Included on this page is a 9/6 Jacks or Better pay table. I've also included an explanation of the four major payout structures commonly found on a Jacks or Better video poker game. There are only 2 payouts on those that are different, so I did not include multiple pay tables.
After the pay table, I've included some information about the house edge for each version and how that effects the expected hourly loss at the game.
| 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 |
| Four 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 |
| Three of a kind | 3 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 15 |
| Two pair | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 |
| Pair of jacks or better | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
You'll notice that the payout for a full house is 9 for 1 on the 1 coin bet, and the payout for the flush is 6 for 1 on the one coin bet. This is why this is called a 9/6 Jacks or Better game.
To get a pay table for 8/5 Jacks or Better, all the other payouts remain the same as in the chart above except for the full house and the flush, which pay 8 for 1 and 5 for 1 respectively. 7/5 Jacks or Better and 6/5 Jacks or Better follow the same logic.
You'll also notice that the payback amounts on all bets are at the same ratio except for the royal flush, which pays out four times what it should pay when you've bet five coins. There are two lessons to take away from that:
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You should always make the max bet.
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Since the payout on the royal flush is so high, it makes up a lot of the game's payback percentage. So you'll be losing most of the time, until you hit your royal flushes, which happen approximately once every 40,000 hands or so.
You can find full pay Jacks or Better games in these Vegas casinos.
I've included a table below that lists the payback percentage for all four versions of Jacks or Better along with their estimated payout percentage. The payout percentage can help you calculate your expected loss per hour. The table makes it pretty clear why you should almost always try to find a 9/6 Jacks or Better game to play.
| Jacks or Better Payout | House advantage | Average hourly play | Expected loss per hour |
| 9/6 | 0.46% | $750 | $3.45 |
| 8/5 | 2.7% | $750 | $20.25 |
| 7/5 | 3.85% | $750 | $28.88 |
| 6/5 | 5% | $750 | $37.50 |
Please notice the huge discrepancy between 9/6 Jacks or Better and 8/5 Jacks or Better. Would you rather lose $3.45/hour or $20.25/hour?
Keep in mind that the house advantage shown above is the house advantage assuming perfect strategy on your part. If you play less than perfectly, you will lose even more, on average. So it becomes clear that any video poker strategy is incomplete without a first step of, "Find a machine with a full pay pay table."
Be sure to also visit the Jacks or Better strategy chart.
This page was written on April 9, 2006 and was updated on September 18, 2007.
