Choose a paytable and deal.
Tap cards to hold them, then draw.
Free game, fun credits only, no real money. Verdicts come from the exact solver: every possible hold of your dealt hand is priced and yours is compared with the best one.
Every hand below is played perfectly; the solver prices all 32 holds and takes the best. The chart shows the observed return finding its way to the exact figure (for Jacks or Better 9/6: 99.5439%, computed by full enumeration, not quoted).
Descriptive, not predictive: with a seeded shuffle the same seed always reproduces this exact run. The wiggle early on is variance doing what variance does; the royal alone is worth about 2% of total return and arrives roughly once per 40,000 hands, which is why short sessions sit below the line more often than above it.
Twelve real schedules, priced exactly. Each family leads with its full-pay version, the optimal one you'll basically never find on a floor, followed by the ladder casinos actually stock. Every return below is our own enumeration of all 2,598,960 deals × 32 holds; the published figures were reproduced before any of it was published here.
Jacks or Better
Jacks or Better (9/6 full-pay): the benchmark schedule
| Hand | 1 coin | 5 coins |
|---|---|---|
| Royal flush ★ | 250 | 4000 |
| Straight flush | 50 | 250 |
| Four of a kind | 25 | 125 |
| Full house | 9 | 45 |
| Flush | 6 | 30 |
| Straight | 4 | 20 |
| Three of a kind | 3 | 15 |
| Two pair | 2 | 10 |
| Jacks or better | 1 | 5 |
| Version | What the glass changed | Return | Costs you* |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9/6 full-pay | the benchmark | 99.54% | n/a |
| 9/5 | Flush 6→5 | 98.45% | $6.84/hr |
| 8/6 | Full house 9→8 | 98.39% | $7.20/hr |
| 8/5 | Full house 9→8 · Flush 6→5 | 97.30% | $14.03/hr |
| 7/5 | Full house 9→7 · Flush 6→5 | 96.15% | $21.23/hr |
| 6/5 | Full house 9→6 · Flush 6→5 | 95.00% | $28.42/hr |
Only two numbers move down the ladder, what a full house and a flush pay, and they quietly take 4.5% of your money between the top rung and the bottom.
Bonus Poker
Bonus Poker (8/5 full-pay): the benchmark schedule
| Hand | 1 coin | 5 coins |
|---|---|---|
| Royal flush ★ | 250 | 4000 |
| Straight flush | 50 | 250 |
| Four of a kind | 25 | 125 |
| Full house | 8 | 40 |
| Flush | 5 | 25 |
| Straight | 4 | 20 |
| Three of a kind | 3 | 15 |
| Two pair | 2 | 10 |
| Jacks or better | 1 | 5 |
Four of a kind splits by rank on every rung: aces 80/coin, 2s–4s 40/coin, 5s–Ks 25/coin.
| Version | What the glass changed | Return | Costs you* |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8/5 full-pay | the benchmark | 99.17% | n/a |
| 7/5 | Full house 8→7 | 98.01% | $7.20/hr |
| 6/5 | Full house 8→6 | 96.87% | $14.36/hr |
The 80-per-coin four aces stay on every rung; the full house payout is what erodes. The aces are the advertisement; the full house is the price.
Deuces Wild
Deuces Wild (full-pay): the benchmark schedule
| Hand | 1 coin | 5 coins |
|---|---|---|
| Royal flush ★ | 250 | 4000 |
| Four deuces | 200 | 1000 |
| Wild royal flush | 25 | 125 |
| Five of a kind | 15 | 75 |
| Straight flush | 9 | 45 |
| Four of a kind | 5 | 25 |
| Full house | 3 | 15 |
| Flush | 2 | 10 |
| Straight | 2 | 10 |
| Three of a kind | 1 | 5 |
| Version | What the glass changed | Return | Costs you* |
|---|---|---|---|
| full-pay | the benchmark | 100.76% player edge | n/a |
| "Not So Ugly" 25/16/10 | Five of a kind 15→16 · Straight flush 9→10 · Four of a kind 5→4 · Full house 3→4 · Flush 2→3 | 99.73% | $6.46/hr |
| "Illinois/Airport" 25/15/10 | Four of a kind 5→4 · Full house 3→4 · Flush 2→3 | 98.91% | $11.56/hr |
The wild-card game reshuffles half the schedule between versions, which makes the glass genuinely hard to read; the ladder below does the reading.
★ The royal flush pays 250 per coin at 1–4 coins but 800 per coin at 5, on every schedule here: betting short of max is voluntarily playing a worse machine. All returns assume max bet and perfect play.
*Cost per hour is the return gap versus the family's full-pay schedule at 500 hands/hour of quarter max-bet play ($625/hr of coin-in), an expected-value figure, not a prediction for any session. And "perfect play" is load-bearing: most players give back another 2–4% in wrong holds on top of whatever the glass takes. The Play tab's strategy verdicts show you exactly what each hold costs.
Video poker with exact strategy verdicts; every hold priced by full enumeration. Fun credits only, no real money.
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