Jacks or Better offers one of the lowest house edge games in most casinos.

• Jacks Or Better Simple Strategy

PLAYING JACKS OR BETTER CLASS GAMES STRATEGY. In the first nine chapters of this guide you have learned all of the background information necessary to become a skilled live casino or online video poker player. You are now ready for the “meat” of this guide. Poker variations are just Jacks or Better with a dramatic change to the pay table or Jacks or Better with the addition of wild cards. Of course, when you add wild cards, the pay table is adjusted based on the new likelihood of getting stronger hands. Jacks or Better Video Poker Strategy. You probably remember that we mentioned the importance of.

Jacks Or Better Simple Strategy

Jacks or Better (JoB) is not only a high-paying video poker variant, but it’s also one of the best-paying casino games, period. Using perfect strategy on the right version of JoB, you can achieve 99.54% payback.In other words, an expert player will only deal with a 0.46% house edge. Let’s look at how other popular casino games compare to JoB in terms of house advantage.

But you have to do certain things in order to reach this low expected percentage.

This post gives you 7 tips to maximize your returns while playing Jacks or Better video poker.

1 – Always Play Max Coins

Jacks or Better machines offer the top payout for a royal flush. They pay a bonus for a royal flush when you play max coins.

You can bet between one and five coins per hand, but the only way to get the bonus when you hit a royal flush is if you play five coins per hand.

If this makes the bet too high you can find a machine that offers a lower bet limit.

The total five coin bet per machine is as follows:

• A nickel machine is 25 cents per hand
• A quarter machine is $1.25 per hand
• A $1 machine is $5 per hand
• A $5 machine is $25 per hand
• A $25 machine is $125 per hand

Some casinos don’t offer the best pay tables at the lower limit machines, so watch out for poor pay tables.

The best machine for players on a low budget is a nickel machine offering the 9 / 6 pay table. If you can’t find one that fits your budget you should find somewhere else to play.

If you play less than the maximum number of coins it increases the house edge for the machine. The expected return percentages are based on playing max coins.

You may have seen the payback percentage on a 9 / 6 Jacks or Better machine listed at 99.54%. This is a good return but this number is based on playing max coins and using proper strategy.

2 – Find the Best Pay Table

Jacks or Better machines have a wide range of pay charts. Each chart offers a different long term house edge.

I recently made a post listing the most popular Jacks or Better pay tables, but the most common one that offers a fair return is called a 9 / 6. This means the full house pays 9 coins and the flush pays 6.

If you see a pay chart that offers less than either of these pay outs you’re playing with a bigger house edge. This gives the casino more money per hand and this adds up quickly.

If you play 200 hands per hour at $5 per hand and give the casino an extra 1% per hand you lose on average an extra $10 per hour. Over a five hour playing session it costs you an extra $50.

3 – Slow Down

One of the things that most people ignore is how much they lose per hour or how much their expected losses per hour are.

Many people understand the low house edge that Jacks or Better machines offer, but hey forget that the other part of their loss equation is how many hands per hour they play.

If you play as fast as possible you can play hundreds of hands per hour. Video poker machines are designed to have a house edge, like most casino games, so the more you play the more you lose.

By simply slowing down you lose less per hour, can play longer, and increase your chances for a winning playing session.

Here’s an example:

If you play 200 hands per hour at $5 per spin with the house edge of a half percent your expected loss per hour is $5.

But if you only play 100 hands per hour using the same other number sit cuts your expected hourly loss in half to $2.50.

This makes sense on the surface, but most players ignore it and play as many hands per hour as possible.

You have complete control of your hands per hour so use this power to play longer and reduce your losses.

4 – Join the Player’s Club

Player’s clubs are designed to get players to play more and play longer to get better comps. But that doesn’t mean you should avoid them.

If you’re going to be playing Jacks or Better anyway you might as well earn comps while doing so. And if you use tea vice on the rest of this page to reduce the house edge as much as possible the comps will often be enough to let you play close to a break even game over time.

Even if you still lose in the long run the comps can cut your losses in half or more.

If you lose $10 an hour on average playing but get comps worth $5 an hour back you’re much better off than just losing.

This isn’t an unheard of return. Every casino has a different determination for awarding comps, but even the worst ones give enough away to help reduce your losses.

Signing up for a player’s club car is easy. Simply go to the club area and tell them you want to sign up. If you don’t know where to go to sign up for the club ask one of the casino personnel. They’ll be able to point you in the right direction.

Don’t play another hand of Jacks or Better, or any other casino game, without earning comps.

5 – Learn and Use the Best Strategy

Every hand on a Jacks or Better video poker machine has one best way to play. The only way to play with the lowest house edge possible is to always make the best play.

The strategy for Jacks or Better is fairly simple and many players have it memorized.

But the good news is you can get strategy cards that have all of the correct plays to use while you play. Most casino gift shops have them and you can buy them online. You can even print out the correct strategy charts and use them.

Never play Jacks or Better unless you use the best strategy.

By doing this you lose less in the long run, have a better chance to win every playing session, an can play close to a break even game when you get comps from the player’s club.

6 – Be Wary of Progressive Jackpot Machines

Most casino games that offer a progressive jackpot are attractive because they offer a chance at a big win for a relatively small bet. Of course it’s a long shot to win any progressive, but in many games the possibility acts as an added bonus.

But almost every Jacks or Better machine tied to a progressive has a hidden cost.

In the second tip I talked about the importance of always finding and playing the best pay table. Progressive Jacks or Better machines use almost universally poor pay tables.

So what happens is you trade the slim possibility of hitting a jackpot for a bad pay table. The bad pay table consistently takes more of your money on every hand, increasing the profit of the casino.

Of course if the jackpot gets high enough it may still push the house edge down toward zero and even into a positive expectation situation, but this doesn’t happen often.

If you have the choice between a 9 / 6 Jacks or Better machine and a 8 / 5 or worse machine with a progressive you’re almost always better playing 9 / 6.

7 – Don’t Drink Too Much

Any time you drink too much it can start to influence your decision making process. When you combine this with gambling it can lead to bad results.

Many casinos offer free drinks to their players. These drinks have a hard cost to the casino, so you know that they wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t profitable to them.

The free drinks make people gamble more and the influence off alcohol can make you play longer than you intended to. It often makes a person ignore their intentions to stop playing at a certain time and / or ignore loss limits they set before playing.

When you play Jacks or Better or any other video poker game you need to make the bet playing decisions to reduce the house edge as much as possible. When you drink too much your decision making process can suffer, leading to mistakes in your strategy.

This causes you to lose faster than when you use the best strategy all of the time.

Many players enjoy gambling an enjoy drinking, but you need to be careful of mixing the two if you want to have the best chance to win.

Conclusion

Jacks or Better is one of the best games casino players can enjoy. You control the rate of play and your total amount wagered.

When you combine this with a good pay table, good strategy, and comps, you can play for hours on a relatively small amount of money. And when you’re lucky enough to hit a royal flush you can leave with a nice win for the day.