Last updated: April 27, 2026
Triple Bonus Poker is a video poker variant with much higher payouts for four-of-a-kind hands. Four Aces pays 240×, Four 2s-4s pays 120×, and Four 5s-Ks pays 75×. Based on Jacks or Better rules, this game trades lower Two Pair payouts for massive quad bonuses, shifting the game into the high-variance tier.
1. Standard 52-card deck, no wild cards. Minimum winning hand: a pair of Jacks or better.
2. Triple-tier bonus payouts on Four of a Kind: Aces (240×), 2s-4s (120×), 5s-Ks (75×).
3. Bet max (BET 5): Royal Flush pays 4,000 credits at max bet.
4. Key strategy: The massive quad bonuses justify aggressive drawing to four-of-a-kind hands, especially with Aces and low cards (2s-4s).
The three-tier quad bonus structure creates distinct strategic priorities for different rank groups.
| Hand | Payout (BET 1) | Strategy Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Four Aces | 240 | Highest priority — break anything! |
| Four 2s-4s | 120 | Very high priority draw target |
| Four 5s-Ks | 75 | High priority draw target |
| Full House | 8 | Solid hand, usually hold |
| Flush | 5 | Hold unless better draw available |
| Straight | 4 | Hold unless Royal draw |
Ace priority: Hold Aces above all else — Four Aces at 240× is the biggest non-royal payout in the game.
Low card value: Three 2s, 3s, or 4s are extremely valuable — hold them and draw for 120× Four of a Kind.
Two Pair caution: Two Pair only pays 1×, same as Jacks or Better. Don't overvalue two pair hands.
Three of a Kind: Always hold trips and draw two cards — the quad bonus makes this a high-EV play.
Don't chase straights: With reduced Two Pair payouts, focus on quad draws over straight draws when possible.
Full House exception: With three Aces and a pair (Full House), breaking the full house to draw for Four Aces (240×) is mathematically correct given the enormous bonus.
Low trips over high pairs: Three 2s, 3s, or 4s (drawing for 120×) can be more valuable than holding a high pair.
Royal Flush priority: Four cards to a suited Royal Flush always takes priority over any made hand except a made flush or better.
High variance: Triple Bonus Poker has significantly higher variance than standard Jacks or Better. Maintain a larger bankroll of 150-200× your max bet.
Two Pair trap: Since Two Pair pays only 1×, avoid drawing strategies that primarily target two pair outcomes.
| Hand | BET 1 | BET 2 | BET 3 | BET 4 | BET 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royal Flush | 250 | 500 | 750 | 1000 | 4000 |
| Straight Flush | 100 | 200 | 300 | 400 | 500 |
| Four Aces | 240 | 480 | 720 | 960 | 1200 |
| Four 2s-4s | 120 | 240 | 360 | 480 | 600 |
| Four 5s-Ks | 75 | 150 | 225 | 300 | 375 |
| 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 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Jacks or Better | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Triple Bonus pushes quad-aces and other high quads even higher, at the cost of a tighter low-end pay table. Compare against Bonus Poker and Double Bonus Poker.
| Game | Full Pay RTP | 4 Aces Pays (BET 5) | 4 2-4s | Variance | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bonus Poker (8/5) | 99.17% | 400 | 200 | Medium (20.9) | Balanced players |
| Double Bonus (10/7) | 100.17% | 800 | 400 | High (28.3) | Players hunting positive EV |
| Triple Bonus (9/7) | 99.58% | 1,200 | 600 | Very High (42.0) | High-variance players |
The full-pay version: Full House 9, Flush 7, Four Aces 240/coin (1,200 BET 5). Standard online and the version simulated here.
Reduces flush to 6 — RTP drops to ~98.4%. Not worth playing if 9/7 is available.
Reduces both full house and flush; RTP drops further to ~96.8%. A common land-based casino degradation; avoid.
Four Aces appears once in roughly 5,200 hands at optimal play. The 1,200-coin payout (at BET 5) contributes about 4.6% of total RTP — a single hand category responsible for nearly five percentage points of return.
Pays 600 coins at BET 5. Hits about once every 2,000 hands. EV contribution ~3.0%.
Pays 250 coins at BET 5 (50 per coin). Hits about once every 500 hands. EV contribution ~2.5%.
| Hand | Frequency (1 in X) | Pays (BET 5) | EV Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Royal Flush | 40,500 | 4,000 | ~1.98% |
| Straight Flush | 9,200 | 250 | ~0.55% |
| Four Aces | 5,200 | 1,200 | ~4.62% |
| Four 2-4s | 2,050 | 600 | ~2.93% |
| Four 5-Ks | 510 | 250 | ~9.80% |
| Full House | 92 | 45 | ~9.78% |
| Flush | 95 | 35 | ~7.37% |
| Straight | 92 | 20 | ~4.35% |
| Three of a Kind | 13 | 15 | ~23.1% |
| Two Pair | 8 | 5 | ~12.5% |
| Jacks or Better | 5 | 5 | ~22.6% |
Variance index ~42 — roughly double standard Bonus Poker. Quads alone account for over 17% of total RTP, which concentrates returns into rare events. Sessions often run cold for thousands of hands, then a single quad-aces hit (1,200 coins, or $1,200 at $1 denom) wipes out 6 hours of losses. Per 1,000 hands at $1 denom, the 90% session band is roughly ±$1,200. In practice that means a typical session ends somewhere between –$600 and +$600, but tail outcomes (no quads at all, or two quads in one session) push the range much wider. Plan for the tail; do not plan for the average.
For a 90% chance of completing a 1,000-hand session, plan for a bankroll of 600× max bet. At quarters that is $750; at $1 denomination that is $3,000. Two Pair only pays 1× here (down from 2× in Bonus Poker), which removes a meaningful bankroll cushion. Expect longer dry stretches between paying hands. See full variance modeling on our odds page.
Dealt: A♥ A♣ 10♥ J♥ Q♥. EV(AA pair, with 4-Aces-1200 jackpot draw) ≈ 9.8. EV(4-card royal) ≈ 18.5. Hold the 4-card royal. Even with the 1,200-coin quad-aces bonus, the royal flush (4,000 coins) draw is mathematically superior. This is one of the few cases where you break a paying high pair.
Dealt: A♥ A♣ A♦ K♠ 7♥. Discard both the K and 7 — draw two cards. The K kicker provides no bonus in Triple Bonus, and discarding it gives you a fresh chance at the fourth ace plus a higher pair upgrade.
Dealt: 7♣ 7♦ 8♥ 9♠ 10♦. EV(low pair 7s) ≈ 4.1. EV(4-card straight) ≈ 4.0. Hold the pair of 7s. In Triple Bonus, low pairs barely beat open straights because of the quad-7s payout (250 coins) at the back end of the trips upgrade path.
Triple Bonus Poker debuted in the late 1990s as a higher-variance follow-up to Double Bonus Poker. The defining design choice was tripling the four-aces payout from 800 to 1,200 coins (at BET 5) while trimming Two Pair down to 1× — eliminating one of the most reliable cushion hands in the bonus family. The result is a game with one of the higher-variance games in mainstream video poker (only Super Aces and Triple Double Bonus run higher). Triple Bonus has stayed steadily popular at locals casinos in Las Vegas and at higher-stakes online tables, but it never reached the mass appeal of standard Bonus Poker because the flat low-end is hard for casual players to enjoy in extended sessions.
About 18–22% of hold decisions shift between Bonus Poker and Triple Bonus Poker. The major changes: Two Pair is no longer a strong defensive hold, so breaking it for a 4-card draw is more often correct; pair-of-Aces holds become almost unbreakable due to the larger quad-aces upside; and the value of any single Ace on the deal goes up because of the quad-aces draw weight. Players importing Bonus Poker strategy unchanged tend to leak about 0.6% RTP from over-protecting Two Pair and under-prioritizing pair-of-Aces holds. Most strategy charts available online have a Triple Bonus column — use it directly rather than adapting from Bonus Poker.
At quarters, max bet is $1.25 and one hand of Triple Bonus has expected return of 99.58 cents — a 0.42-cent expected loss per hand. At 600 hands per hour, that is $2.52/hr expected loss, but the variance produces actual hourly results between roughly –$45 and +$45 in 90% of one-hour sessions. The single quad-aces hit is worth $300 (1,200 coins × $0.25), which is enough to flip a losing session into a winning one in a single hand. The flip side is that quad-aces only hits once every ~8.7 hours of play, so most sessions resolve without one. Players running long sessions (3+ hours) see closer to expected return; one-hour drop-ins are dominated by variance.
A handful of Triple Bonus 9/7 plays are counterintuitive enough to merit explicit attention. With three to a royal flush plus a paying pair (e.g., A-K-Q of hearts plus a pair of Aces), the correct play is hold the pair-of-Aces, not the 3-card royal — the quad-aces upside outweighs the royal draw. With four to an open straight including a high card (e.g., 9-10-J-Q with one suited), hold the 4-card straight; do not break it for the suited high card. With a pair of 2s, 3s, or 4s, the hold is correct because the bonus quads (600 coins) raise the trips upgrade EV — but with a pair of 5s through Kings, the math is closer to standard Bonus Poker. Pair of Aces always holds over any 3-card flush or 3-card straight.
The 1× Two Pair payout is the single biggest design decision separating Triple Bonus from standard Bonus Poker. Two Pair is the second-most-frequent paying hand (after high pair), occurring roughly 1 in 8 hands. Cutting its payout from 2× to 1× saves the pay table about 6% of total RTP, which is then redistributed into the quad bonuses (especially quad-aces). The visible cost to the player is a flatter low end; the hidden cost is the loss of a major bankroll cushion that smooths sessions in standard Bonus Poker. Players who do not adjust their session expectations to account for this end up surprised by the variance, but the math is consistent — the return is there, it just arrives in larger and rarer chunks.
Triple Bonus appears occasionally in video poker tournaments because the high variance is what tournament structures reward. In a fixed-time tournament where the leader takes a large prize, the player who hits a quad-aces in the final minutes leaps from middle pack to first place. Tournament strategy on Triple Bonus differs from cash play: chasing quads aggressively is correct because the prize structure pays only the top finishers, so a small expected loss from misplays is worth the variance increase. Cash players who carry over tournament habits to standard sessions tend to leak — the tournament structure that justifies the play does not exist in cash games, so the same plays that pay off in a tournament cost RTP in everyday sessions.
Triple Bonus Poker is a game built around a single payoff hand. The 1,200-coin quad-aces hit is the structural reason to play, and the rest of the pay table is engineered to fund that hit while still leaving the long-run RTP at 99.58%. Players who enjoy the format tend to talk about specific quad-aces hits years later — the hand is rare enough to be memorable. Players who dislike the format usually cite the flat low-end, particularly the 1× Two Pair, as the reason. The variance and the pay table are the defining features. For players considering a switch from standard Bonus Poker, running 500 hands of practice on Triple Bonus is the easiest way to know if the variance is tolerable before committing real money.
The biggest single improvement comes from drilling pair-of-Aces holds against marginal alternatives. Run 200 hands and pay attention to every dealt pair of Aces — the correct hold beats almost every other 2-card or 3-card combination, and the temptation to chase 4-card flushes or 3-card royals is the largest single leak in Triple Bonus play. Strategy charts list this clearly; verifying it in practice mode for 200 hands cements the reflex. After that, the rest of the chart is similar enough to standard Bonus Poker to follow naturally.
Triple Bonus Poker returns 99.58% to the player (RTP) with optimal strategy. This means for every $100 wagered over the long run, the expected return is $99.58. 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.
Triple 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).
Triple Bonus Poker has very high variance. This means significant bankroll swings with potential for large payouts on premium hands. You need a substantial bankroll and patience to ride out the dry spells.
Yes! Triple 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.
Yes, full-pay 9/7 Triple Bonus is widely available at major US-facing video poker sites and is the version simulated on this page. Confirm by checking the Full House (9) and Flush (7) pay table cells before depositing real money.
Four Aces hits about once every 5,200 hands at optimal play — roughly once every 8.7 hours at 600 hands per hour. The 1,200-coin payout makes it the single most lucrative non-royal hand and is why many high-variance players choose Triple Bonus over flatter games.
Standard Triple Bonus does not pay extra for a kicker. The Four Aces tier (1,200 coins at BET 5) pays the same regardless of the fifth card. Triple Double Bonus is a separate variant that adds the kicker rule — do not confuse the two.
Triple Bonus 9/7 has 99.58% RTP with simpler strategy (no kicker rules). Double Double Bonus has 98.98% RTP but with a kicker bonus on quads creating extra strategy depth. For pure RTP, Triple Bonus wins. For variance and complexity, Double Double Bonus is the choice.
Plan for 600× max bet for a 90% session-completion target. At quarters that is $750; at $1 denomination that is $3,000. The very-high variance plus reduced Two Pair payout (1× instead of 2×) means you need more cushion than Bonus Poker.