Jacks or Better is the most popular variant of video poker and forms the basis for many other video poker games. It is not the oldest form of video poker, but once Jacks or Better was launched it became very popular and today the basic concept is used in almost all video poker games.
Introduction
Video poker is played neither against other players nor against a dealer, and already in advance you know how good a poker hand you have to get to win something. Most types of video poker are based on traditional five-card poker and have a trading round where you can trade as many or as few cards as you like. All this game you can try at https://svenskanyacasino.com/.
If you want to learn how to play video poker, Jacks or Better is a good first choice, as most other variants of video poker are based on Jacks or Better.
Jacks or Better Win Screen
History
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, there were mechanical slot machines based on poker and where you could win prizes if you got a good enough poker hand. During the 20th century, more and more sophisticated poker machines were gradually developed. Mechanics were replaced by electronics, and eventually they started making poker slot machines where the game was shown on an electronic screen instead of taking place purely physically.
An important person in the context was Si Redd, who had worked at the gaming giant Bally's Gaming and was the first to develop a machine for video poker. In the first versions that Redd created, a minimum of two pairs was required to win something. They did not become very popular, probably because the poker hand two pair was perceived by many as something that was very difficult to get.
When Redd changed the layout so that you started winning money even for pairs of jacks, the video poker machines became extremely popular, and it is from this layout that we got the name Jacks or Better. It means Jacks or Better and indicates that the machine pays out if you get a pair of Jacks or better.
Si Redd's video poker company SIRCOMA eventually changed its name and the new name you may have heard of: International Game Technology (IGT). Nowadays, IGT is one of the world's largest producers of slots and video poker.
Rules and game routine
In order to understand how Jacks or Better works, you need to start by learning the standard five-card poker hands and how they are ranked. You can find information about this further down in this article.
Here's how a round goes when playing Jacks or Better:
- Choose how much money you want to bet on the game round. In most games, this means that you set the coin value and then choose how many coins you want to bet: a minimum of 1 coin and a maximum of 5 coins.
- When you have made your bet, you are dealt five cards, which are dealt face up. The cards come from a standard 52-card deck. No wild cards included.
- Now you get to choose if you want to discard some of the cards. You can discard from 0 cards to 5 cards.
- If you discard one or more cards, you get new replacement cards from the deck.
- Now you have your final hand. The game automatically checks how to form the best possible poker hand based on these five cards. If the poker hand is good enough (pair of jacks or better) you get paid, otherwise you lose your bet.
- Any winnings are paid out, in accordance with the payout schedule. The better the poker hand, the higher the win. The profit is a multiple of your bet.
- Now the round is over.
As you can see, the basic concept is quite simple, and the game is based on standard five-card poker with a draw. Five-card poker with one or more trading rounds was one of the most popular poker variants back in the world, when video poker was invented.
Poker hands, their ranking and what you get paid
Jacks or Better video poker uses the standard template for (5-card) poker hands and how they are ranked.
Many different game manufacturers, casinos and online casinos offer Jacks or Better and the payout schedule used varies. It is therefore important to review the payout schedule before starting to play, so that you know what applies.
Below we show which payouts apply to a very common payout schedule that is usually called 9/6 or "full pay". That it is called 9/6 is because you get 9x the bet for Full House and 6x the bet for Flush, if you bet 5 coins.
The payouts stated apply to whoever bet 5 coins.
- Royal Flush – Ace-King-Queen-Jack-Ten of the same suit (Payout: 800x)
- Straight Flush – Five cards in sequence of the same suit but not a Royal Flush (Payout: 50x)
- Four of a Kind (Fyrtal) – Four cards of the same denomination (Payout: 25x)
- Full House (Kåk) – Three cards of the same value two cards of the same value, e.g. 9-9-9-5-5 (Payout: 9x)
- Flush – Five cards of the same suit (Payout: 6x)
- Straight (Radder) – Five cards in number sequence, of at least two different suits (Payout: 4x)
- Three of a Kind (Triss) – Three cards of the same denomination (Payout: 3x)
- Two Pair – Two cards of the same value two cards of the same value, e.g. 9-9-7-5-5 (Payout: 2x)
- Single Pair: Jacks or Better – Pair of Jacks, Pair of Queens, Pair of Kings or Pair of Aces (Payout: 1x)
Any hand worse than pair in jacks means you lose your money.
If you have a winning hand, you get paid automatically and it's always the best possible hand you get paid for. So you don't have to worry about accidentally missing seeing that you have a good enough hand, or only seeing a one pair when you actually have two pair.
There are many different payout schedules for Jacks or Better
As we mentioned above, there are many different payout schedules for Jacks or Better. If you play perfectly with the above payout schedule, the theoretical payout rate ends up at 99.54 percent. (Payout rate is calculated over a very large number of hands.) This means that the statistical advantage of the house is only 0.45 percent.
When reviewing a payout schedule, it is important to look at all payouts. The most common, however, is that game manufacturers and casinos work with the payouts for Full House and Flush. The above payout schedule is called 9/6 because you get paid 9x for Full House and 6x paid for Flush.
If a payout schedule is 9/5, you only get paid 5x for the Flush, which is of course worse for the players and better for the house.
Here are some examples of common payout schedules where you have worked with the payouts for only Flush, or for both Full House of Flush. Otherwise, they are like the (9/6) schedule we listed further up.
- 9/6 – Payout rate 99.54 percent on perfect play
- 9/5 – Payout rate 98.45 percent on perfect play
- 8/6 – Payout rate 98.39 percent on perfect play
- 8/5 – Payout rate 97.30 percent on perfect play
8/5 means that you only get 8x for Full House and 5x for Flush, which is favorable for the house and bad for the player.
For us players, there is usually no reason to choose Jacks or Better games with a worse payout schedule than 9/6 unless you get something else to compensate, for example much better payouts for some other poker hands.
Jacks or Better video poker strategy and tips
There are 32 different possibilities for the trade round, including keeping all five cards in hand and not trading anything at all. All strategies for Jacks or Better are about how to best determine which of these 32 possibilities is the best statistically.
Growing jackpots
Some Jacks or Better video poker games are linked to a growing jackpot. To compensate for this, it is unfortunately common for the payout schedule for regular winnings to be worse.
The payout of the growing jackpot is usually linked to a certain hand, eg Royal Flush, but the jackpot can also be set to pay out completely randomly regardless of what is in hand.
If the jackpot has grown large enough, it can make you, statistically/mathematically speaking, actually have an advantage.
Overview
It's hard to overstate the importance of Jacks or Better in the world of video poker, and it's also a very important game to the casino industry as a whole. Jacks or Better is one of the most popular casino games outside of the slots category, and players around the world enjoy playing Jacks or Better, both online and offline.