Last updated: April 27, 2026
Bonus Poker is a popular video poker variant with higher payouts than Jacks or Better for Four of a Kind hands. It is widely available at Las Vegas casinos and online operators because the strategy carries over from Jacks or Better while adding bonus payout tiers. The key difference: Four Aces pays 80×, Four 2s-4s pays 40×, and other Fours pay 25× your bet.
1. Bet max (BET 5) to qualify for the 4,000-credit Royal Flush jackpot.
2. Receive 5 cards from a 52-card deck and select which to HOLD.
3. Draw replacement cards and win if your final hand appears on the payout table.
4. Minimum win: A pair of Jacks or better pays 1× your bet — same as standard Jacks or Better.
5. Bonus hands: Four Aces (80×), Four 2s/3s/4s (40×), Four 5s–Kings (25×) are the key differentiators.
Bonus Poker (8/5 variant) returns approximately 99.17% RTP with perfect strategy. The enhanced Four of a Kind payouts shift strategy toward actively pursuing quads.
| Hand | Payout (BET 1) | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Flush | 250 (4000 at BET5) | 1 in ~40,000 |
| Straight Flush | 50 | 1 in ~9,000 |
| Four Aces | 80 | 1 in ~5,100 |
| Four 2s-4s | 40 | 1 in ~2,000 |
| Four 5s-Ks | 25 | 1 in ~500 |
| Full House | 8 | 1 in ~87 |
| Flush | 5 | 1 in ~91 |
Prioritize Ace-heavy hands: A pair of Aces is more valuable in Bonus Poker than other pairs — you're one card away from a 80× jackpot.
Hold three Aces: Three Aces should always be held — the chance of hitting Four Aces (80×) is significant enough to justify.
Low pairs still matter: Despite the bonus focus, low pairs (2s-4s) are worth holding since Four 2s-4s pays 40× — more than most Full Houses in base games.
Ace kickers: Unlike standard Jacks or Better, in Bonus Poker it can be correct to hold an Ace kicker with a pair of Aces — because Four Aces pays 80×, keeping the Ace improves your chances of hitting the jackpot.
Two pair with Aces: With Aces and another pair, hold only the Aces — breaking up two pair to chase Four Aces is mathematically justified in many configurations.
Full House vs. Four of a Kind draw: With three of a kind plus a pair (full house), consider whether the three cards are Aces or 2-4s. If yes, breaking the full house to draw for quads can be +EV.
Flush reduction: Bonus Poker typically reduces Flush to 5× (vs. 6× in Jacks or Better). Compensate by being less aggressive chasing flush draws.
| Hand | BET 1 | BET 2 | BET 3 | BET 4 | BET 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royal Flush | 250 | 500 | 750 | 1000 | 4000 |
| Four Aces | 80 | 160 | 240 | 320 | 400 |
| Straight Flush | 50 | 100 | 150 | 200 | 250 |
| Four 2s-4s | 40 | 80 | 120 | 160 | 200 |
| Four of a Kind | 25 | 50 | 75 | 100 | 125 |
| Full House | 8 | 16 | 24 | 32 | 40 |
| Flush | 5 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 |
| Straight | 4 | 8 | 12 | 16 | 20 |
| Three of a Kind | 3 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 15 |
| Two Pair | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 |
| Jacks or Better | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Bonus Poker exists in several pay table flavors. The pay table determines the long-run RTP, so always check the screen before sitting down. The 8/5 full-pay version is the standard online benchmark and the version offered here.
| Variant | Royal | Straight Flush | 4 Aces | 4 2-4s | 4 5-Ks | Full House | Flush | RTP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8/5 (Full Pay) | 800* | 50 | 80 | 40 | 25 | 8 | 5 | 99.17% |
| 7/5 | 800* | 50 | 80 | 40 | 25 | 7 | 5 | 98.01% |
| 6/5 | 800* | 50 | 80 | 40 | 25 | 6 | 5 | 96.87% |
| 10/7 (rare) | 800* | 50 | 80 | 40 | 25 | 10 | 7 | 100.7% |
*per coin at max bet (5 coins).
The 8/5 chart is the only one worth seeking out online. 7/5 and 6/5 versions look almost identical at a glance — the only cells that change are Full House and Flush — but the RTP cost is 1.2 to 2.3 percentage points. Bet sizing has a much smaller impact on long-run return than choosing the right pay table; a regular at quarters playing 7/5 will lose more per session than a regular at $1 playing 8/5.
Frequencies below are simulator results across 100 million hands of optimal play on the 8/5 full pay table.
| Hand | Frequency (1 in X) | Pays (BET 5) | EV Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Royal Flush | 40,233 | 4,000 | ~1.99% |
| Straight Flush | 9,148 | 250 | ~0.55% |
| Four Aces | 5,084 | 400 | ~1.57% |
| Four 2-4s | 1,919 | 200 | ~2.08% |
| Four 5-Ks | 506 | 125 | ~4.94% |
| Full House | 89 | 40 | ~9.05% |
| Flush | 91 | 25 | ~5.51% |
| Straight | 89 | 20 | ~4.48% |
| Three of a Kind | 13 | 15 | ~22.6% |
| Two Pair | 8 | 10 | ~25.9% |
| Jacks or Better | 5 | 5 | ~21.5% |
8/5 Bonus Poker sits between Jacks or Better and the higher-variance Double Bonus Poker.
| Game | Full Pay RTP | Variance | 4 Aces Pays | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jacks or Better (9/6) | 99.54% | Low (19.5) | 125 (flat) | Long grinder sessions |
| Bonus Poker (8/5) | 99.17% | Medium (20.9) | 400 | Mid-variance players |
| Double Bonus (10/7) | 100.17% | High (28.3) | 800 | Players hunting positive EV |
Variance index runs about 20.9 — a little above Jacks or Better. A bankroll of 200× your max bet. At quarters that is $250; at $1 denomination that is $1,000. Most regular players set a stop-loss around 100× and a win-target around 150×. Our odds page covers variance numbers for the rest of the bonus family.
Dealt: 4♠ 4♥ 7♥ 9♥ J♥. The low pair has EV ≈ 4.12 coins; the 4-card flush has EV ≈ 5.74 coins. Hold the 4-card flush. The flush draw beats a low pair in Bonus Poker because the bonus payouts do not change low-pair EV.
Dealt: A♠ A♣ 8♦ 9♦ 10♦. The pair of Aces has EV ≈ 7.69 (boosted by the 80× quad-aces draw); the open 4-card straight has EV ≈ 3.40. Hold the Aces. Always keep a pair of Aces over any 4-card straight or flush in Bonus Poker — quad aces is your jackpot.
Dealt: A♠ A♥ A♦ A♣ 7♦. You have four aces. Discard the 7 and draw one card. The 7 kicker does nothing here — Bonus Poker has no kicker bonus. Drawing one fresh card costs nothing but leaves your 80× win locked in.
Bonus Poker was rolled out by IGT in the early 1990s as the first commercially successful Jacks-or-Better variant with tiered quad payouts. It was built to capture slot players who liked feature payouts while keeping the underlying game familiar to video poker regulars. The 8/5 pay schedule became the default in Las Vegas casinos within a few years and has barely changed since. Online operators replicated the same chart when they launched in the early 2000s, which is why the 8/5 version dominates US-facing online video poker today. The game still ranks among the most-played bonus video poker titles by total hands dealt, behind 9/6 Jacks or Better and 9/6 Double Double Bonus.
In a brick-and-mortar room, the same Bonus Poker title can run at 8/5, 7/5, or 6/5 on different machines two seats apart. Always check the Full House and Flush cells on the screen before sitting — the chart is the only source of truth. Online, the pay table is fixed once the operator publishes the game, so the question is which operator. Casinos with separate tabs for "Full Pay" video poker generally honor 8/5 or better; mass-market sites that lump all video poker together sometimes default to 7/5 or 6/5. Loyalty rewards close part of the gap — a 0.3% rebate on a 7/5 game brings effective return back close to 8/5 — but only if the comp tier is real and not heavily wagered. Live casinos run faster than online (about 700 hands per hour vs 600), which raises both expected return and expected variance proportionally.
Bonus Poker fits players who want more upside than Jacks or Better without committing to the swings of Double Bonus or Super Aces. The variance index (~21) sits a notch above JoB but well below the Triple Bonus / Super Aces tier. A typical session at quarters with a $250 bankroll will see 1–2 quads and finish somewhere between –$80 and +$60 in 80% of sessions. The remaining 20% split into bigger losses (no quads at all) and bigger wins (multiple quads or a quad-aces hit). For players coming from Jacks or Better, the strategy adjustments are small — about 5–8% of hands shift hold decisions, mainly around quad-Aces and quad-2-4 draws. Most JoB players adapt within a thousand hands of practice. The game is generally not the best fit for players who want either smooth grinding (pick JoB or Tens or Better) or maximum jackpot exposure (pick Double Bonus 10/7 or Super Aces).
A typical 600-hand hour of 8/5 Bonus Poker at quarters produces something like 12 small wins (Jacks-or-Better pair, Two Pair) returning $0.50 to $5 each, three larger wins (Three of a Kind, Straight, Flush) returning $7.50 to $25, and a ~50% chance of one quad of any kind. The remaining hands are losses. Net result lands somewhere between –$30 and +$30 about 70% of the time, with a long tail in both directions when a quad-aces or no-quads-at-all session occurs. Online players using auto-hold features sometimes see slightly worse returns because the auto-hold uses a generic Jacks-or-Better hold table that does not optimize for quad-aces upside — manually overriding the auto-hold on aces-related hands recovers about 0.1% of RTP over a session.
Some plays feel correct but are not. Holding a high card with a low pair (e.g., a King kicker with a pair of 5s) is the most common: the pair has a draw to trips and a full house, the high card adds nothing to that draw and only blocks the trips upgrade. Drawing five new cards after a paying-pair hand is another — once the pair is in hand, the worst-case draw is keeping the paying pair, so giving up the pair never improves expected value. A third is breaking up a flush draw with one high card to keep just the high card; the 4-card flush has higher EV than any single high card, even an Ace.
From highest EV to lowest: dealt 4-of-a-kind (always hold all 4); dealt straight flush; dealt full house; dealt 4-card royal flush (break any made hand below straight flush); dealt three-of-a-kind (with low cards: discard kickers; with aces: see advanced strategy); dealt straight or flush; dealt 4-card straight flush; dealt two pair; dealt high pair (Jacks or better); dealt 3-card royal; dealt 4-card flush; dealt low pair; dealt 4-card open straight with at least one high card; dealt two suited high cards; dealt three high cards (J/Q/K with one Ace); dealt one high card; otherwise discard all five. Memorizing this list covers about 95% of dealt hands; the remaining 5% are edge cases that the in-game advisor will catch.
Players who log multiple sessions per week on Bonus Poker often settle into a rhythm where the basic strategy chart becomes automatic and the quad-aces holds become reflex. At that point, the marginal RTP improvements from further study are small — about 0.05% from refining edge-case 3-card-royal versus paying-pair decisions, and roughly the same from optimizing 4-card-flush draws with mixed high cards. The bigger gains come from pay-table selection (always confirm 8/5), bet sizing discipline (always max bet for the royal jackpot), and session length management (longer sessions converge to expected return; one-hour drop-ins are dominated by variance). New players sometimes obsess over micro-strategy refinements while ignoring the pay table on the screen, which is the inverse of the priority order. Pay table first, bet max second, basic strategy third, edge cases fourth.
The single fastest way to improve at Bonus Poker is to play 500 hands at low denomination focused entirely on quad-aces decision points. Note every hand where a pair of Aces or three Aces appears, and verify each hold against the strategy chart. Most players make the same handful of small mistakes — usually around kicker decisions and 4-card-flush versus pair priorities — and noticing the pattern in 500 hands removes 80% of the leak. Practice mode on this site uses 1,000 free credits, which covers about 800 hands at max bet — enough for one focused session. After that, the strategy is mostly automatic.
Bonus Poker returns 99.17% to the player (RTP) with optimal strategy. This means for every $100 wagered over the long run, the expected return is $99.17. This is considered a very competitive return among video poker games.
Place your bet (1-5 coins), then press Deal to receive 5 cards from a 52-card deck. Select which cards to hold, then press Draw to replace the rest. Your final hand is evaluated against the pay table. The minimum winning hand is Jacks or Better. Always bet max coins (5) to qualify for the enhanced Royal Flush jackpot of 4,000 coins.
Bonus Poker offers enhanced payouts for specific Four of a Kind hands. Unlike standard Jacks or Better where all quads pay the same, bonus games have tiered payouts — typically paying more for Four Aces and Four 2s-4s. This creates higher variance but bigger potential wins. The tradeoff is usually a reduced payout for Two Pair (1:1 instead of 2:1).
Bonus Poker has medium variance. This means a balanced mix of frequent small wins and occasional larger payouts. A good choice for players who want some excitement without extreme bankroll swings.
Yes! Bonus Poker is completely free to play on Pure Video Poker. No download, no registration, and no real money required. You get 1,000 practice credits to play with. It works in any modern web browser on desktop computers, tablets, and smartphones. Use it to practice strategy and learn the game before playing at a real casino.
9/6 Jacks or Better has higher RTP (99.54% vs 99.17%) and lower variance, so for grinding long sessions Jacks or Better is mathematically better. 8/5 Bonus Poker is a better choice if you want bigger swings and the chance at an 80× quad-aces payoff. Choose based on whether you value steady returns or jackpot excitement.
Four Aces hits roughly once every 5,084 hands at optimal play. At 600 hands per hour that is about once every 8.5 hours. The 400-coin payout (at BET 5) makes up about 1.57% of the total RTP — small frequency, but a major contributor to the game's appeal.
Plan for 200× your max bet for a 90% chance of completing a one-hour session. At quarters ($1.25 max bet) that is $250; at $1 denomination ($5 max bet) that is $1,000. Higher bankrolls extend session length and absorb downswings before the next quad-aces hit.
Standard Bonus Poker does not pay extra for a kicker. The Four Aces tier (80×) pays the same regardless of the fifth card. Double Double Bonus is the variant that adds the kicker rule — do not confuse the two.
Full-pay 8/5 Bonus Poker is the standard at most US-facing online casinos and is the version simulated on this page. Confirm by checking the Full House (8) and Flush (5) cells of the pay table before betting real money. Avoid 7/5 and 6/5 reductions — they cut RTP by 1.2% and 2.3% respectively.