Video Poker Glossary — Terms & Definitions

B

Bonus Poker: A Jacks or Better variant that adds bonus payouts for four-of-a-kind hands. The base game for a family of variants including Double Bonus and Double Double Bonus.
Break Even: A hand or hold decision with an expected value (EV) of exactly 1.00 — meaning it returns exactly what you bet on average. Holds with EV above 1.00 are profitable in the long run.

C

Coin-In: The total amount of money wagered over a session. Theoretical return percentages are calculated against coin-in, not net profit or loss.
Combination (combo): A unique set of drawn cards. When drawing 2 cards from a 47-card remaining deck, there are C(47,2) = 1,081 possible combinations. The EV for a hold is the average payout across all combinations.

D

Deal: The initial distribution of five cards from a freshly shuffled 52-card deck. In video poker the deal is generated by a random number generator (RNG).
Discard: A card not selected to hold. Discards are replaced by new cards from the remaining 47-card deck on the draw.
Double Double Bonus (DDB): A video poker variant that adds a second tier of bonus payouts to four-of-a-kind hands based on a kicker card. Four Aces with a 2, 3, or 4 kicker pays 400×; four 2s/3s/4s with an A/2/3/4 kicker pays 160×. The trade-off is a reduced Two Pair payout of 1× (versus 2× in standard Jacks or Better).
Draw: The replacement phase: after you select which cards to hold, the machine replaces all discarded cards with new cards drawn from the remaining 47-card deck.

E

Expected Value (EV) core concept: The average payout for a given hold decision, calculated across every possible draw outcome weighted by probability. An EV of 1.50 means that hold returns 1.50 credits per credit bet on average over many repetitions.

Formally: EV = Σ (payout × probability) over all possible draw combinations.
Expected Return (ER): The long-run percentage of coin-in returned to the player with optimal strategy. DDB 9/6 has an ER of 98.98%, meaning for every $100 wagered you expect to receive $98.98 back over the long run.

F

Flush: Five cards of the same suit in any order. Pays 6× in DDB 9/6. Note: a Straight Flush and Royal Flush are separate, higher-ranking hands.
Four of a Kind (Quads): Four cards of the same rank. In DDB, the payout depends on the rank and whether the fifth card (kicker) qualifies for a bonus. See Double Double Bonus.
Full House: Three cards of one rank and two cards of another rank. Pays 9× in DDB 9/6 (the "9" in "9/6" refers to this payout). Always hold all five cards.
Full-Pay: A paytable configuration that offers the highest possible expected return for a given game variant. DDB 9/6 is the full-pay version of Double Double Bonus; inferior paytables (e.g., 8/5 DDB) return significantly less.

H

Hold: The act of selecting cards to keep for the draw phase. You choose between 0 and 5 cards to hold; the rest are replaced. The optimal hold maximizes the hand's expected value.
Hold Mask: A 5-bit binary representation of which cards in a hand are held. Bit 0 = card 1, bit 1 = card 2, etc. There are 2⁵ = 32 possible hold masks for any 5-card hand, and the analyzer evaluates all 32 to find the maximum EV.
House Edge: The casino's expected profit expressed as a percentage of coin-in. Equal to 100% minus the game's expected return. DDB 9/6 has a house edge of approximately 1.02% with perfect play.

J

Jacks or Better (JoB): The foundational video poker game. A pair of Jacks, Queens, Kings, or Aces returns your bet (1×). All other pairs pay nothing. DDB is built on the JoB framework with added quad bonuses.

K

Kicker DDB-specific: The fifth card held alongside three or four of a kind that qualifies for a bonus payout in DDB. For three Aces, holding a 2, 3, or 4 as the kicker means that hitting the fourth Ace produces the 400× bonus. The kicker is discarded on the draw and only matters if you complete the quad.

L

Low Pair: A pair of cards ranked 2 through 10 — below Jacks. A Low Pair does not return your bet by itself (pays 0×) but has drawing potential. In DDB 9/6 it ranks below Four to a Flush in the hold priority order.

O

Open-Ended Straight Draw: Four consecutive cards where a card at either end completes the straight (e.g., 6-7-8-9 can be completed by a 5 or a 10). Has more outs than an inside straight draw.
Optimal Strategy: The hold decision that maximizes expected value for a given hand. Computed by evaluating all 32 possible hold masks and selecting the one with the highest EV.
Outs: The number of remaining cards in the deck that complete a target hand. Knowing the number of outs helps estimate drawing probability; e.g., there are 4 outs to complete a pair of Aces (the three remaining Aces in the deck).

P

Paytable: The schedule of payouts for each hand ranking. Paytables are identified by the Full House and Flush multipliers — DDB 9/6 pays 9× for a Full House and 6× for a Flush. Machines with lower paytables (8/5, 7/5, etc.) have worse expected returns.
Perfect Play: Executing the mathematically optimal hold decision on every hand. The expected return percentages quoted for video poker games always assume perfect play. Any deviation from optimal strategy increases the house edge.
Priority Order: A ranked list of hold patterns used to determine the optimal play for any dealt hand. You scan from rank 1 downward and hold the first pattern that matches your cards. See the full DDB 9/6 strategy guide.

Q

Quads: Shorthand for four of a kind. The premium quad categories in DDB (Aces, 2s–4s, and their bonus kicker variants) are the defining feature of the game's strategy and variance.

R

Royal Flush top hand: The highest-ranked poker hand: A-K-Q-J-10 of the same suit. Pays 800× at max bet in DDB 9/6 (4,000 credits on a 5-credit bet). The Royal Flush accounts for approximately 2% of the game's total expected return, which is why max-coin play is essential.
RNG (Random Number Generator): The certified hardware or software component in a video poker machine that produces the random card sequence. Each deal is statistically independent — past results have no influence on future hands.

S

Straight: Five cards in consecutive rank order, not all the same suit. Pays 4× in DDB 9/6. An Ace can be used as either high (A-K-Q-J-10) or low (A-2-3-4-5, called a "wheel").
Straight Flush: Five consecutive cards of the same suit (excluding the Royal Flush). Pays 50× in DDB 9/6. Always hold all five cards.
Strategy Deviation: Any hold decision that differs from mathematically optimal play. Even small deviations (e.g., always holding a single Ace over a low pair) compound across thousands of hands and measurably reduce expected return.

T

Three of a Kind (Trips): Three cards of the same rank. Pays 3×. The optimal hold is the three matching cards plus — in DDB — a qualifying kicker if one is present (for Aces or 2s/3s/4s).
Two Pair: Two separate pairs of cards. Pays 1× in DDB 9/6 (reduced from 2× in standard Jacks or Better). This reduction is the main reason DDB has higher variance and why Low Pair ranks below Four to a Flush in the strategy.

V

Variance: A measure of how much your bankroll fluctuates per hand relative to the expected return. DDB has high variance because a large share of EV comes from rare, large-payout quads. Higher variance means longer potential losing streaks even with perfect play.
Video Poker: A casino machine game based on five-card draw poker. Unlike table poker, you play against a fixed paytable (not other players), and with perfect strategy the house edge can be reduced to under 1% on full-pay machines.

W

Wheel: A straight using the Ace as its low card: A-2-3-4-5. The Ace plays as a 1 in this context. The wheel is a valid straight and pays 4×.
Wild Card: A card (typically a Joker or all Deuces in Deuces Wild) that can substitute for any other card. Double Double Bonus is a non-wild game — no wild cards are used.