 5% | Visit ReviewHelp 1800 858 858 | |
| Video poker in the casino section beside the only real poker room in the set (online poker in Australia) | Visit ReviewHelp 1800 858 858 |
The trade-off is plain: the lobbies with the deepest video poker shelves (King Johnnie and its sisters, the RTG family) have the weakest cash-out terms in our reviews, and the operators with the best withdrawal terms (Golden Crown, the PlayAmo family) treat video poker as a footnote. A player who wants a 99.5% game and a withdrawal that arrives should check the specific paytable at a Novatrix site before choosing the King Johnnie catalogue for its breadth.
Five coins, or the royal is not worth having
Every return in the table assumes the maximum bet, usually five coins, because the royal flush pays 800 for 1 at five coins and 250 for 1 at one to four. The royal is worth about 2% of the total return in Jacks or Better, and it is rare: Wizard of Odds' table for 9/6 Jacks or Better with optimal play gives it a probability of 0.00002476, about once in 40,400 hands (page updated 3 August 2026, read 12 October 2026). Betting fewer than five coins throws most of that away and turns a 99.54% game into roughly 98.4%. If five coins at the chosen denomination is too much, lower the denomination, not the coin count. Online games also offer multi-hand play (three, five, ten, 25, 50 or 100 hands from one dealt hand); the return per hand is unchanged, but the total stake per deal multiplies, and Playtech's 25-play Aces and Faces is published at 95.44% — a reminder to check the paytable of each variant separately.
Strategy in one paragraph per game
What the optimal-play figures assume
- Jacks or Better. Hold any paying hand except break a low pair only for a four-card royal; hold a low pair over a four-card flush draw or four to an outside straight; never hold a kicker. The full strategy is a ranked list of about 35 lines; the ten most important cover 99% of the value.
- Deuces Wild. Never discard a deuce. With no deuce, hold a pair over anything but four to a royal or straight flush; with one deuce, hold made hands and four-card straight flush draws; two deuces are worth more than any non-paying hand.
- Bonus and Double Double Bonus. The quads pay for the return, so the game is more volatile: hold aces over any draw, and expect longer losing runs than in Jacks or Better at the same return.
- Joker Poker, Tens or Better, All American. Same skeleton as Jacks or Better with the minimum paying hand and the straight-flush payouts changed; All American pays straights, flushes and full houses equally and punishes two-pair players.
Each variant's full strategy and paytable notes are in the guides listed at the end; the practical rule is that the paytable is worth more than the strategy, because a perfect player at 6/5 Jacks or Better still loses ten times as much as a good player at 9/6.
Bonuses and video poker
A high-return game is exactly what bonus rules are written to exclude. Grand Rush publishes its weighting: pokies 100%, video poker 10%, blackjack 5%. Golden Crown counts “table games, live casino games, lottery, or other available games” at 5%. The Realtime Gaming sites (Lucky Tiger, Rich Palms, Shazam) list video poker among games that “cannot be played with bonus funds”. A A$100 bonus at 40× therefore needs A$40,000 of video poker turnover at Grand Rush and A$80,000 at Golden Crown, which at 1–2% house edge still costs more than the bonus. Play video poker with real money only, and decline the welcome bonus in the cashier if the site does not let you keep the two balances apart. Casino bonuses explained has the general arithmetic.
FAQ
What is the best video poker game to play?
The one with the best paytable in front of you. Among paytables actually shipped online, 9/6 Jacks or Better (99.54%), 8/5 Bonus Poker (99.17%), 8/5 Aces and Faces (99.26%) and 35/8 All American (99.60%) are the ceiling; full-pay Deuces Wild and 10/7 Double Bonus, both above 100%, are casino-floor tables that online studios do not ship.
Is Deuces Wild better than Jacks or Better?
At full pay, yes (100.76% against 99.54%), but online Deuces Wild is almost always a reduced table; compare the four-deuces and five-of-a-kind cells. Deuces Wild is also more volatile and its strategy less intuitive. Deuces Wild has the paytables and the strategy.
How much does video poker pay out?
Between 94% and 99.6% at the paytables in the table above, with perfect play and five coins. A casual player gives up a further one to three points. The return is fixed by the paytable, not by the casino's mood, a hot streak or the time of day.
Which Australian online casinos have video poker?
King Johnnie has the widest shelf (31 titles); Wolf Winner, Jackpot Jill and Casino Mate have a category; the Realtime Gaming sites (Fair Go, Grand Rush, Lucky Tiger, Rich Palms, Shazam, PlayCroco) carry RTG's set; the Novatrix and Metlait sites (Golden Crown, King Billy, PlayAmo, CasinoChan) carry a tile. None is licensed in Australia.
How often do you hit a royal flush?
About once in 40,400 hands of 9/6 Jacks or Better with optimal play: Wizard of Odds' table gives the royal a probability of 0.00002476 (read 12 October 2026). It pays 800 for 1 only at five coins and makes up about 2% of the return.
Can I play video poker for free?
Yes, without money: on 12 October 2026 the free Jacks or Better game at Wizard of Odds loaded from an Australian IP with a 9/6 paytable and 1,000 play credits. We checked that it loaded, not a full session. Whether a casino lobby offers a demo of its own video poker we did not check; if it does, use it to read the full house and flush cells before depositing.
Is video poker legal in Australia?
Video poker for money online is sold by online casinos, and ACMA says the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 makes it illegal for gambling providers to offer some online services to people in Australia, with online casinos on its list. The ban is aimed at the provider. What it means for the player is set out in our guide to the law, listed below.
Game guides
- Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, Joker Poker and Tens or Better are covered on this page: returns by paytable and strategy for each game; their former separate pages now point here
- Online poker in Australia — the real poker room and the house-banked variants, with the house edge of each
- Is online gambling legal in Australia — what the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 bans and what it means for the player
- Best payout casinos — lobby return data and cash-out terms side by side
Sources and method
Return percentages are the optimal-strategy figures published by Wizard of Odds for each named paytable (Jacks or Better, Bonus Poker, Double Bonus, Double Double Bonus, Deuces Wild, Joker Poker, Tens or Better, All American and Aces and Faces pages, read 19 September 2026; the Jacks or Better rows were rechecked on the Wizard of Odds Jacks or Better page on 23 October 2026); we did not recompute them. The royal flush probability is from the 9/6 table on the Wizard of Odds Jacks or Better tables (read 12 October 2026); the figure of about once in 40,400 hands is our division of its total combinations by the royal's. The free game is Wizard of Odds' video poker, opened on 12 October 2026 from an Australian IP. Cost per A$100 is arithmetic from those figures. Lobby contents were read from each operator's rendered lobby page on 19 September 2026 from an Australian IP address; a lobby page shows a category and its featured tiles, not the full catalogue, so a site listed as carrying a tile may hold more titles behind a search. Bonus weightings are quoted from the operators' terms. We earn a commission when readers sign up through links on this site; it did not decide what is written here.
No online casino is licensed in Australia. Gambling is a cost, not an income; you must be 18 or over. Free, confidential support is available 24/7 on 1800 858 858 through Gambling Help Online.
