How many ways are there to hold five cards?

Thirty-two. Each card is held or not, independently, so it is two to the fifth power — and that includes holding nothing at all, which is the right play on a hand with no pair, no high card and no draw.

Should you ever hold all five cards?

Yes, whenever the dealt hand already pays more than any draw is worth: a full house, quads, a straight flush or a royal. A made flush or straight is more often worth breaking than it looks.

Does the machine decide the result before you hold?

The whole shuffle is fixed when the hand is dealt, so the order of the remaining cards is already set. What you choose still decides which of them you get, which is why the hold is a real decision rather than a formality.

Can you lose money playing video poker here?

No. There is nothing to lose. The points have no cash value, cannot be bought and cannot be withdrawn, and a new game hands you 200 more for free whenever you want them.

How to Play Video Poker

Bet one to five coins and take five cards. Hold any of them, then draw replacements for the rest out of the 47 cards you have not seen. The finished hand is paid on the pay table, from a single pair of Jacks up to a royal flush. There is one decision per hand — which of the 32 holds to take — and it is the whole game.

The rules, step by step

1Choose a bet of one to five coinsThe bet multiplies every payout. Five is the only bet that pays the royal flush at 800 per coin instead of 250, so five is the standard bet.
2Take five cardsA fresh 52-card deck is shuffled for every hand and five cards are dealt face up. The other 47 stay unseen and are the only cards the draw can come from.
3Hold any of the fiveTap or click a card to hold it and tap again to release it. Holding none and holding all five are both legal, which is what makes 32 possible holds.
4Draw the replacementsEvery card you did not hold is replaced from the remaining deck in one go. There is no second draw and no further decision after this one.
5Get paid on the tableThe finished five cards are matched against the pay table, from jacks-or-better at one per coin up to the royal flush. Only the single best category counts.
6Deal the next handPoints carry forward from hand to hand. When they run out, a new game hands you another 200 for nothing — there is no purchase of any kind on this site.

Try it — the rules above, running

Jacks or Better pay table, points paid per hand by number of coins bet.
Hand	1	2	3	4	5
Royal flush	250	500	750	1,000	4,000
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
Jacks or better	1	2	3	4	5

Hold what you want to keep, then draw.

Bet

Points195Bet5Hand1Net0Game#20260918

Tap a card to hold it, then press Draw to replace the rest. Hint works out the best of all 32 holds by expected value. Points are free, reset for nothing, and buy nothing — this is not gambling and there is no way to pay for anything here.

This session

Points: 195
Hands: 0
Hands paid: —
Staked: 0
Won: 0
Net: 0
Best hand: 0
Jacks+: 0

Net is points won minus points staked. It is a score, not a balance: no money goes in or out, and a new game resets it.

Your statistics

Played: 0
Won: 0
Win rate: 0%
Streak: 0
Best streak: 0
Best time: —
Best hand: —

A hand counts as a win when it pays anything at all, and the best hand is the largest single payout. Kept in this browser only.

Keyboard

1 – 5: Hold or release that card
Space: Draw — or deal the next hand
← →: Move between the cards
B: Bet one more coin (wraps at five)
M: Bet the maximum
H: Hint — the best hold by expected value; H again takes it
N: New game
F: Full screen

What are the steps in a hand of video poker?

1Set the betOne to five coins. Five is standard because the royal flush pays 800 per coin there and 250 per coin below it.
2DealFive cards off a freshly shuffled deck. The remaining 47 are the only source the draw can use.
3Read the hand against the pay tableAsk what you already have, then what you are one or two cards away from. A made hand and a draw are different things and the table prices both.
4HoldMark the cards you are keeping. Nothing is committed yet — hold and release as often as you like before the draw.
5Draw and get paidThe unheld cards are replaced in one go, the finished hand is scored against the table, and the next hand can be dealt.

How do you read a video poker pay table?

A pay table is read down the per-coin column, and two rows carry the name. A table described as 9/6 pays nine per coin for a full house and six for a flush; 8/5 pays eight and five. Every other row on a Jacks or Better machine is the same across all of them, so the two named rows are the entire difference and a lower pair of numbers is simply a worse deal, hand for hand.

The royal flush row is the one that is not a multiplication. Reading across it here gives 250, 500, 750, 1,000 and then 4,000 — the jump at the fifth coin is the bonus that makes the maximum bet correct play rather than a preference.

Which hands pay, and which only look like they do?

A pair of Jacks, Queens, Kings or Aces pays one per coin. Any lower pair pays nothing — including a pair of tens, which is the trap in the name.
A-2-3-4-5 is a straight. The Ace plays low there and only there.
K-A-2-3-4 is not a straight. The Ace does not wrap around; there is no straight above ten-to-Ace.
A suited A-2-3-4-5 is a straight flush, paying 50 per coin, not a royal. A royal is ten-Jack-Queen-King-Ace of one suit and nothing else.
Only the best category counts. A full house is not also paid as three of a kind and a pair.

What does the hint actually calculate?

It is not a chart. For every one of the 32 holds, the hint enumerates each possible set of replacement cards from the 47 you have not seen, categorises the resulting five-card hand with the same evaluator that pays you, and averages the payout. The biggest single hold — keeping nothing and drawing five — is 1,533,939 separate outcomes on its own, and all 32 together come to 2,598,960 outcomes examined per press.

That means the number the hint reports is exact rather than simulated, and it is the number you should compare against: if it says the best hold is worth 7.68 and yours is worth 4.12, the difference is what that decision actually costs, averaged over every way the draw could land.

How do you win more often?

Always bet five coins, or do not bet five at allThe royal is the only non-linear row: 1,000 at four coins, 4,000 at five. If five coins feels like too much, the right adjustment is to play fewer hands at five rather than more hands at four, because the fifth coin buys 3,000 points of royal and the first four buy 250 each.
Count your outs before you keep a sure thingA made flush is 30 points at five coins. Four to a royal is worth 92.13, because among the 47 unseen cards there is one royal card, seven more of the suit, three tens for the straight and twelve high cards to pair. A certain small payout is very often the worse hold.
A low pair beats a four-card straight, but not a four-flushA low pair pays nothing by itself yet is worth 4.12 points at five coins, because it draws to trips, a full house and quads. Four to a flush is worth 6.06, so that draw is worth the break — but four to an open-ended straight is only 3.40 and four to an inside straight with no high card just 1.70, so the hand that looks most like a draw is the one to hold the pair on. Three to a flush is worth 1.98 and is not close.
Never hold a kicker with a pairKeeping an Ace alongside a pair of sixes spends one of the three replacement cards on a card that can only ever make a second pair. The pair on its own is worth 4.12 points at five coins; the pair with the Ace kept is worth 3.38. The card the Ace displaced was a chance at trips, a full house or quads, and those are what the pair is for. Hold the two cards of the pair and take three.
Treat tens as blanks unless they are doing something elseA pair of tens pays nothing, so it is worth exactly what a pair of twos is worth — 4.12 points at five coins in both cases, because neither can ever be paid as a pair and both draw to the same trips, full houses and quads. A single ten is only worth keeping when it is part of a royal or straight-flush draw, where it is one of the five ranks that matter most.

Common questions about video poker

How many ways are there to hold five cards?: Thirty-two. Each card is held or not, independently, so it is two to the fifth power — and that includes holding nothing at all, which is the right play on a hand with no pair, no high card and no draw.
Should you ever hold all five cards?: Yes, whenever the dealt hand already pays more than any draw is worth: a full house, quads, a straight flush or a royal. A made flush or straight is more often worth breaking than it looks.
Does the machine decide the result before you hold?: The whole shuffle is fixed when the hand is dealt, so the order of the remaining cards is already set. What you choose still decides which of them you get, which is why the hold is a real decision rather than a formality.
Can you lose money playing video poker here?: No. There is nothing to lose. The points have no cash value, cannot be bought and cannot be withdrawn, and a new game hands you 200 more for free whenever you want them.

Ready to stop reading? Play video poker on the full board, with controls and statistics tailored to that game.