Agosto 13, 2026
Video Poker Strategy: Which Cards to Hold and Why
Which cards to hold in video poker, the mistakes that cost the most, why pay tables matter, and how to play the 99% RTP game at Jacks Club with crypto.
Video poker is the odd one out on a casino floor. In almost every other game your decisions change nothing about the return, but here every hand deals you a genuine choice, and the gap between playing well and playing badly is worth several percent of everything you wager. Our in-house Video Poker runs at 99% RTP, the best published return in the building, and that figure assumes you make the right holds. This guide covers the holds.
One honest note before the strategy: 99% RTP still means the game keeps about 1% over the long run. No strategy turns a negative edge positive. What strategy does in video poker is stop you donating extra, and the donations from misplayed hands are far larger than the edge itself.
How the game works in one paragraph
You are dealt five cards from a standard 52-card deck, exactly like five-card draw. You choose which to hold, the machine replaces the rest, and the final hand pays according to a fixed table, typically starting at a pair of jacks or better. That is the whole game. No dealer, no opponents, no reading anyone. Just your five cards and a payout table, which is why correct play can be worked out mathematically rather than guessed.
The strategy that covers 90% of hands
Full strategy charts rank around 40 hand types. You get most of the value from a short list. Work from the top and take the first rule that matches your hand:
Made hand of two pair or better: keep it. Do not break a straight, flush or full house to chase anything except a one-card royal flush draw.
Four cards to a royal flush: go for it. This is the one draw worth breaking a made flush or straight for, because the payoff dwarfs everything else on the table.
High pair (jacks or better): keep the pair, throw the other three. Every time. The kicker is worthless, and yes, that includes an ace kicker.
Four to a straight flush: draw to it, ahead of keeping a low pair.
Low pair (tens or below): keep the pair, not the high cards. A low pair beats holding two big cards on average, which surprises almost everyone. More on this below.
Four to a flush: draw to it, ahead of a low pair.
No pair, no draw: keep suited high cards, then unsuited high cards, fewest first. Two suited high cards beat three unsuited ones.
Nothing at all: throw all five. A fresh five beats clinging to one jack out of habit... just barely, but the pennies add up.
The hand that separates players: low pair against high cards
Dealt a pair of sixes alongside a king and a queen, most players keep the picture cards. The maths says keep the sixes. A low pair already holds the raw material for trips, two pair or a full house, and those hands pay. Two unsuited high cards mostly turn into one small pair or nothing.
The gap is not small. On a classic Jacks or Better table, holding the pair of sixes returns about 82p per pound bet on that hand, while holding the king and queen returns about 49p. That is a third of the bet given away by the prettier hold, on a hand that comes around constantly. One unglamorous rule, and it is worth more than every other decision in this guide combined.
The three mistakes that cost the most
Keeping a kicker with a pair. Holding an ace next to your pair of jacks cuts your chances of improving to trips or a full house. The ace is not insurance, it is a blocked draw slot.
Breaking a made hand for a lesser draw. A dealt flush is money in hand. Four to a royal is the only draw priced richly enough to justify giving that up.
Playing hunches on the draw count. Drawing one card to look strong, or keeping three suited cards because they are pretty, both burn return. The chart exists because the deck does not care how the hold looks.
Pay tables are the other half of strategy
Two video poker machines can play identically and pay differently, because the payout table is the game's price tag. In classic Jacks or Better terms, the full-pay version pays 9 for a full house and 6 for a flush, and returns about 99.5% with perfect play. The common cut version pays 8 and 5 and returns around 97.3%. Same cards, same strategy, two points of return gone before the first hand.
The lesson travels: always read the table before you play, and treat the return figure as part of choosing the game rather than fine print. We publish 99% on our Video Poker page for exactly that reason, and the wider argument for playing where numbers are printed is laid out in our guides to RTP and house edge and provably fair casinos.
Bankroll, briefly and honestly
Video poker is volatile because a chunk of its return hides in rare hands. Royal flushes arrive roughly once in 40,000 hands, so most sessions run below the long-run figure and occasionally one runs absurdly above it. Practical consequences: size bets so a few hundred hands cannot hurt you, expect losing sessions at a 99% game because 99% is an average and not a promise, and never chase the royal with bigger bets. It does not know you are waiting.
If you enjoy games where a decision genuinely matters, the nearest neighbour in our originals is Hilo, where you call each card higher or lower and the odds reprice with every draw. Both run on crypto, so you can play with Bitcoin or USDT at low minimums while you learn the chart.
Common questions
Is video poker better than slots?
On return, usually yes. Our Video Poker publishes 99% RTP against the low-to-mid 90s typical of slots, and your decisions are part of achieving that figure. The trade is that it asks for attention, where slots ask for none.
Does perfect play make video poker profitable?
No. Perfect play gets you to the published return, and the published return is under 100%, so the game keeps a small edge no matter how well you hold. Strategy here is about not paying more than the printed price, which is still the best deal on the floor.
Should I always bet the maximum?
On classic machines the max-coin bet unlocks a bonus royal flush payout, so the traditional advice is max coins on the smallest denomination. The honest version: check the payout table on the game you are actually playing, and never let a table quirk push you above a bet size you are comfortable losing.
How long does it take to learn the strategy?
The short list above takes an evening of low-limit hands to internalise, and it captures most of the value. The full 40-line chart is a refinement worth maybe an extra fraction of a percent, so learn the big rules first: keep pairs over kickers, keep low pairs over high cards, never break made hands for anything but the royal.