Full Pay Jacks or Better (9/6 Pay Tables) – Video Poker

Today’s post is a guide to full pay Jacks or Better video poker. It’s a natural follow-up to the other recent posts I’ve written about casino games with great odds, like single deck blackjack and single zero roulette.

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So, my goal with this post is to provide a complete guide to 9/6 pay tables on Jacks or Better video poker games, including an explanation of what this means. I want you to be able to tell if a Jacks or Better game is full pay almost instantly.

Related: Best Slots to Play at Circus Circus

And I want you to understand why full pay Jacks or Better offers such great odds and why it takes an appropriate strategy to keep that house edge so low.

Let’s dive in.

What Is 9/6 Jacks or Better? And What Is Full Pay Jacks or Better?

What is 9/6 Jacks or Better?

And, what is full pay Jacks or Better?

Full pay Jacks or Better and 9/6 Jacks or Better are the same game. Jacks or Better is the most basic form of video poker — you get five cards and can decide to keep or discard each of them. After the discarded cards get replaced, you get paid based on the poker value of your final hand. The payout amount for each hand is determined by the game’s pay table.

The best possible pay table in Jacks or Better is one that pays off at 9 for 1 for a full house and 6 for 1 on a flush. And that’s where the “9/6” label comes from. Other Jacks or Better games have different payouts for those hands, like 8/6, 8/5, or 7/5. Some even have 6/5 payouts on those two hands.

If you’re interested in learning more about video poker in general, I recommend Michael Bluejay’s Video Poker for Beginners.

I’ll get into more detail about all of this in the subsequent sections.

How to Tell if a Jacks or Better Video Poker Game Is Full Pay

How can you tell if a Jacks or Better video poker game is full pay?

Just look at the payouts for the full house and the flush.

Here’s what the pay table for a full pay Jacks or Better game looks like:

Full Pay Jacks or Better Pay Table

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

To quickly tell which version of Jacks or Better you’re playing, just look at the payout for the full house and the flush. Since this is the full pay version, you can see that the payout for a full house is 9 for 1 on a 1-coin bet. The payout for a flush is 6 for 1.

Full Pay Jacks or Better Odds

When you’re dealing with gambling machines, like slot and video poker, you measure the odds according to the game’s total return or payback percentage. The higher that number is, the lower the house edge is. Also, when you add the house edge to the total return for the game, you always get 100%.

The total return for full pay Jacks or Better is 99.54%. This means that the house edge is only 0.46%.

For every dollar you wager on this game, you’ll get back — on average, in the long run — 99.54 cents. And that assumes you’re playing with perfect video poker strategy.

Other pay tables offer worse odds. Such pay tables are also more common. The reason for that should be clear, too — the casinos prefer games where they win a higher average of each bet than games where they win a lower average of each bet.

An 8/5 Jacks or Better game is far more common, and that game (obviously) pays out 8 for 1 for a full house and 5 for 1 for a flush. The payback percentage for that version of the game is only 97.30%.

That might seem like an insignificant difference. After all, everyone knows that 2% isn’t a big deal, right?

Wrong.

When you multiply that 2% by every bet over the course of an average of 500 bets per hour, it adds up fast.

Predicted Hourly Loss

Casinos use the following formula to calculate how much the predict you’ll lose at a game. It’s the number of bets you make per hour X the house edge X the size of your bets. That’s your expected hourly loss.

On a full pay game, you have a house edge of 0.46%. If you’re playing for $5 per hand at 500 hands per hour, you’re putting $2500 per hour into action. If you lose 0.46% of that, you’re looking at an hourly loss of $11.50.

Now, what if you’re playing the 8/5 game?

The house edge for this version is 2.70%.

And 2.70% of $2500 is $67.50.

That’s a significant difference no matter how much money you have.

One other thing you should know about Jacks or Better odds — they change based on whether you’re using correct strategy.

Full Pay Jacks or Better Strategy

Gambling writers always present video poker strategy as a hierarchical list of hands you should hold. You start at the top of the list, and when you get to a hand that matches what’s in your hand, you keep those cards.

Perfect full pay Jacks or Better strategy is a complicated hierarchy that, frankly, isn’t worth learning for most gamblers. According to Michael Shackleford, “The Wizard of Odds,” you can use a simplified strategy and only give up 0.08%.

Here’s how that strategy works:

The 3 Big Winning Hands

Start by checking to see if you have one of the three biggest winning hands:

1. Royal flush
2. Straight flush
3. Four of a kind

If you have any of those three hands, obviously, you’ll hold onto it and collect your big payout.

The Royal Flush Draw

If not, you then check to see if you have four cards to a royal flush. This means that four of your cards must be suited, and all those suited cards must be 10 or higher in rank. With this hand, you have a 1/47 probability of hitting the royal flush. You also have reasonably good odds of getting a flush, 9/47, or of hitting a flush, straight, or high pair.

Sometimes this will mean discarding a paying hand. For example, if you have a pair of jacks along with a draw to a royal flush, you’ll throw away the jack that can’t help you hit your royal flush.

The Other Big Paying Hands

Then you check to see if you have one of the following reasonably large paying hands:

1. Full house
2. Flush
3. Straight
4. Three of a kind

If you have any one of those hands, you keep it. In the case of a three of a kind, you’ll discard the other two cards and try to hit the four of a kind. But other than that, you just hold onto your pat hand.

The Straight Flush Draw

Then check to see if you have four cards to a straight flush. If you do, you draw to the straight flush, even if means discarding a high pair. It’s impossible to have four cards to a straight flush and two pair at the same time, so you’ll never have to decide between two pair and a straight flush.

The Lowest Paying Winning Hands

And then you check to see if you have either of the final two paying hands:

1. Two pair
2. A pair of jacks or better

Obviously, you’ll hold onto the two pair or the pair of jacks or better and discard the other cards to try to improve your hand.

If you’ll notice, I could describe this strategy as letting the machine deal me a winning hand but with a couple of hierarchical exceptions.

The Tricky Hands Where You Don’t Have Much

After that, you’ll draw to the following hands in the following priority, from best to worst:

1. Three cards to a royal flush
2. Four cards to a flush
3. A pair of 10s or lower
4. An outside straight draw*
5. Two suited cards ranked jack or higher
6. Three cards to a straight flush
7. Two unsuited cards ranked jack or higher
8. 10J, 10Q, or 10K, but only if they’re of the same suit
9. One card ranked jack or higher

If you don’t have any of the above draws, you discard everything in your hand.

*An outside straight draw is one where you have four cards that are adjacent in rank — you have eight possible cards that will complete your hand instead of just four. An example of an outside straight draw is 3456. You make your hand if you get a 2 OR a 7.

An example of an inside straight draw is 3467. The only card that will make your straight in this situation is a 5.

If you use this full pay Jacks or Better strategy, the total return for the game decreases from 99.54% to 99.46%. The house edge increases from 0.46% to 0.54%.

The predicted hourly loss for a $5 per hand player at 500 hands per hour increases from $11.50 to $13.50.

If you really want to dig into the more detailed strategy for full pay Jacks or Better, I recommend buying Bob Dancer’s book, A Winner’s Guide to Jacks or Better Video Poker. It’s the most comprehensive coverage of the subject you could ask for.

Full Pay Jacks or Better in Las Vegas Casinos

You won’t find many casinos offering full pay Jacks or Better in Las Vegas casinos. The properties there want to maximize the amount of money they make per square foot of floor space, and an 8/5 machine takes up the same amount of space as a full pay Jacks or Better game.

When I’m looking for casinos that offer full pay Jacks or Better, I always check vpFREE2. They have a page for Jacks or Better casinos here. Sadly, I couldn’t find a way to filter their searches down by city (Las Vegas) and by game (9/6 Jacks or Better). That might be user error on my part, though.

It looks like, though, if you want to play 9/6 Jacks or Better in Las Vegas, you’re probably going to need to hit one of the casinos in Henderson. Emerald Island Casino has really low limit Jacks or Better games there, penny and nickel games, mostly. For low rollers, that might be a lot of fun.

I also found some details about full pay Jacks or Better games in the bars in Downtown Vegas at VegasExperience. According to them, Boar’s Head Bar at Main Street Station has full pay Jacks or Better for 50 cents and a dollar.

You might be able to find more full pay games than that. If you do, get in touch with me so I can update this section of the site.

VegasAdvantage also has details about full pay Jacks or Better games in Vegas. They list the following casinos as having the game available:

• Aria – $5 games suitable for higher rollers
• Ballys – Also has $5 games
• Bellagio – Also has $5 games
• Caesars Palace – Also has $5 games (See also: Caesars Sportsbook Review)
• Cosmopolitan  – More $5 games
• Cromwell – Has quarter games only
• MGM Grand – Has $10 games
• New York New York – Has $5 bartop games
• Wynn/Encore – More $5 games

If you want to play full pay Jacks or Better games in Vegas, it helps to be a high roller. After all, with a $5 game, you’re going to be betting $25 per hand — 5 coins.

9/6 Jacks or Better Games at Online Casinos

Most online casinos offer full pay Jacks or Better games, but look at the pay tables carefully. Online casinos don’t have to worry about floorspace, but they’re still aware of how much money they’re making from various games.

Questions and Answers

Here are answers to questions people commonly ask about full pay Jacks or Better.

Why Are Full Pay Jacks or Better Machines Hard to Find?

Full pay Jacks or Better games are hard to find because they have such a high total return. Most casinos are looking for a higher return for their floorspace than this. That said, there are plenty of games out there if you’re willing to look. If you’re willing to gamble in places like Reno and Sparks, you can find plenty of low roller games with full pay tables.

And, if you’re looking for high stakes gaming machines, several Las Vegas Strip hotels offer full pay Jacks or Better to $5 players.

Atlantic City has good pay tables and video poker options, too.

Conclusion

That’s my shot at providing complete coverage of full pay Jacks or Better video poker games. I understand that the strategy section isn’t as detailed as some readers might prefer, but I’ve provided links to more detailed resources for those who are that serious.

If you see anything that needs to be updated or added, please get in touch and let me know so that I can update this page accordingly.