Unless you're a captive audience where all the machines of a given type (Jacks or Better, Joker Poker, or Deuces Wild) have the same payout schedule, you're better off "shopping around" for the optimal payout. However, even with a tighter pay scheme, the remainder of the strategies will give you a substantial advantage. The full-pay schedule for Jacks or Better Draw Poker is shown below for one coin. All the payouts are per coin except for the Royal Flush, which should pay 4,000 coins instead of 1,250 on a 5-coin bet.
| Royal Flush | 250 | |
| Straight Flush | 50 | |
| Four of a Kind | 25 | |
| Full House | 9 | |
| Flush | 6 | |
| Straight | 4 | |
| Three of a Kind | 3 | |
| Two Pair | 2 | |
| Pair (Jacks or Better) | 1 |
Second, and just as important, know ahead of time how much of your winnings you're willing to give back. This is even more difficult to put into practice, but if you cash out from time to time, replenish your initial stake, and stash a predetermined portion of any substantial profits (you define "substantial" according to your own balance of greed and caution), you'll thank yourself for being so shrewd. (After all, once you've won it, it's no longer the casino's money, any more than the money you lose is still yours!)
Having said that much, I might as well tell you right off that - except when you're betting "play money" that's replenished when you lose it all - if you insist on playing the maximum number of coins for the long-shot Royal Flush, then you might as well quit reading now, because you have your own strategy, which is incompatible with most of what follows. If that's your goal, just be aware of sound money management, holding any cards to a potential Royal Flush, and the phone number of Gamblers Anonymous if you get in over your head.
You may prefer not to cash out, but if you run a balance on the display, keep a constant watch on it, so you know how far you've dropped below the highest balance so far. (Also, keep your fingers crossed that the machine doesn't malfunction or lose power. I haven't seen it happen, but it doesn't seem to be an impossibility. Oh well - enough discouraging words!)
Here's a fairly aggressive strategy that's self-determining, and therefore very simple to remember and put into practice:
A fringe benefit of this strategy, in terms of money management, is that you have to study the payline and think before your next bet, which gives you a chance to review your balance (assuming you keep it in the machine). When it's working fairly well, you may bounce from, say, a 30- or 40-coin loss to near break-even, or you may go into the positive side very quickly and then fall back. (If your losses pile up beyond this, it may be the machine's way of telling you to go home!)
Here's an alternative strategy that's intended to take advantage of streaks: instead of betting up when you lose and down when you win, you do just the opposite; begin with 3 coins and drop down 1 for each loss; if you lose twice in a row on a bet of 1, return to 3; if you get to 5 and continue to win, stay there. (In moving up after a win, determine the number of coins to add in the same way you determined how many to subtract in the previous strategy.)
For either of the strategies suggested above, you may prefer to adjust the bet by the coins returned per coin bet, instead of by the net gain per coin. This will result in a faster jump to other betting levels.
All that's left now is to know what to keep and what to discard. This is not etched in stone - you may want to play more conservatively or more aggressively than what I've outlined here, and you can also afford to make less structured moves on 1-coin bets. Even though I've shown all potential straights (and by extension, straight flushes) - for the sake of simplicity - as being equal, inside straights, ace-low 4-straights, and ace-high 4-straights are twice as hard to complete as those that can take a card at either end, for instance. Use your judgment, based on whether a safer alternative is more appealing.
There is one particular case where I deviate from the chart: if I have 3 to a straight flush in which the cards of the same suit are in sequence (e.g., 4S 5S 6S) and a fourth card of a different suit that makes it 4 to a straight is not in sequence (e.g., 4S, 5S, 6S, 8H), then I take the 3 to a straight flush (as long as one of the 3 cards is not an ace). This has four advantages:
The last two entries in the table deserve some elaboration: when there's no better potential hand, simply hold all the high cards (J+: J, Q, K, A); however, if two of those cards are of the same suit (or one of them is the same suit as a 10), hold those two cards instead (RF2). Be sure in doing this that you don't get carried away and overlook stronger hands, such as 4 to a straight (or even the "lowly" low pair).
With that in mind, the following schedule is designed to balance the quest for a Royal Flush against the other odds when playing Jacks or Better Draw Poker - nothing wild - and is designed to be used from the top down (i.e., the first applicable hand):
Here's the same list in a more compact form, suitable for printing on a 3x5
card to carry with you (OK, so maybe a 4x6 card is more likely):
Pat: RF SF 4 FH Discard unneeded cards only: 3 2P Draw 1: RF4 Normally pat: FL ST Draw 1: SF4 Draw 3: JBP Draw 1: FL4 Draw 2: RF3 Draw 3: PR Draw 1: ST4 Draw 2: SF3 Draw 3: RF2 Discard all but: J+
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