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Latest casino articlesJacks or Better Video Poker Strategy Made EasyMonday March 30th, 2026With the most often played video poker game available at online casinos being Jacks or Better, a strategy guide would be a useful discussion, so continue reading and we'll do just that. The game gets its name from the fact that the paytable starts at the pair of jacks and goes up to higher pairs from there. There is a fair number of winning Jacks or Better optimal strategy, most of which return anywhere from 99.45% to 99.55%. In other words, the difference in return on wagers between the best and the easiest strategies is a matter of only a dime for every $100 bet in the game. So spending a lot of time trying to master a set of complicated rules, when you can just pick up some simple strategies just doesn't make a lot of sense, whether you are a veteran player or a new player. The first strategic step in an easy to follow plan is when you are holding a certain amount of cards to a royal flush. If you have four cards in your hand to a royal flush, then you have to throw out your fifth card even if a winning combination is in the making. For instance, let's say you have a 9, 10, Jack, Queen and King, all of hearts. You'll have to toss the 9 of hearts, even though you'd be holding a straight flush. For three cards leading to a royal flush, where you also hold in your hand a payout combination, then you'd actually be holding onto that paying combination. So, if you have in your hand a 3, 10, Jack and Queen of hearts, along with a Queen of spades, then you'll hold on to your two Queens and drop everything else. On the other hand, holding three cards to a royal flush where there is no paying combination, then you'll hold those three cards. So that 3, 10, Jack and Queen of hearts, and 3 of spades will have you holding on to the 10, Jack and Queen of hearts while dropping the other cards. The next part of this easy strategy has to do with hands that don't have any payout combinations. Also known as unmade hands, these are hands where you would want to hold onto cards to attempt creating combinations like the following, listed in ascending order of importance (based on payout value): one card higher than Jack, two cards (unpaired) higher than a Jack, two to a royal flush, three to a straight flush, four to a straight, low pairs, four to a flush, three to a royal flush, four to a straight flush, and four to a royal flush. Low pairs can be defined as a pair of tens, nines, eights, etc. These don't figure into the payout combinations on the table for Jacks or Better. If none of the listed combinations can be achieved in a given hand, then you have no choice but to throw out all of the cards in the hand. A last bit of advice, if you are participating in a game of Jacks or Better. Never break a winning hand, unless you find yourself in one of two situations. The first one we discussed above when we gave the example of the four cards to a royal flush. The second situation is when a hand of four cards to a straight flush becomes a better hand than a pair of jacks or higher. This strategy is born of the historic probability that you'll get paying combinations beginning with the cards you hold on to and on the payouts from those combinations.
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