Double Double Bonus Poker, Double Bonus and Bonus Poker: Pay Tables and Strategy

Bonus Poker, Double Bonus and Double Double Bonus are the three best-known variations of Jacks or Better video poker. The cards, the deal and the draw are the same, and a pair of jacks or better is still the lowest paying hand. What changes is the pay table: each game pays extra for four of a kind depending on the rank, and Double Double Bonus adds a further bonus for the fifth card, the kicker. To pay for those bonuses, the games take something back elsewhere, usually on two pair or the full house. This guide puts the three pay tables side by side, shows what each common version returns, and explains the strategy changes that matter.

How bonus poker games work

You play exactly as in Jacks or Better: choose a stake of 1 to 5 coins, receive five cards from a 52-card deck shuffled for every hand, hold the cards you want, and draw replacements once. Your final hand is paid from the pay table. No cards are wild. The hand ranking is standard poker; only the payouts differ.

• Bonus Poker: four aces pay 80 per coin, four 2s, 3s or 4s pay 40, and any other four of a kind pays 25. Two pair still pays 2, as in Jacks or Better.
• Double Bonus: the four-of-a-kind payouts are doubled (160 / 80 / 50), and two pair is cut to 1 to pay for it.
• Double Double Bonus: the Double Bonus quads, plus a kicker bonus: four aces with a 2, 3 or 4 as the fifth card pay 400, and four 2s, 3s or 4s with an ace, 2, 3 or 4 as the fifth card pay 160. Two pair pays 1.

The three pay tables compared

These are the full-pay versions of each game. Payouts are per coin; the royal flush pays 800 per coin at the maximum bet.

The name of each version comes from its full house and flush payouts: “9/6 Double Double Bonus” pays 9 for a full house and 6 for a flush. For comparison, full-pay 9/6 Jacks or Better returns 99.54%.

What is a kicker?

The kicker is the fifth card next to a four of a kind. It only matters in Double Double Bonus (and in a few other games built on it). With A♠ A♥ A♦ A♣ 3♣ the kicker is the 3, so the hand pays 400 per coin instead of 160. With 4♠ 4♥ 4♦ 4♣ A♦ the ace kicker turns 80 into 160. For four 5s through kings, the kicker makes no difference.

Full pay and short pay

Every game comes in several versions that look identical but pay less on the full house, the flush or the straight. The table shows the return of each common version with perfect play and the 800 royal; the other lines are as in the table above.

One unit on the full house is worth about 1.1 percentage points of return in each of these games. A return figure is a long-run average over millions of hands and assumes every hand is played perfectly; it says nothing about the result of a session. Online versions set their own pay tables, so read the one on the screen before you play.

Odds of each hand in Double Double Bonus

With perfect play on the 9/6 table, these are the chances of each final hand. Bonus Poker and Double Bonus are close on most lines; the main differences are noted below the table.

Any four of a kind arrives about once every 420 hands in all three games (1 in 418 in Double Double Bonus, 1 in 423 in Bonus Poker, 1 in 429 in Double Bonus). What changes is how much of the return depends on them: four of a kind supplies about 18.8 points of Double Double Bonus’s 98.98%, 15.4 points of Double Bonus’s return, and only 7.8 points in Bonus Poker. Because two pair pays only 1 in the double games, more of the return sits in rare hands, so results swing more from session to session than in Bonus Poker or Jacks or Better.

Strategy: what changes from Jacks or Better

Most decisions are the same as in Jacks or Better: keep any paying hand of a straight or better, draw to 4 to a royal flush, keep a high pair, and so on. The bonus payouts change a handful of common decisions, and they change them differently in each game. Every figure below is the average return per coin of a play over all possible draws, on the full-pay tables above.

Double Double Bonus (9/6)

• Four aces or four 2s–4s without the bonus kicker: hold the four and draw one card for the kicker. Four aces with a 9 return 221.3 per coin this way, against 160 for keeping the 9, because 12 of the 47 cards left (the 2s, 3s and 4s) complete the 400 hand.
• Three aces: hold only the three aces, even if that breaks a full house, and do not keep a 2, 3 or 4 as a kicker.
• A pair of aces and another pair: keep only the aces (1.93 per coin) rather than the two pair, which pays only 1 (1.68).
• A single ace: with an ace and an unsuited king, hold the ace alone.

Double Bonus (10/7)

• Three aces with a pair: keeping the three aces is very slightly better than the full house (10.11 against 10.00 per coin).
• Aces up: the two pair is fractionally better than the aces alone (1.766 against 1.764); hold the two pair.
• Flush draws are worth more because the flush pays 7: with A♥ K♥ Q♥ 7♥ 2♣, hold the four hearts rather than the three royal cards.

Bonus Poker (8/5)

• Two pair pays 2, so play it as in Jacks or Better: always keep two pair, and keep a full house even when it contains three aces.

Examples

In Bonus Poker and Double Bonus, drawing one card to four of a kind changes nothing, because the kicker is not paid; in those games, simply keep the hand.

Why max coins matter

As in other video poker games, the royal flush usually pays 800 per coin only at the maximum bet and 250 below it. With the strategy adjusted for the smaller royal, that lowers the return of 8/5 Bonus Poker from 99.17% to 97.93%, 10/7 Double Bonus from 100.17% to 99.11%, and 9/6 Double Double Bonus from 98.98% to 97.83%.

Bonus poker games online

Online, these games are random-number-generator software dealt from a freshly shuffled deck every hand. 22bet lists Bonus Poker, Double Bonus Poker and Double Double Bonus Poker from Habanero in 1, 5, 10, 50 and 100-hand versions, along with versions from GMW and Red Rake and a Bonus Poker from KA Gaming. Each studio sets its own pay table, so compare the four-of-a-kind, full house and flush lines with the tables above before you play. For a wild-card game with a different strategy, see our Deuces Wild guide; for how a return percentage plays out over a session, see our guide to RTP.

Play responsibly

Video poker is for players aged 18 and over. The double bonus games have bigger swings than Jacks or Better because more of their return comes from rare hands, and a game deals several hands a minute. Set a budget before you play and stop when it is spent.