Most okes sit down at a video poker game, hit Deal, and figure things out as they go. That works fine for slots, but video poker is different. The video poker paytable at the top of your screen is not a doilie, Bokke. It is the complete rulebook for what every hand you can Prestik together is actually worth in ZAR!
Ignore it, and you are making decisions without knowing what you are actually playing for. It’s a costly way to approach a game where correct decisions are entirely available to you upfront. That is the ‘pasop’ right there, chinas. A quick looksee at the video poker paytable before your first hand can save you from plenty of the pitfalls that come with ‘gut-feel play’.
What a Video Poker Paytable Actually Tells You
The video poker paytable is the grid at the top of the game screen listing every winning hand and its payout. It ranks hands from the hardest to make at the very top – the Royal Flush – down to the easiest qualifying hand at the bottom, which in Jacks or Better is any pair of Jacks or higher.
Every number on that grid is a coin multiplier, and not a fixed rand amount. The game pays you in coins, and the coin value you set before dealing converts those coins into your actual ZAR return. The exact same paytable pays very differently depending on which coin value you chose before the first deal – and that is an often-overlooked detail if you’re new to video poker.
At Springbok Casino, coin sizes in our video poker games are R0.25, R0.50, R1, and R5 per coin, with one to five coins playable per hand. Before you read any paytable number and get excited or despondent, confirm what coin value you are playing at first. A Royal Flush payout of 4,000 coins means something very different at R0.25 per coin versus R5 per coin.
To make this concrete: at R0.25 per coin on five coins, your total bet is R1.25. Hit a Royal Flush and the video poker paytable awards 4,000 coins at R0.25 each – R1,000 back from a R1.25 bet. At R5 per coin on five coins, that same Royal Flush pays R20,000 from a R25 bet. Same paytable, very different rand conversion!
Reading the Jacks or Better Video Poker Paytable
The Jacks or Better video poker paytable at Springbok Casino is the baseline all other games are compared against, and the best place to start if you are new to the category. It is considered the most ‘standard’ version of the game. Here is the full paytable at the one-coin level, showing what each winning hand pays per coin wagered:
- Royal Flush: 250 coins (4,000 at max five coins – a disproportionate max-bet bonus)
- Straight Flush: 50 coins
- Four of a Kind: 25 coins
- Full House: 9 coins
- Flush: 6 coins
- Straight: 4 coins
- Three of a Kind: 3 coins
- Two Pair: 2 coins
- Jacks or Better: 1 coin
The Royal Flush is the only hand with a disproportionate max-bet multiplier. At five coins, it pays 4,000 – not 250 multiplied by five, which would be 1,250… but a full 4,000. That premium is built into every standard video poker paytable to reward max-bet play, which is why five-coin play is recommended when you’re a Bok with a budget to back it.
The Full House and Flush lines tell you the most about a variant's long-term value. Jacks or Better pays 9 coins for a Full House and 6 for a Flush – a 9/6 paytable, and the return to player benchmark for the standard game. Any variant paying less on these two lines is giving up long-term return as they are hit regularly, not rarely, which adds up across a session.
Jacks or Better vs Bonus Poker Deluxe – Two Paytables, Two Different Games
The best way to understand what a video poker paytable actually does to your game is to put two of them side by side. Jacks or Better and Bonus Poker Deluxe are both available at Springbok Casino right now, and comparing them shows exactly how a paytable should guide your betting decisions on every single deal.
Here is the full Bonus Poker Deluxe video poker paytable at the one-coin level, placed directly alongside Jacks or Better so you can see precisely where the two games diverge and, just as importantly, which lines stay completely identical across both variants:
- Royal Flush: 800 coins (4,000 at max) vs JoB's 250 (4,000 at max)
- Straight Flush: 50 coins – identical in both games
- Four of a Kind: 75 coins vs JoB's 25 – three times higher in BPD
- Full House: 8 coins vs JoB's 9 – one coin less in BPD
- Flush: 6 coins – identical in both games
- Straight: 4 coins – identical in both games
- Three of a Kind: 3 coins – identical in both games
- Two Pair: 1 coin vs JoB's 2 – BPD pays half
- Jacks or Better: 1 coin – identical in both games
Three key differences define these two games entirely. Bonus Poker Deluxe pays three times more for Four of a Kind – 75 coins versus 25 – and 800 coins for a single-coin Royal Flush versus Jacks or Better's 250. Those premiums are funded by cutting the Full House from 9 to 8 coins and slicing Two Pair from 2 to 1 coin.
Two Pair is one of the most frequently occurring paying hands in video poker. This means Bonus Poker Deluxe costs you on almost every session in exchange for a bigger reward when four of a kind arrives. It is not a bad trade-off if you enjoy variance and are comfortable with harder swings – but it is a trade-off that is worth paying attention to before your first deal.
What the Paytable Difference Looks Like in Real Rand
Let's translate those coin differences into actual South African rand – it’s the best way to illustrate the trade-off to Bokke who are already guarding their bucks. At R1 per coin on five coins – that is a R5 total bet per hand – here is exactly what each diverging line pays in Jacks or Better versus Bonus Poker Deluxe:
- Four of a Kind in JoB: 25 coins x R1 x 5 = R125
- Four of a Kind in BPD: 75 coins x R1 x 5 = R375
- Full House in JoB: 9 coins x R1 x 5 = R45
- Full House in BPD: 8 coins x R1 x 5 = R40
- Two Pair in JoB: 2 coins x R1 x 5 = R10
- Two Pair in BPD: 1 coin x R1 x 5 = R5
At R5 per coin on five coins – a R25 total bet – those hands scale accordingly: Four of a Kind pays R625 in Jacks or Better and R1,875 in Bonus Poker Deluxe. Two Pair pays R50 in Jacks or Better and R25 in Bonus Poker Deluxe. That is the full picture the video poker paytable is showing you before you even deal your first hand at Springbok Casino.
How the Video Poker Paytable Influences Your Hold Decisions
Here is where the comparison becomes practically useful for real sessions at Springbok Casino. Holding three cards to a four of a kind in Jacks or Better targets a 25-coin payout per coin wagered. In Bonus Poker Deluxe, the same hand targets 75 coins – that’s three times more, Bokke. That difference directly changes the correct hold decision for that specific situation.
Two Pair in Jacks or Better pays 2 coins. In Bonus Poker Deluxe, it pays 1. In Jacks or Better, you keep both pairs. In Bonus Poker Deluxe, the single-coin return makes breaking a pair more tempting – even though the correct play almost always stays with the made hand. That is exactly why you read the video poker paytable before you deal – not after!
The video poker paytable is not just a payout display – it is a strategic instruction set unique to every variant. Read it before you deal and you know which hands are worth chasing and which are worth keeping. Ignore it, and you are applying the wrong strategy to the game launched on your screen, which is the most common and most avoidable mistake in video poker.
Quick Paytable Checks Before You Deal at Springbok Casino
Before you launch any of the 15 video poker variants we offer and hit Deal at Springbok Casino, we’re going to share five checks that you’ll benefit from. Giving these a quick run though will ensure the video poker paytable is working in your favour – not against you – from the very first hand you are dealt:
- Check the Full House and Flush line first – 9/6 is the Jacks or Better benchmark, and any variant paying less on these two hands is making a trade-off you need to understand
- Confirm the Royal Flush multiplier at five coins – every standard video poker paytable awards a disproportionate bonus at max bet that does not apply at lower coin counts
- Check the Two Pair line on Bonus variants – Bonus Poker Deluxe pays 1 coin versus Jacks or Better's 2, and that changes how you hold certain hands
- Check the Four of a Kind line – Bonus Poker Deluxe's 75 coins versus Jacks or Better’s 25 is the trade-off that funds the rest of that paytable
- Set your coin value before reading the paytable numbers – a 4,000-coin Royal Flush means very different things at R0.25 versus R5 per coin
Go On… Check the Video Poker Paytable at Springbok Casino Before You Deal!
The video poker paytable is not a grid designed to confuse you – it is the most useful piece of information available before you deal, and it is right there on screen, every single time, for free. Bokke who read it first make better hold decisions, choose the right variant for their bankroll, and understand why things went wrong, or right.
Log in to Springbok Casino, open Jacks or Better or Bonus Poker Deluxe, and check the video poker paytable before you touch Deal. Go put our theory to the test with the “Try It” option, or grab a no deposit bonus to offset your test-run risk. That’s our full video poker praaitjie. Go on, go smash that deal button like a Bok who knows things!