Video Poker Calculator 2026

Jacks or Better trainer and analyzer

Jacks or Better paytables and return

The full-house and flush payouts are the only numbers that change between the common Jacks or Better machines, and they swing the return by nearly five percent. Always look for 9/6.

Jacks or Better optimal strategy chart

Read from the top and play the first line that matches your dealt hand. This is the full 9/6 Jacks or Better strategy, ordered by expected value. The trainer above enforces it exactly.

Video poker is the rare casino game where your decisions actually matter, and where perfect play gets you within half a percent of break-even. But that only happens if you hold the right cards on every hand, and most players do not. This free tool fixes that. It runs an exact expected-value solver that finds the mathematically best hold for any Jacks or Better hand, then turns it into a trainer that grades your play and shows what every mistake costs. Free on ToolsGambling.com, no sign-up, no guessing.

What this video poker calculator does

It does two jobs. As a calculator, it takes any five-card Jacks or Better hand and computes the exact expected value of all 32 possible holds, then tells you which one is best and by how much. As a trainer, it deals you a random hand, lets you choose what to keep, and grades your choice against that optimal play, showing your EV, the optimal EV, and the difference in cents per coin. Under the hood it does not estimate or use a lookup table: for each way you could hold, it enumerates every possible draw from the 47 unseen cards and averages the payout. That is the same brute-force method the Wizard of Odds and Durango Bill use, so the answer is not an approximation, it is exact.

Who it is for

It is for anyone who plays video poker and wants to stop leaking money to bad holds. Casual players lose far more to strategy mistakes than to the house edge itself, and the fixes are learnable in an afternoon. If you have ever agonized over whether to keep a low pair or chase a flush, or hold a single high card versus a suited 10, this settles it with a number instead of a hunch. It is also for the player grinding toward a royal who wants to drill the exact strategy chart until it is automatic. It will not make video poker a winning game at a normal paytable, but it will get you the most out of every hand and every comp dollar.

Why use this instead of a strategy chart

A printed strategy chart tells you the ranking but never tells you why one hold beats another, and it cannot grade you. Static charts also go stale the moment a hand does not obviously match a line. This tool removes the ambiguity: it computes the actual EV of your hand, so when two holds look close, you see the exact gap between them. And the trainer closes the loop that a chart cannot, drilling you on real dealt hands and tracking your accuracy and average EV lost across a session, so you find out precisely which situations trip you up. Learn on the trainer, and the chart becomes something you no longer need to look at.

An exact solver, not a lookup table

This is the part most free video poker tools get wrong or fake. Many just match your hand to a chart line, which fails on the awkward edge cases where the money is actually lost. Ours computes from first principles. For every one of the 32 holds, it deals out all possible replacement cards, up to the 1.5 million combinations when you draw five fresh cards, scores each resulting hand against the paytable, and averages. The hold with the highest average payout wins. Because it evaluates the real draw distribution for your specific cards, it is correct even on the rare hands where the chart is ambiguous, and it adapts automatically when you switch the paytable, since a worse flush payout changes which holds are best.

How to use it

First pick your paytable. The tabs show the full-house and flush payouts and the resulting return, so choose the one your machine uses, and default to 9/6 if you are learning. Then work the trainer: a hand is dealt face up, and you click the cards you would keep, which highlights them as held. When you are set, hit Check my hold. The solver grades you instantly, marks the truly optimal cards, and shows your EV, the optimal EV, and the exact EV you gave up. If you just want the answer without guessing, hit Show optimal instead. Deal a new hand to keep drilling. Your session accuracy and average EV lost update at the bottom, so you can watch yourself improve and spot the hand types you still misplay.

Why the paytable is everything

Two Jacks or Better machines can look identical and pay wildly differently. The only figures that change are the full-house and flush payouts, which is why the game is named by them: 9/6 pays 9 for a full house and 6 for a flush, 8/5 pays 8 and 5, and so on down. That small change moves the optimal return from 99.54% on 9/6 to 97.30% on 8/5 and just 95% on 6/5. On a 6/5 machine you lose almost ten times as much per hour as on 9/6 with identical perfect play. Before you sit down, check the full-house and flush lines on the paytable, and use the table above to see exactly what you are giving up if it is not full pay.

What full pay 9/6 means

Full pay is the 9/6 paytable, the best commonly available Jacks or Better return at 99.54%. It is called full pay because reducing the full-house or flush payout is the casino's usual way to quietly cut your return without touching the top jackpots. With perfect strategy on 9/6, the house keeps under half a percent, which combined with slot-club points and comps can make it one of the lowest-cost games on the floor. Anything below 9/6 is a short pay, and the further it drops, the more the game tilts against you. This tool defaults to 9/6 so you learn the strategy for the paytable actually worth playing.

The mistakes that cost the most

Almost all video poker losses beyond the house edge come from a short list of repeated errors. Holding a kicker with a high pair instead of drawing three fresh cards is a classic and quietly expensive one. Breaking up a paying hand to chase a long-shot draw is another. Keeping three cards to a flush or straight when the chart says to fold them wastes EV hand after hand. The trainer is built to surface exactly these leaks, because it tracks your average EV lost, not just right-or-wrong. Play fifty hands and the number tells you honestly how much your instincts are costing you, and which situations to study.

Should you hold a low pair?

This is the single most misplayed spot in Jacks or Better, so it is worth spelling out. A low pair (Tens or lower) is worth more than most players think: it ranks above four to a flush is a myth, but it does rank above three to a royal in some spots and above two or three high cards in most. The rule of thumb from the chart: keep a low pair over one or two high cards, but not over four to a flush, four to an open straight, or four to a straight flush. When you are unsure, deal the exact hand into the trainer and let the solver show you the EV of holding the pair versus the alternative. Doing that a dozen times builds the instinct better than any chart.

What about Deuces Wild and other games?

This trainer is built for Jacks or Better, the most common video poker game and the best place to learn correct play, because the same disciplined thinking transfers everywhere. Deuces Wild is a different game with its own strategy: the four wild deuces change hand values completely, the paying floor rises to three of a kind, and full-pay Deuces actually returns over 100% with perfect play. If you play Deuces, read our dedicated guides to full-pay Deuces Wild and its optimal strategy, and our dream-card breakdown, all linked below. Master Jacks or Better here first, then carry the habit of always knowing your best hold into the wilder games.

Reading your training results

Two numbers tell you where you stand. Accuracy is the share of hands you played optimally, and it climbs fast once you internalize the chart, though a stubborn last few percent hide in the tricky spots. Average EV lost is the more honest measure: it is the mean value you gave up per hand, in coins, and it is the number that maps directly to money at the table. A skilled player drives it toward zero. If your accuracy is high but your average EV lost is not tiny, it means your mistakes are concentrated on high-value hands, which is exactly where to focus. Train until both numbers are boring, then trust your reads at the machine.

Video poker terms

Paytable

The schedule of payouts for each winning hand. In Jacks or Better only the full-house and flush lines usually change, and they name the machine (9/6, 8/5).

Hold

To keep a card instead of discarding it on the draw. Choosing the right cards to hold is the entire skill of video poker.

Full pay

The best commonly available paytable for a game. For Jacks or Better it is 9/6, returning 99.54% with perfect strategy.

Return to player (RTP)

The percentage of money bet that a machine pays back long-run under optimal play. 9/6 Jacks or Better returns 99.54%, so the house edge is 0.46%.

Expected value (EV)

The average payout of a decision across all possible draws, in coins per coin bet. The optimal hold is simply the one with the highest EV.

Royal flush

Ten, Jack, Queen, King and Ace of one suit, the top hand. It pays 800 for one on max coins, which is why holding four to a royal is so valuable.

Related free tools and guides on ToolsGambling.com

Video poker rewards discipline. Pair this trainer with our Deuces Wild strategy guides, the full-pay Deuces breakdown, the dream-card analysis, our video poker bankroll strategy, the house edge calculator for any game, and the variance simulator to see how swingy the road to a royal really is.

• Deuces Wild video poker strategy
• Full-pay Deuces Wild: the 100%+ paytable
• Dream Card video poker strategy explained
• Video poker bankroll strategy
• House edge calculator for any casino game
• Variance simulator: how swingy the grind is