How to Play Video Poker: Rules, Pay Tables and Variants Explained

Last updated: 6 November 2026

Know a flush from a full house? Then learning how to play video poker is mostly about the pay table. It's single-player five-card draw: you stake, take five cards, hold the ones you want, draw once and get paid on the final hand. Midnite's games are in the Poker lobby.

How Do You Play Video Poker?

To play video poker, choose your stake, press Deal for five cards, tap Hold on the cards you want to keep, then press Draw to replace the rest. That draw makes your final hand, and the game pays it from the pay table. A pair of jacks is the lowest win in Jacks or Better.

The Midnite Take: Video Poker: A Bit of Poker, a Bit of Slots, No Poker Face Required

By Dave Learmont, Creative Copy Lead at Midnite

Video poker takes the familiar hands from five-card draw poker and puts them into a casino machine. No bluffing, no reading your opponent and no pretending you've got pocket aces.

You're usually dealt five cards, choose which ones to keep, then replace the rest with new cards. Your final hand determines whether you receive a payout based on the game's paytable.

Pairs, straights, flushes and royal flushes all have their place, but payouts and rules vary between versions.

It's worth checking the paytable first. Unlike a home poker game, the machine isn't going to explain the rules over a packet of crisps.

Video Poker Rules: A Hand Step by Step

A hand of video poker asks two things of you: how much to stake, and which cards to keep. The deal, the draw and the payout are the game's job.

1 Set your stake. Pick the stake per hand. On a multi-hand game it applies to every hand in play. 2. Deal. Five cards come from a full, freshly shuffled deck: 52 cards in most games, 53 in Joker Poker and Deuces and Joker, and 54 in Double Joker. 3. Hold. Tap each card you want to keep: all five, none, or anything in between. 4. Draw. Every card you didn't hold is replaced from the same deck. You get one draw. 5. Get paid. The final hand is checked against the pay table. A paying hand returns its multiple of your stake, and anything lower loses it.

Online, the pay table lists what each hand returns per unit staked, so a full house paying 9 on a £1 hand gives you £9 back.

Each new hand starts from a full deck, so the flush you just missed by one card has no say in this one.

Video Poker Hand Rankings

Video poker uses standard poker hand rankings. Here's the full-pay 9/6 Jacks or Better table, which is also the table Midnite's Jacks or Better runs, from Wizard of Odds' Jacks or Better pay tables, with how often each final hand lands under perfect play:

More than half of all final hands pay nothing. The most common win, a pair of jacks or better, pays 1, which hands your stake back and nothing more.

How to Read a Video Poker Pay Table

A video poker pay table lists what each hand pays, and two rows do most of the work: the full house and the flush. That's what "9/6" means. The full house pays 9 per unit staked and the flush pays 6.

Change those rows and the long-run return moves. Wizard of Odds puts 9/6 Jacks or Better at 99.54% and 8/5 at 97.30%, the same game with one less on each row. In Double Bonus the headline numbers are 10/7. Midnite's Jacks or Better runs the 9/6 table, and its help screen gives the same 99.54%.

The royal flush has a quirk from land-based machines. It pays 250 per coin at one to four coins, then 4,000 at five coins rather than 1,250. Published returns assume that maximum-coin royal, which is why the table above shows 800. Midnite's Power Poker games keep it: the royal pays its bonus only at five coins per hand, so each game's help screen gives a lower RTP for one to four coins (98.37% on Jacks or Better, against 99.54% at five). It's a fact about the pay table, not a reason to stake more, because five coins a hand is five times the stake.

Every return on this page is theoretical, based on perfect strategy over a very long run. The figure that applies is the RTP of the version you're playing, and on Midnite you'll find it, with the game's pay table, behind the help link at the top right of the game. Midnite's help article on what RTP means explains it.

Table games call it a house edge, as our baccarat and roulette guides show, and what RTP in slots means covers the term.

Video Poker Variants

Every video poker variant is five-card draw with a different pay table. The changes sit in the lowest paying hand, wild cards or bonuses for four of a kind.

Each Midnite figure is the RTP the game's help screen gives at five coins per hand, correct as of 3 November 2026, when we checked each game. Games can be updated, so the help screen always has the current figure. Every one is under 100%, so over the long run each game pays back less than is staked, and each assumes perfect strategy. Three run what's known as the full-pay table: Jacks or Better, Bonus Poker and Tens or Better. Double Double Bonus runs 9/6 rather than the 10/6 full-pay version in Wizard of Odds' video poker pay tables.

Jacks or Better

Jacks or Better is the base game, with the plainest pay table of the lot. If you're learning how to play Jacks or Better, the line to remember is that a pair of jacks, queens, kings or aces is the lowest hand that pays.

Midnite's Jacks or Better is in the Power Poker range, and every other variant makes more sense as a change to it.

Bonus Poker and Bonus Poker Deluxe

Bonus Poker splits four of a kind by rank: four aces pay 80, four 2s, 3s or 4s pay 40, and four 5s to kings pay 25. To fund that, the full house and flush drop to 8/5.

Bonus Poker and Bonus Poker Deluxe are both on Midnite. Deluxe reshuffles the four of a kind pays again.

On Midnite's version every four of a kind pays 80 and two pair pays 1, with an 8/6 full house and flush.

Double Double Bonus

Double Double Bonus builds on Double Bonus, where four of a kind pays roughly double Bonus Poker, a straight pays 5 and two pair drops to 1. Double Double Bonus adds kicker bonuses, the kicker being the fifth card. Four aces with a 2, 3 or 4 pay 400, and four 2s, 3s or 4s with an ace, 2, 3 or 4 pay 160.

With more of the return in rare hands, expect longer quiet spells between pays, the same trade-off our guide to volatility explains for slots. Midnite carries Double Double Bonus.

Deuces Wild and Bonus Deuces Wild

Deuces wild video poker makes every 2 wild, so three of a kind becomes the lowest win. Pay tables vary, so check the help screen. The classic full-pay table pays 200 for four deuces, 25 for a wild royal and 15 for five of a kind.

A 2 is never thrown away, which changes the hold decisions too. Deuces Wild and Bonus Deuces Wild are both on Midnite.

Bonus Deuces Wild adds extra pays for four deuces with an ace and for five aces.

Joker Poker and Double Joker

Joker Poker adds a wild joker, making 53 cards, and lifts the lowest win to a pair of kings. Its best table pays 200 for five of a kind and 100 for a wild royal.

Midnite has Joker Poker and Double Joker, which plays with two jokers.

Its 54-card deck holds two jokers, and two pair is the lowest win.

Tens or Better, Aces and Eights, and All Aces

Tens or Better drops the lowest win to a pair of tens and pays for it with a 6/5 table.

Aces and Eights and All Aces are built around bonuses for particular four of a kind hands, as the names suggest.

Aces and Eights pays extra for four aces or four 8s, and for four 7s. All Aces pays more for four aces than for a straight flush.

Multi-Hand Video Poker

Multi-hand video poker copies the cards you hold onto every hand in play, then draws each hand from its own deck. You stake on every hand, so four hands at £1 cost £4 a deal. Hold a pair once and watch it draw differently on every hand.

Midnite's Power Poker games come in single-hand, 4-hand, 10-hand and 50-hand versions, with a separate deck for each hand, shuffled before every deal.

Video Poker Strategy: The Basic Hold Decisions

Video poker strategy is a set of hold decisions, and every published return here assumes you make each one correctly. Wizard of Odds' simple strategy for 9/6 Jacks or Better comes within a whisker of the full figure, 99.46% against 99.54%. Its main rules:

• Four to a royal flush is held over everything except a made four of a kind, straight flush or royal, even a paying pair, straight or flush.
• A high pair is held over four to a flush or a straight.
• Four to a flush is held over a low pair.
• A low pair is held over one or two high cards and over four to an outside straight.
• Nothing worth keeping? Draw five new cards.

The low pair rule is the one that feels wrong. A lone king looks like the better start, but in Jacks or Better the pair of fours is the hold.

Most video poker tips come down to two habits: check the pay table first, and make the standard holds. Neither turns the house edge into an edge for you, and any session can land a long way from the published return. Blackjack basic strategy works on the same principle.

Is Online Video Poker Fair?

Licensed online video poker in Great Britain must use random outcomes that can't react to your results, under the Gambling Commission's RTS 7:

• Random output. Results must be shown to be random to a high degree of confidence.
• No compensated games. A game can't adapt to earlier results, so a bad run doesn't shape the next deal.
• Real-world probabilities. A virtual deck should behave like a real one.
• Fixed rules. Rules and odds can't change while the game is available.

RTS 3 adds that the rules, the pay table and the RTP, house edge or chance of winning must be available before you play. For skill games like video poker, the RTP is based on a standard or published strategy.

There's more on how results are kept random in Midnite's help centre, on testing in are online slots rigged?, and on our licence in is Midnite Casino legit?.

Video Poker at Midnite

Midnite's video poker online games sit in the Poker lobby next to Three Card Poker and Casino Hold'em. The Power Poker games all come from Games Global: the titles linked above, plus Deuces and Joker.

Jacks or Better Draw Poker has a live dealer instead of an RNG, and it's real play only.

The Power Poker games have a demo mode once you're logged in. Because Midnite is licensed in Great Britain, every video poker game in the UK lobby runs under the rules above.

Play Responsibly

A video poker hand takes seconds, and multi-hand games multiply the stake on every deal, so spend adds up fast. Set a budget before the first deal, and don't raise your stake to win back a bad run.

Every tool sits under Safer Gambling in your account:

• Deposit limits cap what you pay in each day, week or month.
• Net Spend Limits cap deposits minus withdrawals over the same periods.
• Loss Limits cap what you can lose over a period you choose.
• Reality Check, under Play Reminders, tells you how long you've been playing casino games, video poker included.
• Cool Off pauses your account for 24 hours to 30 days.

The Responsible Play hub explains each one, and GamCare and BeGambleAware offer free, confidential support. 18+, please gamble responsibly.

FAQs

Which Video Poker Game Is Easiest to Learn?

Jacks or Better is the simplest to learn: it uses a standard 52-card deck with no wild cards, and a pair of jacks or better is the lowest paying hand. Whichever game you play, the RTP in its help screen gives the return for its pay table.

Is Video Poker the Same as Playing Poker?

No. Video poker uses poker hands, but you play alone against a fixed pay table. There are no other players, no bluffing and no pot, and the payout depends only on your final hand.

Before You Hit Deal

Learn the hand rankings, read the pay table, and know which cards you'd hold before you press Draw. Midnite's video poker games are all in the Midnite Poker lobby.

Midnite is licensed and regulated by the Great Britain Gambling Commission. 18+. Please gamble responsibly.

Away from the card tables, Midnite is the NFL's official sports betting partner in the UK and Ireland, a World Snooker Tour partner and, in 2026/27, principal partner of Wolves, Middlesbrough and Sheffield United.

About the author

Chelsea Mc Guinness is Head of Games and Operations at Midnite, where she runs the casino: the games, the providers and the team that brings them to players. She's spent nearly a decade in the industry, working for operators and suppliers including Light & Wonder, PokerStars, Entain and William Hill. She writes here on what really goes into a casino lobby. Connect with Chelsea on LinkedIn