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Video Poker Canada — Pay Tables, Returns and Strategy

The one casino game whose exact return you can read off the screen before you play. How to identify a full-pay machine, and what casual play costs you.

9/6 Jacks or Better returns 99.54% Updated 18 August 2026

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The only casino game that tells you its return up front

Video poker is dealt from a single 52-card deck with published, verifiable odds. Because the deck composition is known and the pay table is printed on the screen, the exact return of a machine can be calculated before a single hand is played. No other game in the casino offers that. What it demands in exchange is correct play on every hand.

Jacks or Better pay tables, per coin on a five-coin bet. The full house and flush rows identify the machine.
Hand9/6 full pay8/5 short payOdds of being dealt or drawn
Royal flush8008001 in ~40,000
Straight flush50501 in ~9,000
Four of a kind25251 in ~423
Full house981 in ~87
Flush651 in ~91
Straight441 in ~89
Three of a kind331 in ~13.4
Two pair221 in ~7.7
Jacks or better111 in ~4.6
Return with perfect play99.54%97.30%

Variants and their full-pay returns

Optimal-play returns for the common variants, at their best published pay tables.
VariantFull-pay returnWhat makes it different
Deuces Wild100.76%All four deuces are wild. The full-pay table is rare online; short-pay versions drop below 99%.
Jacks or Better 9/699.54%The reference machine. Simplest strategy of the group and the most widely available.
Double Bonus Poker 10/7100.17%Enhanced four-of-a-kind payouts funded by a weaker two-pair return.
Bonus Poker 8/599.17%Higher payouts for four aces and low quads; otherwise Jacks or Better.
Double Double Bonus 9/698.98%Kicker-dependent quad payouts. Very high variance for the category.
Joker Poker (Kings or Better)100.65%A 53-card deck with one wild joker. Strategy is materially harder than Jacks or Better.

Every figure above assumes the maximum-coin bet and error-free play on all five hundred and ninety-eight thousand possible deals. Casual play typically gives up two to three percentage points, which puts a full-pay machine back in slot territory.

Card games in the Mostbet lobby

Mostbet’s Cards tab carries poker-family titles including Casino Solitaire, Texas Hold’em and Oasis Poker, alongside the Teen Patti family. The card-themed slots below are reel games rather than poker machines — the distinction matters, because a slot does not let you influence the outcome after the deal.

  • Teen Patti HD game tile
    Teen Patti HD Card game
  • Teen Patti Joker game tile
    Teen Patti Joker Card game
  • Teen Patti Master game tile
    Teen Patti Master Card game
  • Teen Patti 2 game tile
    Teen Patti 2 Card game
  • Wild Ace game tile
    Wild Ace Slot
  • Super Ace game tile
    Super Ace Slot
  • Mega Ace game tile
    Mega Ace Slot
  • Golden Empire game tile
    Golden Empire Slot

Video poker — frequently asked questions

How do I know a video poker machine’s return before I play?
Read the pay table. In Jacks or Better the full house and flush payouts identify the machine: 9 and 6 coins per credit returns 99.54%, while 8 and 5 returns 97.30%. Nothing else about the game changes, which is why the shorthand 9/6 and 8/5 exists.
Is video poker really better than slots?
On return, yes — a full-pay machine played correctly returns over 99%, against roughly 94% to 97% for slots. But that return assumes perfect play on every hand, and the penalty for casual play is several percentage points.
Does the five-coin bet matter?
Considerably. The royal flush pays 250 coins per coin bet on one to four coins, but 800 per coin on five. Playing fewer than five coins costs about 1.4 percentage points of return, which is often more than the difference between a good and a bad pay table.
What are the odds of a royal flush?
Roughly one in 40,000 hands playing optimally in Jacks or Better. At 600 hands an hour that is one royal every 66 hours of play, which is why the return only materialises over very long sessions.