Before you read the numbers
Video poker is a casino game of chance with a built-in house edge. No strategy, system or timing changes the odds in the player’s favor over time, and most players lose money over time. Only play with money you can afford to lose, and if gambling is a struggle, a local support service can help. Reading a pay table helps you understand a game’s price, not beat it.
What a pay table shows
A pay table is a small chart on the machine’s screen. Each row is a winning hand, normally listed from the rarest at the top to the most common at the bottom. Each column is a number of coins bet, commonly one to five. The cell where a row and column meet shows how many coins that hand pays.
A few things to look for:
- The lowest paying hand. In some games the lowest winner is a pair of jacks or better, in others a pair of any rank or two pair. A higher minimum means fewer winning hands.
- Whether the payout scales with coins. In many games, the payout per coin is the same across the columns for most hands, but the top hand pays disproportionately more in the maximum column. This is the reason players are often told the pay table is “for” the maximum bet.
- Hands that return the bet. A hand that pays 1 for 1 returns your coin but gives no profit, so it keeps you in the game without increasing your balance.
- Special hands. Some versions add bonus pays for particular four-of-a-kind hands, or use wild cards, which change which hands are common.
Pay table shorthand
Players often name a table by two numbers separated by a slash, such as “9/6”. In the common family of games where the pair threshold is jacks or better, the first number is what a full house pays per coin and the second is what a flush pays. Tables with lower numbers, such as 8/5, pay less on those two hands and are generally worth less to the player, all else being equal. The shorthand is a convenient cue, not a full picture, since the rest of the table matters as well.
Because naming conventions differ by game type, always read the whole chart instead of relying on the label.
Comparing two tables
To compare two machines of the same game:
- Write down each row for both.
- Mark every row where the numbers differ.
- Note how frequent each differing hand is. A lower payout on a common hand usually matters more than one on a rare hand.
- Check the maximum-coin column separately, since the top hand can differ.
The relative frequency of hands comes from the counting in the article on poker hand rankings and combinatorics. A full house and a flush are far more common than a straight flush, so changes to them tend to affect the overall return more.
What a change to one payout does
A payout change moves the machine’s long-run return by the hand’s frequency multiplied by the change. A hypothetical example: suppose a hand arrives about once every 100 hands in a given game, and a machine pays one coin less on it per coin bet. The return falls by 1/100, or 0.01 coin per coin bet, one percentage point. If the same cut were applied to a hand that arrives once in 1,000 hands, the return would drop by 0.001, one tenth of a percentage point.
That is why a small-looking change on a common hand costs more than a dramatic-looking one on a rare hand. But there are caveats:
- The frequency of a hand depends on how you play it, and a changed payout can alter the best strategy.
- A single cut affects the average, not any individual session. A short session might show no effect at all, because results are dominated by small samples.
- Some reductions are cosmetic, such as a changed display or bonus text, and others change the math. Only the numbers matter.
What the table does not tell you
The pay table does not show the machine’s return. To get that, you would need hand frequencies under correct play, which are usually published separately by analysts and not on the screen. It also does not say anything about how fast you will play, which affects cost per hour. And it says nothing about what will happen in your session: even a generous-looking table is a long-run statement.
For the average cost of a machine, see expected cost and the discussion of house edge versus RTP. Both express the same number from two directions.
A quick checklist
- Identify the game family (the minimum paying hand and any wild cards).
- Read every row, not only the top.
- Check the maximum-coin column.
- Compare common hands first.
- Remember that the pay table sets the price of the game, and that a lower price still has a positive cost to the player.
None of this changes the central fact that the game costs money to play. Decide on a budget before you start and treat it as the price of entertainment.