In video poker the paytable is the game. The same Jacks or Better title returns 99.54% on one machine and under 97.3% on another, and the difference is printed on the screen: the payouts for a full house and a flush. Reading those two numbers takes ten seconds and is worth more than any strategy refinement.
The naming convention
Video poker variants are named by their full house and flush payouts (per coin):
| Paytable | Full house | Flush | Return with optimal play |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9/6 Jacks or Better | 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% |
Every step down in either column costs roughly 1.1 percentage points. An 8/5 machine charges four times the 9/6 version's edge for identical gameplay.
If you want the math: with optimal strategy you hit a full house about 1.15% of hands and a flush about 1.1%. Cutting one coin from the full house payout costs 1.15% × 1 coin ≈ 1.1% of total return — directly off the published number. The derivation is the frequency times the trim; no other line on the paytable moves as much as these two.
Other variants, same method
| Variant | Benchmark paytable | Return |
|---|---|---|
| Bonus Poker | 8/5 | 99.17% |
| Double Bonus | 10/7 | 100.17% |
| Double Double Bonus | 10/6 | 98.98% |
| Deuces Wild | "Full pay" (25/15/9...) | 100.76% |
Yes — full-pay Double Bonus and Deuces Wild return over 100% with perfect play. Those paytables are nearly extinct (online and off) precisely because of it, and "perfect play" in those variants is genuinely hard. The benchmark numbers matter as reference points: whatever variant your casino offers, compare its paytable to the benchmark before playing a coin.
The ten-second check
1. Open the game's paytable screen. 2. Read the full house and flush payouts per coin. 3. Compare against the table above for your variant. 4. The gap from the benchmark is the operator's extra margin.
Online casinos publish paytables inside every client, which makes shopping between games trivial — operators carry different paytables across their lobbies, and the spread within one lobby can exceed a full percentage point. Always bet max coins on machines you do play: the royal flush pays disproportionately at five coins (4,000 vs 1,250 per-coin scaling), and the published returns assume it.