Video Poker Royal Flush Odds

• Video Poker Royal Flush Odds 2020
• Royal Flush Poker Game Free
• Video Poker Royal Flush Odds Game
• Video Poker Royal Flush Odds 2019
• Video Poker Royal Flush Odds

Below are the exact odds of making each hand in a standard game of straight video poker. A royal flush, (straight flush from Ace to Ten) the chance of making a royal in five cards is 1 in 649,740. For a straight flush (a run of five cards all in the same suit 7,8,9,10,J all hearts) the chances are 1 in 72,000. The odds of being dealt a natural royal flush are 1 in 649,740 in any 52-card video poker game. If I know the variance on a game of video poker, how do I figure out the bankroll I would need to have a 90%-95% probability of avoiding ruin?

This video poker strategy page and the accompanying section have a single goal—to help you get the best odds when gambling at a casino. Video poker, unlike many casino games, offers you at least some degree of control over the odds. Games like roulette and slot machines have no strategy. The decisions you make are essentially meaningless.

Video poker, on the other hand, resembles blackjack. You can use strategic thinking to improve your chances of winning and decrease the house edge. This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, as both games use a deck of cards to play. Of course, in the case of blackjack, you’re usually looking at a real deck of cards. In video poker, you’re using a virtual deck that’s actually being simulated using a random number generator.

But legitimate video poker games duplicate the odds you’d see if you were using a real deck of cards.

And that’s why you can use a strategy to improve your odds. We talk more about that in the next section.

Why Does Video Poker Have a Strategy?

When you’re playing a slot machine, you have no idea what the probability of a particular symbol coming up on a particular reel is. That probability is determined by the random number generator.

A random number generator is a computer program that constantly cycles through numbers at the rate of thousands of numbers per second. Each number corresponds to a different stop on the reel in a slot machine game. Or in the case of a video poker game, each number corresponds to a playing card.

But since you don’t know anything about the probability of getting a particular symbol on a slot machine game, it’s impossible to make any kind of strategic decision.

In fact, even if you DID know the probabilities of getting each symbol on the reel, you still wouldn’t be able to make a decision that would affect your outcome.

There are no decisions to be made. You put your money in, your spin the reels, and you accept the outcome.

Several, if not most, casino games are like this. You have no way of affecting the odds no matter how smart you are. The odds of winning a single number bet in roulette are 37 to 1, no matter what kind of strategy you use.

That’s why video poker (and blackjack) are different. You DO have the opportunity to make decisions which affect your outcome.

Understanding why requires looking into the math behind the game a little bit.

Expected Return, Payback Percentages & the House Edge

The expected return of a bet, video poker or otherwise, can be calculated if you know the probability of winning and losing. You also need to know how much you stand to win and how much you stand to lose.

You multiply the probability of winning by the amount you’re going to win. You multiply the probability of losing by the amount you’re going to lose. You add those two numbers together to get your overall expectation.

Suppose we set up a really simple gambling game where you’re going to flip a coin. If you guess the correct outcome, you win 25 cents. But if you’re wrong, you lose 50 cents.

In this example you have a 50% chance of winning and a 50% chance of losing. 50% of 25 cents is 12.5 cents, which is the first part of your equation. 50% of 50 cents is -25 cents. (It’s negative because that’s the amount you lose.)

Your expected loss on that bet is 12.5 cents.

You won’t lose 12.5 cents every time. That would be impossible.

But if you tallied all your net wins and losses over time, and if you played for a long time, your results would eventually start to conform to the mathematical expectation.

Return is usually measured as a percentage. In this case, 12.5 cents is 50% of the original bet, so your expected return is -50%.

That’s an awful bet. Most experienced gamblers wouldn’t take it.

But it’s an example of how the casino gets its edge in every game in the casino.

This same kind of math can be applied to video poker games and to slot machine games to determine a payback percentage. The payback percentage is just the amount of money you expect to win back from the casino for every $100 you wager over a long period of time.

Keep in mind that in the short run, anything can and often will happen. You can win a big jackpot early in your session, and your results won’t look anything like the mathematically expected payback percentage.

But the longer you play, the closer your results will get to the mathematically predicted results. Over an infinite number of trials, you would certainly have results which mirror the mathematical prediction.

The house edge, on the other hand, is the amount of each bet that the house mathematically expects to keep. It’s the opposite of the payback percentage.

In the case of a full pay Jacks or Better game, the payback percentage is 99.54%. So the house edge is 0.46%.

That means for every $100 you bet, the casino expects you to win $99.54. They expect to win 46 cents.

Those are long term expectations, though. In the short run, anything can happen.

All of that background is necessary for understanding why video poker strategy matters.

Since you know the odds of being dealt a particular hand, and you know the odds of improving a hand, you can compare your choices in a video poker game to go with the choice that has the better expected return.

You’re playing Jacks or Better, and you have 4 cards to a royal flush, but you also have a pair. You could play this hand in a number of ways.

You have a number of options in this example:

• You could throw all 5 cards away and start over. That’s obviously the play with the lowest expected value.
• You could throw away all the cards except the pair. In this case, you’re hoping to improve your hand to 2 pairs, 3 of a kind, or a full house.
• Or you could throw away the card that makes the pair and try to draw the royal flush.

Since you have a pair, you have a 100% chance of winning at least 1 unit. That’s an expected value of $1. But it’s actually a little better than that, because you also have the chance to improve the hand. Let’s just call it an expected value move of $1.50.

But a royal flush has a payout of 800 to 1. The odds of drawing the card you need for that hand are 1 in 47, but any time you get a 46 to 1 shot at an 800 to 1 payout, you should take it. The expected value of that play is huge.

You have a roughly 2% chance of winning $800. That’s $16. You also have a roughly 98% chance of losing $1. That’s -98 cents.

$16 – 98 cents = $15.02, which is a heck of a lot more than $1.50.

The correct choice is clear, even though you’re going to lose this bet more often than not. On the occasions when you do win, your winnings are going to be so large that they’ll make up for all the times you lost the bet and then some.

Not all situations in video poker are that clear. In fact, a human can’t just sit there and work out the correct play in every situation using a pencil and paper.

Luckily, we have computers for that.

You can find a video poker strategy chart for just about any variation available. In fact, you can even find websites which will generate the perfect strategy for you based on the game and the pay table that you input.

Here’s how such a strategy chart works:

• You get a list of hands.
• At the top of the list is the best possible hand.
• You work your way down the list until you find a hand that matches what you have.
• When you get to that hand, you stop and keep the cards that are listed.

Almost all video poker strategy charts start with a royal flush as the top listed hand. That makes sense. After all, you would never throw away the top paying hand in the game. That would just be silly.

In most games, 4 of a kind and a straight flush will also be at the top of the list—those are usually the top 3 hands with the best payouts.

But the next best hand after that?

You’ll always hold on to 4 cards to a royal flush.

That’s some strategy advice based on Jacks or Better, but the strategy for Deuces Wild is a little bit different.

For one thing, you’ll always look at lists of potential hands based on how many deuces you have. One of the fundamental tenets of Deuces Wild strategy is that you never discard a 2.

Then based on how many deuces you have in your hand, you have a list of potential hands to choose from. Start at the top and work your way down.

Another way of thinking about video poker strategy is to think about potentially conflicting hands.

You have 3 cards to a royal flush, but you also have a pair. Do you keep the pair, or do you go for the royal flush?

In this case, you keep the pair. Your odds of hitting the royal flush go down exponentially when you need 2 cards to complete your hand.

In probability, when you want to know the odds of event A happening AND event B happening at the same time, you multiple the probabilities by each other.

In the event of filling a royal flush, each card has a 1/47 chance of showing up. The odds of getting both cards are 1/47 X 1/47, which is about 1 in 2500. And 800 to 1 payout doesn’t warrant that kind of risk, especially if you’ve got a sure winning in your hand already.

The strategy varies from game to game because the payouts vary from game to game. In Bonus Poker, which is basically just Jacks or Better with a bonus payout for a 4 of a kind, you might be more likely to draw to your 4 of a kind in certain instances.

In Deuces Wild, the presence of the wild card makes a huge difference to how you play your hands. You need much stronger hands to win, but those wild cards make it easier to get those hands. One of the fundamental tenets of Deuces Wild strategy is to never discard a deuce.

The basics of Jacks or Better strategy are pretty simple.

First check to see if you have one of the following 3 paying hands:

If you have any of those, keep what you’ve got and collect your winnings.

If you don’t have any of those, check to see if you have 4 cards to a royal flush. If you do, keep those 4 cards and try to hit the royal.

Video Poker Royal Flush Odds 2020

4 cards to a royal flush trumps everything except those 3 hands we mentioned above.

If you don’t have 4 cards to a royal flush, then look to see if you have any of these other “made hands”:

• Full House
• Flush
• Straight
• 3 of a Kind

If you have any of those, keep it and collect your winnings.

If not, check to see if you have 4 cards to a straight flush. If you do, then draw to that straight flush.

Royal Flush Poker Game Free

Then check to see if you have one of the following 2 paying hands:

You’ll keep those over the other options below.

Once you get to that point, you’re looking at speculative hands. Your best speculative hand at this point is 3 cards to a royal flush. It’s a long shot, but if you don’t already have one of the other hands listed above, that’s what you should go for.

Then if you have 4 to a flush, try to fill your flush.

If you have a low pair, try to draw to 3 of a kind or better.

A full strategy chart will have several more hands for you to go through, but you get the idea.

Jacks or Better strategy just isn’t that hard. Even though this isn’t a complete strategy chart, you’re probably only giving up a few tenths of a percent of payback percentage following these guidelines.

Our guide to Jacks or Better video poker covers the correct strategy in more detail.

Content

If you have 4 deuces, you’ll keep them.

If you have 3 deuces, you’ll keep them. You’re hoping for a royal flush.

If you have 2 deuces, you’ll keep both of them. You’ll hope for a 4 of a kind or better, but if you don’t have that, try for a royal flush or a straight flush.

If you only have one deuce, strategy gets a little harder. But it’s still just a list to go down:

• 4 of a Kind or better
• 4 to a Royal Flush
• Full House
• 4 to a Straight Flush
• Flush, Straight, or 3 of a Kind
• 3 to a Royal Flush

And so on.

The payback percentages for Deuces Wild games are all over the place. Unlike Jacks or Better, which has an easy to understand system for adjusting the payback percentage, Deuces Wild pay tables can vary quite a bit from one another.

Your best bet, when choosing a Deuces Wild game, is to use some kind of online tool to determine the payback percentage for the game with the pay table you’re considering.

For a detailed discussion of Deuces Wild strategy, please see our page on Deuces Wild video poker.

The optimal strategy for Bonus Poker, which offers a bonus payout for 4 of a kind hands, is so similar to the optimal strategy for Jacks or Better as to be almost indistinguishable.

If you just used the same strategy, you’d probably be giving up less than 0.2%.

It is good to know how to play Bonus Poker, though, because in many of today’s casinos, it’s the video poker game with the highest payout percentage.

We have an entire page dedicated to Bonus Poker, and it includes detailed strategy advice.

Joker Poker has some similarities to Deuces Wild, but it’s not as complicated. You’ll only ever see a single joker in the deck, which changes the texture of the possible hands considerably.

You’ll basically be presented with 2 basic strategy charts—one to follow if your hand includes a joker, and one to follow if it doesn’t. The differences are subtle in some cases, but it’s not too complicated.

We offer a full page on Joker Poker, too, which also includes a detailed discussion of the correct strategy for playing that game.

Video poker strategy resembles basic strategy in blackjack in many ways. They both represent the optimal way of playing every possible hand you could get.

Of course, the differences are obvious, too. Your goals in video poker are quite different from your goals in blackjack.

Most video poker strategy is just presented as a list. You start at the top, work your way down, and stop when you get to the hand that matches what you’re holding in your hand. Then you keep the appropriate cards and move on.

We offer detailed strategies for almost all of the video poker games on our site on the appropriate pages. Please visit this page for a complete list of all the games we cover.

You may also be interested the following pages. These cover a range of subjects related to video poker strategy.

Video Poker Strategy Articles

• Video Poker Trainers
• Video Poker for Winner
• Video Poker Bankroll
• Video Poker Books
• Video Poker Cheat Sheets
• Video Poker Calculators
• Video Poker Comps
• Video Poker Double Up Feature
• Video Poker EV (Expected Value)
• Video Poker Hands and Hand Analyzers
• Video Poker House Edge
• Video Poker Lessons
• Video Poker Odds and Probability
• Video Poker Royal Flush Odds & Strategy
• Video Poker Risk of Ruin and Variance
• Video Poker Tutorial
• Bob Dancer: Video Poker Expert
• Jean Scott: The Frugal Gambler

Getting a royal flush is the hardest hand to obtain when playing poker online or in a casino. If you’re wondering what your odds are of being dealt a royal flush and other hands, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve developed this page to equip you with all the information you need to know about your poker hand odds.

In this detailed guide about your odds of being dealt a royal flush and other hands while playing poker, we’ll provide you with tons of information. You can check out the preview below to get an idea of everything we’ll cover. Feel free to click on one of these section titles if you want to jump ahead.

Breakdown of Potential Poker Hands

Before we dive into royal flush odds and other hands, we wanted to first ensure you’ve got a good understanding of the different hands possible when playing poker. Check out the sections below to look over all the different poker hands. We’ve listed them in the order of their rank when playing the game.

No Pair

This one should be pretty obvious. In casino poker and online poker, if you don’t have a single pair or higher in your hand, you have what’s considered a “no pair” hand. In this case, your hand’s value will depend on the highest card you’ve got.

Single Pair

If you end up getting a one pair hand, it means you’ve got two card values that match in your hand. For example, if you have two 4s, you have a single pair of 4s. While this isn’t a powerful poker hand, it does outrank anyone who has a no pair hand.

Two Pair

Kicking things up a slight notch from a single pair would be a two pair hand. In this scenario, you have two sets of matching card values. As an example, if you have two Ks and two 10s in your hand, it would be a two pair hand. In turn, it would outrank any players with just a single pair or no pair.

Three of a Kind

As the name implies, a poker hand that counts as three of a kind has three cards of the same value. For example, if you have three jacks in your hand, this would create a three of a kind poker hand. If you end up with the three of a kind hand, you’ll have a better hand than no pair, single pair, and two pair hands.

Video Poker Royal Flush Odds Game

Straight (Not Royal or Flush)

Up next on the poker hand rank scale is a straight. Here, we’re only focused on standard straights, which means we’re not counting straights that are either flush or royal in nature (more on those in a moment). To make a straight, you’ll need all five cards in your hand to be in sequential order. As an example, if you had A, 2, 3, 4, and 5, you’d have a straight poker hand.

Flush (Not Straight or Royal)

Topping out straights and the other hands below it, a flush is another form of a poker hand. With a flush, you’ll have all five cards of your poker hand of the same suit. As an example, if all five cards in your hand are spades, you have a flush. For this particular hand, your cards do not count as a straight flush or a royal flush. We’ll touch on each of those below.

Full House

The next hand up the poker hand ranking scale is a full house. To make a full house with your hand, you’ll need to have a three of a kind paired with a two of a kind. If you have three 10’s and two 5’s, you’d have a full house.

Four of a Kind

One of the toughest hands to get when playing poker is a four of a kind. Here, you’ll need to have four cards of the same value in your hand. As an example, if you had four queens in your hand, you’ll have made a four of a kind poker hand. With four of a kind, there are only two other poker hands that can beat you.

Straight Flush (Not Royal)

Second from the top of the best poker hands possible is the straight flush. The flush portion of this name implies you’ll need all your cards to be of the same suit. However, to make a straight flush, they also must be in sequential order. For example, having 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 of the same suit would provide you with a straight flush poker hand.

Royal Flush

The king of all poker hands is the royal flush. With a royal flush, it’s essentially a very specific straight flush. For starters, all your five cards must be the same suit. On top of that, it must be the 10, J, Q, K, and A of a particular suit to complete the royal flush.

Poker Hand Odds for Five-Card Games

Up first, we wanted to start by presenting you with your odds of being dealt a royal flush and other hands when playing five-card games of poker. Most notably, this will include Five-Card Stud Poker. We’ve included a chart below which showcases your odds of being dealt each hand in conjunction with the potential combinations and associated probability.

One thing worth noting is that the chart below showcases your odds of having one of the hands in a five-card poker game. This data does not account for any possibilities of wild cards or draws, which may be present in select games like Five-Card Draw.

Chart Labels

• Odds: The odds of being dealt the particular poker hand in a five-card game.
• Combinations: How many different ways the poker hand can be made using all 52 cards in the deck.
• Probability: The statistical probability of being dealt the hand in a five-card poker game.

As you can see from the chart above, you’ve got the highest chance of being dealt a no pair or single pair hand when playing a five-card variant of poker online or in a casino. Interestingly, there’s roughly a 50% chance you won’t have a pair or better.

However, you can see just how tough it can be to get some of the other higher-ranking poker hands. Even two pair hands only happen about 5% of the time. And if you’re hoping for a royal flush, the odds of it happening are minuscule.

Things More Likely to Happen Than Being Dealt a Royal Flush

Since the royal flush is the hardest poker hand to achieve, we wanted to provide you with some visualizations to help you grasp just how rare it is. Check out the list of things below, which are more likely to happen to you than being dealt a royal flush when playing a five-card variant of poker.

Getting in a Car Accident
1 in 103

Getting Audited by the
Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
1 in 175

Winning an Academy Award
1 in 11,500

Losing an Appendage
in a Chainsaw-Related Accident
1 in 4,464

Going to the ER
With a Pogo Stick-Related Injury
1 in 103

Poker Hand Odds for Seven-Card Games

Up next, we wanted to provide you with royal flush odds and other poker hands when playing seven-card versions of poker. If you’re into games like Seven-Card Stud and No Limit Texas Hold’em, this is the section for you.

While the addition of two extra cards to work with doesn’t sound like much to some, it creates a dramatic difference. Instead of just 2,598,960 potential hand combinations, playing poker with seven cards brings the possibility of 133,784,560 hands. That means there are more than 50 times as many possible hand combinations thanks to those extra two cards in play!

This chart focuses on your odds of being dealt one of these hands in a game of seven-card poker. As with the previous five-card section, the poker probability and odds below do not take into account wild cards and draws from specific versions of poker.

Chart Labels

• Odds: The odds of being dealt the particular poker hand in a seven-card game.
• Combinations: How many different ways the poker hand can be made using all 52 cards in the deck.
• Probability: The statistical probability of being dealt the hand in a seven-card poker game.

Video Poker Royal Flush Odds 2019

Immediately, you’ll probably notice how much better your odds of getting most hands are. In the next section, we’ll provide you with even more information about how much better your chances are for each of these hands if you play a seven-card variant instead of a five-card one.

Thanks to the additional two cards, offering you the chance to make your best five-card hand, there are more potential combinations which can help you improve your starting hand.

How Much Better Your Odds Are Playing Seven-Card Poker

Now that we’ve broken down the difference in royal flush odds and other poker hands between five- and seven-card poker games, we wanted to help you visualize just how much better your odds are when playing a seven-card game. Check out the chart below to see why you might opt to choose a seven-card game if you’re hoping to land a significant hand like a royal or straight flush.

As you can see from the chart above, there’s a 2000% greater chance you’ll get a royal flush when playing a seven-card poker game instead of a five-card game. Other hands which have an increased chance of happening when you’re playing a seven-card variant of poker include the straight flush, full house, flush, and straight.

Interestingly, there’s one hand where you have a lower chance of getting it when playing a seven-card game of poker instead of a five-card game. That hand is the no pair hand. Intuitively, this makes sense since there are increased chances you’ll make at least a pair thanks to the expanded cards you’re playing with. In this case, your chance of getting a no pair hand is 65% less when playing a seven-card game as opposed to a five-card one.

Video Poker Royal Flush Odds

Wrap Up

Thanks for stopping in to check out this page about poker probability and the odds of being dealt a royal flush when playing online poker and casino poker. If you’re planning to play poker soon, don’t miss our complete guide to real money poker. In it, you’ll find all sorts of helpful information, including terminology, strategies, and so much more.

If you enjoyed this page about the odds of getting a royal flush, you might also enjoy other pages we’ve developed in this series. Check out the choices below to explore some of our other “What Are the Odds?” pages.