Key facts
- 9/6 jacks or better (full house pays 9, flush pays 6, royal 800 for 1 on a full bet) returns 99.5439% with perfect strategy in our exact calculation, a house edge of 0.46%.
- Paytable cuts hurt fast: 9/5 returns 98.45%, 8/5 returns 97.30% and 6/5 only 95.00%, in our calculation.
- With perfect 9/6 play a royal flush lands about once every 40,391 hands, and a paying hand of any kind on 45.5% of hands.
- Big decisions: hold four to a royal even over a made flush, hold a low pair over four to a straight, and four to a flush over a low pair.
- Online jacks or better is a casino game that cannot legally be offered to people in Australia.
Jacks or better, answered first
Jacks or better is five card draw poker on a machine. You are dealt five cards, choose which to hold, draw replacements once, and are paid from a fixed table if your final hand is a pair of jacks or better. There is no dealer hand to beat and no other player. Your result depends on the paytable and on your holds.
We calculated the game exactly: every one of the 2,598,960 possible deals, all 32 ways to hold each one, and every possible draw. With the best hold every time, 9/6 jacks or better returns 99.5439%, a house edge of 0.46%.
The 9/6 paytable
Payouts are per coin bet, with the royal flush at its full-bet rate of 800 for 1 (4,000 coins on a five-coin bet). All of our figures use that royal.
| Final hand | Pays (per coin) | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Royal flush | 800 | A-K-Q-J-10 of spades |
| Straight flush | 50 | 5-6-7-8-9 of hearts |
| Four of a kind | 25 | 7-7-7-7-K |
| Full house | 9 | Q-Q-Q-4-4 |
| Flush | 6 | K-10-7-4-2 of clubs |
| Straight | 4 | 8-9-10-J-Q, mixed suits |
| Three of a kind | 3 | 9-9-9-A-3 |
| Two pair | 2 | J-J-5-5-K |
| Jacks or better | 1 | Q-Q-8-6-2 |
"Pays 1" means you get your bet back, not a profit. A pair of jacks is a push, which is why the game is called what it is.
9/6 jacks or better against the shorter tables
The lines that move between machines are the full house and the flush. Each step down costs more than it looks, because those hands land often. Our calculation re-optimises the strategy for each table:
| Paytable (full house / flush) | Return, perfect play | House edge | Expected cost per $1,000 played |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9/6 | 99.54% | 0.46% | $4.56 |
| 9/5 | 98.45% | 1.55% | $15.50 |
| 8/6 | 98.39% | 1.61% | $16.07 |
| 8/5 | 97.30% | 2.70% | $27.02 |
| 7/5 | 96.15% | 3.85% | $38.53 |
| 6/5 | 95.00% | 5.00% | $50.04 |
Losing one unit on the flush costs 1.09 points of return; one unit on the full house costs 1.15 points. A 6/5 machine is about eleven times as expensive to play as a 9/6 one, for the same cards and the same buttons.
How often each hand lands with perfect 9/6 play
| Final hand | Chance per hand | About 1 in | Share of the 99.54% return |
|---|---|---|---|
| Royal flush | 0.0025% | 40,391 | 2.0% |
| Straight flush | 0.011% | 9,148 | 0.5% |
| Four of a kind | 0.236% | 423 | 5.9% |
| Full house | 1.151% | 87 | 10.4% |
| Flush | 1.101% | 91 | 6.6% |
| Straight | 1.123% | 89 | 4.5% |
| Three of a kind | 7.445% | 13.4 | 22.4% |
| Two pair | 12.928% | 7.7 | 26.0% |
| Jacks or better | 21.459% | 4.7 | 21.6% |
| Nothing | 54.543% | 1.8 | 0% |
Two pair alone supplies about a quarter of the money coming back. The royal supplies only 2%, but it explains why the strategy chases it so hard: hold four to a royal and that one draw is worth 18.4 times your bet on average.
Jacks or better strategy: the holds that decide your return
These are real hands run through our calculator. The number is the average return of each hold, in coins per coin bet, with the 9/6 table. Higher is better; the gap shows how much a mistake costs.
| You are dealt | Best hold (value) | Tempting alternative (value) |
|---|---|---|
| A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 3♠ (a flush) | A-K-Q-J of spades (18.43) | Keep the flush (6.00) |
| J♥ J♠ 2♥ 6♥ 9♥ | The jacks (1.54) | Four hearts (1.21) |
| K♠ K♦ Q♠ J♠ 4♣ | The kings (1.54) | K-Q-J of spades (1.49) |
| 7♣ 7♥ 2♥ 9♥ J♥ | Four hearts (1.21) | The sevens (0.82) |
| 5♣ 5♦ 6♠ 7♥ 8♦ | The fives (0.82) | 5-6-7-8 (0.68) |
| 10♥ 9♥ 8♥ 4♣ 4♠ | The fours (0.82) | 10-9-8 of hearts (0.64) |
| A♥ K♦ Q♣ 7♠ 3♦ | K-Q (0.48) | A-K-Q (0.46) |
| Q♥ J♦ 10♠ 4♣ 2♣ | Q-J (0.50) | Q-J-10 (0.47) |
| K♦ 9♠ 8♥ 5♦ 2♣ | The king alone (0.47) | Draw five new cards (0.34) |
Patterns that fall out of these numbers:
- A made paying hand is usually kept, with one big exception: four to a royal beats everything short of a straight flush, including a pat flush or straight.
- A high pair beats four to a flush (1.54 against 1.21), but four to a flush beats a low pair (1.21 against 0.82).
- A low pair beats four to an open straight and three to a straight flush.
- With unsuited high cards, keep two, not three. Holding three leaves you only two new cards to improve with. Drop the ace: K-Q can still finish two different straights, while A-K or A-Q can finish only one.
- Never hold a kicker next to a pair. In our runs, adding any third card to a pair lowered its value, for example from 0.82 to 0.68 with the fives.
Pundit tip: if you stood pat on every deal, 9/6 jacks or better would return only 33.7% in our calculation. Almost all of the game's value is in the draw, so slow down and make the hold.
Jacks or better in Australia
Online jacks or better falls under the online casino ban. The Interactive Gambling Act 2001 prohibits offering casino-style games to people in Australia over the internet, and ACMA has had more than 1,800 illegal gambling and affiliate websites blocked since 2019. It is not an offence for you to play, but those sites carry no Australian protection for your deposits. Our online poker Australia page sets out the legal position in more detail.
For how jacks or better fits among the other machine games, and how to read any video poker paytable in ten seconds, start with our video poker guide. The wild card version, with a return above 100% on its full pay table, is covered in deuces wild. Hand order works exactly as in our poker hand rankings.
A 0.46% edge is small, but it still grows with every hand you play. Fixed limits on time and money work better than any hold chart; support is listed on our gambling help australia page.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the return of 9/6 jacks or better?
In our exact calculation it is 99.5439% with perfect strategy, so the house edge is 0.46%. That assumes the royal flush pays 800 for 1 (4,000 coins on a five-coin bet). Mistakes in strategy lower the return.
What does 9/6 mean in jacks or better?
It is the payout per coin for a full house (9) and a flush (6). Those two lines change between machines while the rest of the table usually stays the same, so they are the quickest way to judge a game.
Should you keep a low pair or draw to a straight?
Keep the pair. With 5-5-6-7-8 our calculation gives holding the fives an average return of 0.82 coins per coin bet, against 0.68 for holding 5-6-7-8. A low pair is weaker than four to a flush, though: 1.21 against 0.82.
How often do you hit a royal flush in jacks or better?
With perfect 9/6 strategy, about once every 40,391 hands in our calculation. Being dealt one before the draw is far rarer: 4 hands in 2,598,960, or 1 in 649,740.
Can you play jacks or better for real money online in Australia?
Not from a legal Australian site. Video poker is a casino-style game, and under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 those cannot be offered online to people in Australia. Offshore sites operate outside Australian law.
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