The 9/6 Jacks or Better paytable, hand by hand
A standard 'full pay' 9/6 Jacks or Better machine pays out per unit bet (on a 5-coin max bet, the standard reference): Royal Flush 800, Straight Flush 50, Four of a Kind 25, Full House 9, Flush 6, Straight 4, Three of a Kind 3, Two Pair 2, and a pair of Jacks or better 1 (even money) — with anything below a pair of Jacks (a low pair, or no pair) paying nothing. Under game-theoretically optimal play — a specific, well-documented strategy for deciding which of your five dealt cards to hold and which to discard for each possible hand — this exact paytable returns approximately 99.54% of money wagered over the long run, a house edge of roughly 0.46%.
That figure assumes literally optimal strategy on every hand, which is a nontrivial skill to execute perfectly — video poker strategy charts exist precisely because the correct hold/discard decision is not always intuitive (for example, holding a low pair over four cards to a flush is correct in specific situations that surprise many players). A player making sub-optimal decisions gives back real edge; the 99.54% figure is a ceiling reachable only through precise, correct play, not the return of casual play on the same machine.
How 8/5 and 6/5 paytables quietly move the house edge
The naming convention identifies the two payouts casinos most commonly adjust: the full house and flush payouts. Dropping from 9/6 to 8/5 — full house pays 8-for-1 instead of 9, flush pays 5-for-1 instead of 6 — reduces the optimal-strategy return to approximately 97.3%, an edge increase of roughly 2.2 percentage points from two single-unit reductions on two specific hand types. Because full houses and flushes occur meaningfully more often than straight flushes or royal flushes, shaving payout off exactly those two hand types is a mathematically efficient way for a casino to increase its edge without touching the headline royal-flush jackpot that draws attention on the paytable card.
A further step down to 6/5 — full house pays 6-for-1, flush pays 5-for-1 — pushes the optimal-strategy return down to approximately 95%, an edge roughly ten times worse than the full-pay 9/6 version, using an identical deck, identical card odds, and an identical royal-flush jackpot advertised at the same 800-for-1. Because every other number on a 6/5 paytable looks the same as a 9/6 machine at a glance, and the royal flush jackpot (the number players notice) is unchanged, 6/5 machines are the clearest example in the entire casino of a house edge hidden in plain sight for anyone who doesn't check the full paytable.
Frequently asked questions
What is the house edge on 9/6 Jacks or Better?
Approximately 0.46% (a 99.54% return) under mathematically optimal strategy — one of the lowest house edges available in any casino game. '9/6' refers to a full house paying 9-for-1 and a flush paying 6-for-1.
Why does the paytable number (9/6, 8/5, 6/5) matter so much?
Those numbers set the payout on full house and flush hands specifically, and because those hands occur relatively often, small reductions there move the overall house edge substantially — from ≈0.46% at 9/6, to ≈2.7% at 8/5, to ≈5% at 6/5 — while the royal flush jackpot and everything else on the paytable can look unchanged.
Does video poker require a specific strategy to reach the stated return?
Yes. The published return figures (e.g. 99.54% on full-pay 9/6) assume mathematically optimal hold/discard decisions on every hand. Casual or intuitive play typically gives back additional edge on top of whatever the paytable itself sets.