- Video Poker Jacks Or Better Strategy Chart
- Online Jacks Or Better Poker
- Jacks Or Better Strategy Card
- Jacks Or Better Video Poker Strategy Chart
- Jacks Or Better Video Poker Strategy
- Video Poker Jacks Or Better Strategy Card
- Video poker has several variants, but the oldest is Jacks or Better, also known as Draw Poker. Is a great game and easy to play if you already know how to play five-card draw poker.It has an element of skill in addition to luck, compared with the pure luck of playing slot machines.
- Bonus Poker is a fun and common version of Jacks or Better that offers some of the best payouts in the casinos. In fact, at most land-based casinos, Bonus Poker is the best-paying video poker game you’ll find. Full Pay Jacks or Better and even “Not So Ugly” Deuces Wild are much rarer and harder to find.
When millions of gamblers worldwide talk about video poker, they’re referring to a particular version of the game known as Jacks or Better.
About our Free Jacks or Better Video Poker Game. CasinoTop10’s HTML5 Free Jacks or Better Video Poker game offers gamblers a fantastic and straightforward classic casino poker experience with a bit of a twist. Unlike in the classic version of poker, there’s no bluffing in Jacks or Better Video Poker.
The original form of video poker, Jacks or Better is so named because players are hoping for five-card poker hand of at least one pair of Jacks to collect the machine’s minimum payout. You’ll learn more about the origins of Jacks or Better to begin the list below, but for now, just know that all other forms of video poker stem from its template.
Casino gamblers today consider Jacks or Better to be a staple within the skill-game category, ranking right there with blackjack as one of the best bets around. Strategic considerations abound, challenging even expert level players to make the most mathematically advantageous decisions given every hand’s initial five-card deal.
When played properly, Jacks or Better can become a lucrative endeavor, especially considering the game’s modern inclination toward paying progressive jackpot prizes for premium hands.
All things considered, Jacks or Better deserves to be placed alongside 3 to 2 blackjack, single-zero roulette, and 100x odds craps on the Mount Rushmore of all-time great gambling games.
But despite the overwhelming popularity of Jacks or Better video poker – you can walk through any casino in the country and find rows of the ubiquitous Game King machines – even longtime players may not know everything they should about their video poker variant of choice. To help extend your Jacks or Better education even further, study up on the five fun facts about the game found below.
1 – Jacks or Better Originally Required Two Pair to Collect a Payout
The year was 1979, and Reno-based slot machine and jukebox distributor William “Si” Redd had the proverbial lightbulb go off over his head.
At the time, arcade games featuring built-in television screens were becoming an increasingly significant part of Redd’s coin-in machine business. A classic casino man himself – Redd owned the Oasis in Mesquite, Nevada between 1976 and 2001 – Redd wanted to combine video screen technology with the gambling machines he already sold across the Silver State.
After huddling up with a few designers within Bally Manufacturing, the company his distributing firm worked with, Redd came up with a game he called Fortune 1 Draw Poker. A simple upright box similar to slot machines of the era was refitted to house a small television screen. And on that screen, players were presented with an age-old gambling puzzle to solve – five card draw.
Redd brought the idea to the bigwigs at Bally’s, but they shot the newfangled “video poker” game down without a second thought. Shrewdly, Redd negotiated to keep the rights to his new creation before leaving Bally’s to strike out on his own.
After founding SIRCOMA – shorthand for “Si Redd’s Coin Operated Machines” – the intrepid entrepreneur introduced his Fortune 1 Draw Poker machines in a handful of casinos in Las Vegas, Reno, and Mesquite.
Unfortunately for Redd, the game was designed to dispense its minimum payout of one coin (per coin wagered) when players made two pair or better. Using a standard 52-card deck, players only land two-pair on 13 percent of deals – more on this topic to come later on – which meant curious gamblers found themselves losing nearly 9 out of 10 times.
This level of difficulty proved untenable for players, prompting Redd to reduce the threshold needed for a minimum payout to one pair. But looking to retain the house’s edge, as any casino owner would, Redd added a caveat that required that one pair to be ranked at Jacks or higher to qualify.
Video Poker Jacks Or Better Strategy Chart
By 1981, Redd’s newly retrofitted “Game King” machines were offering Jacks or Better in every major casino in Nevada. Today – after SIRCOMA eventually grew into the worldwide company International Game Technology (IGT) – you can’t walk through a gambling hall anywhere in the world without finding Game King machines and Redd’s iconic Jacks or Better invention.
2 – The 9/6 Full Pay Machines Are Among the Best Bets in Any Casino
Perhaps the most fun fact about Jacks or Better is best expressed in numerical form – 96.54 percent.
That’s the payback percentage offered to basic strategy players when Jacks or Better machines are set to use the 9/6 full pay table shown below:
Jacks or Better Full Pay Table
| HAND | PAYOUT |
|---|---|
| Royal Flush | 800 |
| Straight Flush | 50 |
| Four of a Kind | 25 |
| Full House | 9 |
| Flush | 6 |
| Straight | 4 |
| Three of a Kind | 3 |
| Two Pair | 2 |
| Jacks or Better | 1 |
| All Other | 0 |
The key payouts have been bolded, with full houses paying 9 coins and flushes paying 6 coins. If you find a Jacks or Better machine with the pay table below flashing in yellow, you’ve found the best possible version of the game:
Jacks or Better Full Pay Table (by Coins Bets)
| HAND | 1 COIN | 2 COINS | 3 COINS | 4 COINS | 5 COINS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royal Flush | 250 | 500 | 750 | 1000 | 4000 |
| Straight Flush | 50 | 100 | 150 | 200 | 250 |
| 4 of a Kind | 25 | 50 | 75 | 100 | 125 |
| Full House | 9 | 18 | 27 | 36 | 45 |
| Flush | 6 | 12 | 18 | 24 | 30 |
| Straight | 4 | 8 | 12 | 16 | 20 |
| 3 of a Kind | 3 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 15 |
| Two Pair | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 |
| Jacks or Better | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Unfortunately, most modern casinos – especially the ones on The Strip or in other tourist hotspots – offer diluted pay tables like the 9/5 version.
By adjusting only that payout for a flush downward from 6 coins to 5 coins, the payback rate for Jacks or Better drops all the way from 99.54 percent to 98.45 percent. Find an 8/6 pay table and your payback dips to 98.39 percent, and so on.
But when you’re grinding a 9/6 full pay machine, Jacks or Better ranks right up there with 3 to 2 blackjack as one of the most favorable skill games on any casino floor.
3 – It Only Takes a Few Seconds to Search for Every 9/6 Jacks or Better Machine in America
To make sure you never waste another buck betting on inferior pay tables, check out the ingenious search tool from the fine folks at vpFREE2.com
The linked listing highlights every 9/6 Jacks or Better machine in all of Las Vegas, down to exact directions like “near the Subway restaurant” or “across from the sportsbook bar.”
Online Jacks Or Better Poker
And be sure to use the “FILTER” tab to change your region and expand the search to every casino in the country.
Jacks Or Better Strategy Card
4 – Memorizing and Mastering Basic Strategy is Much Easier Than You’d Think
Most beginners trying to learn basic strategy for Jacks or Better will find a 24-point list of optimal decisions when they search online.
But by removing common sense plays that don’t really need to be spelled out, you can boil basic strategy for video poker’s base game down to the following 16 guidelines:
Jacks or Better Basic Strategy
| RANK | PRE-DRAW HAND(S) | CORRECT DRAW |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Four of a Kind, Straight Flush, Royal Flush | Hold Pat Hand |
| 2 | Four Cards to a Royal Flush | Draw One Card |
| 3 | Three of a Kind, Straight, Flush, Full House | Hold Pat Hand |
| 4 | Four Cards to a Straight Flush | Draw One Card |
| 5 | Two Pair | Draw One Card |
| 6 | One High Pair (Jacks or Better) | Draw Three Cards |
| 7 | Three Cards to a Royal Flush | Draw Two Cards |
| 8 | Four Cards to a Flush | Draw One Card |
| 9 | One Low Pair (Tens or Lower) | Draw Three Cards |
| 10 | Four Cards to Open-Ended Straight | Draw One Card |
| 11 | Two Suited High Cards (Jack or Higher) | Draw Three Cards |
| 12 | Three Cards to a Straight Flush | Draw Two Cards |
| 13 | Two Unsuited High Cards* | Draw Three Cards |
| 14 | Suited J-10, Q-10, or K-10 | Draw Three Cards |
| 15 | One High Card | Draw Four Cards |
| 16 | Five Unconnected Low Cards | Draw Five Cards |
*When you have three unsuited high cards, hold the lowest two discard the others
5 – You’ll Complete a Winning Hand Right Around Half the Time
As I alluded to in the introduction, landing two pair – either on the deal or the draw – only happens approximately 13 percent of the time.
Making any winning hand, from one pair of Jacks through to the Royal flush, holds a 45.36 percent likelihood. Conversely, 54.64 percent of deals result in a non-paying hand.
Jacks Or Better Video Poker Strategy Chart
And speaking of that royal flush, you’ll only see it hit the screen on three thousandths of a percent of deals – or roughly 1 in 40,000 hands.
Jacks Or Better Video Poker Strategy
Consult the table below to see exactly how each hand in Jacks or Better stacks up in terms of probability:
| HAND | PROBABILITY |
|---|---|
| Royal Flush | 0.003 percent |
| Straight Flush | 0.012 percent |
| Four of a Kind | 0.236 percent |
| Full House | 1.151 percent |
| Flush | 1.119 percent |
| Straight | 1.104 percent |
| Three of a Kind | 7.439 percent |
| Two Pair | 12.921 percent |
| Jacks or Better | 21.370 percent |
| Nothing | 54.647 percent |
| TOTAL | 100.000 percent |
Conclusion
For a certain group of gamblers, Jacks or Better video poker is like a fine wine that only gets better with age. While table games resort to side bets and other gimmicks to keep players interested, and slot machines never stop adding bells and whistles, modern Jacks or Better plays out identically to the first Draw Poker machines devised by Si Redd. That lends the game a sense of completion that not many casinos games can match, as the five fun facts listed above clearly show.
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