Video poker
Video poker is five-card draw poker against a pay table, not against another player or a dealer. A 52-card deck is shuffled. Five cards are dealt. The player decides which to hold and which to discard. The discards are replaced. The final hand is paid according to a fixed schedule.
The minimum qualifying hand in most versions is a pair of Jacks or better. The payouts scale up through two pair, three of a kind, straight, flush, full house, four of a kind, straight flush, and royal flush — the top prize, which typically requires betting maximum coins to receive its full payout.
Two things drive the RTP: the pay table printed on the machine, and whether the player follows the mathematically correct hold strategy for that specific pay table.
House Edge and Pay Tables
The same game variant can carry dramatically different RTPs depending on the numbers printed on the pay table. The pay table for full house and flush payouts is the shorthand — “9/6 Jacks or Better” means 9 coins returned for a full house and 6 for a flush per coin bet.
| Pay table | Variant | RTP (optimal strategy) |
| 9/6 Jacks or Better (full pay) | Jacks or Better | 99.54% |
| 8/5 Jacks or Better | Jacks or Better | 97.30% |
| 6/5 Jacks or Better | Jacks or Better | ~95.00% |
| NSUD Deuces Wild (full pay) | Deuces Wild | 100.76% |
| Short-pay Deuces Wild | Deuces Wild | 99.73% or lower |
| 10/7 Double Bonus | Double Bonus | 100.17% |
| All Aces (Microgaming) | All Aces | 99.92% |
| 8/5 Bonus Poker | Bonus Poker | ~99.17% |
Full-pay Deuces Wild and 10/7 Double Bonus have theoretical RTPs above 100% under perfect play — meaning an expert player has a mathematical edge. These versions are very rarely found online in their full-pay form; most operators configure lower-paying variants.
The Royal Flush issue: On 9/6 Jacks or Better with optimal strategy, a Royal Flush occurs roughly once every 40,388 hands. The Royal Flush pays 800-for-1 only at max coin (typically 5 coins). Dropping to 4 or fewer coins on a machine with a max-coin Royal bonus reduces the game’s RTP by roughly 1.2%.
Video Poker Variants at Canadian Online Casinos
- Jacks or Better (most common; the baseline variant)
- Deuces Wild (2s are wild cards; minimum qualifying hand changes)
- Bonus Poker / Bonus Poker Deluxe (increased payouts on four-of-a-kind hands)
- Double Bonus Poker / Double Double Bonus Poker (higher variance, higher payouts on Aces)
- Tens or Better
- Joker Poker / Joker Wild (53-card deck with a Joker)
- All Aces (Microgaming; 99.92% RTP with 4 Aces paying 400×)
- Multi-hand video poker (3, 5, 10, 25, 50 or 100 simultaneous hands — same hold applies to all)
Multi-hand versions multiply variance significantly: holding two cards across 100 hands means 100 separate draws from 100 separate remaining decks. The per-hand RTP is identical; the bankroll swings are larger.
Software Providers for Video Poker in Canada
Microgaming/Games Global has the broadest video poker catalogue available in Canada: Jacks or Better, All Aces, Deuces Wild, Aces & Faces, Double Double Bonus, and Level Up Poker (a progressive multiplier variant). OLG.ca carries Microgaming/Games Global video poker titles among others.
NetEnt offers Jacks or Better, All American Video Poker and Deuces Wild, available at multiple Ontario-licensed operators.
IGT’s Game King family is the standard in land-based Canadian casinos and has a smaller online presence. Playtech and Pragmatic Play also carry video poker in their catalogues.
Video Poker in the Regulated Ontario Market
Video poker at AGCO-licensed private operators is RNG only — there is no live-dealer format. All games are certified for RNG integrity by independent testing labs. Pay tables vary by operator and game variant; the RTP printed in a lobby description may reflect the highest theoretical return, not necessarily the pay table configuration running at that specific operator.
Before playing, open the game’s help or info screen and verify the full house and flush payouts directly. A 9/6 table and a 6/5 table look identical except for two numbers that represent nearly a 4.5% swing in RTP.
Suitable for players who want the strategic depth of poker without a live opponent; suits players willing to learn optimal hold charts; multi-hand variants suit players comfortable with higher bankroll variance.