8/5 Bonus Poker Strategy and Pay Table
8/5 Bonus Poker starts with Jacks or Better and splits four of a kind into three payout tiers. Aces receive the largest bonus, while the full house and flush pay less than they do on the 9/6 baseline.
- Perfect-play return
- 99.17%
- House edge
- 0.83%
- Sharper Edge volatility
- Low–Medvolatility Low–Med, level 2.5 of 5
Overview
How this game plays
Frequent two-pair hands still pay 2-for-1, while occasional aces and low-rank quads deliver the bonuses. Sharper Edge rates this Low–Medium volatility: familiar base-game holds remain important, but quad value now affects close decisions.
The return shown is the configured long-run return at max bet with exact strategy, not a prediction for a single session.
Intermediate
Who it suits
- Jacks or Better players taking a first step into bonus games.
- Learners who want rank-specific quad bonuses without kicker rules.
- Players comparing a 99% pay table with a different distribution of returns.
8/5
Full pay table and rules
Payouts below are credits returned for wagers of one through five coins. Sharper Edge practice always uses the five-coin maximum, highlighted at right.
| Hand | 1 coin | 2 coins | 3 coins | 4 coins | 5 coins |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royal Flush | 250 | 500 | 750 | 1,000 | 4,000* |
| Straight Flush | 50 | 100 | 150 | 200 | 250 |
| Four Aces | 80 | 160 | 240 | 320 | 400 |
| Four 2s-4s | 40 | 80 | 120 | 160 | 200 |
| Four 5s-Kings | 25 | 50 | 75 | 100 | 125 |
| 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 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 |
| Jacks or Better | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
No wild cards. Minimum paying hand: a pair of jacks or better. Standard play uses a 52-card deck, a five-card deal, one draw, and any hold from zero through five cards.
*The starred royal category returns 250-for-1 below max bet and 800-for-1 at the five-coin maximum. Return and edge shown on this page assume max bet and exact strategy.
Pay-table identity
What makes it different
Bonus Poker pays a premium for four of a kind: 80-for-1 on four aces, 40-for-1 on four 2s–4s, 25-for-1 on the rest. To fund it, the full house drops to 8 and the flush to 5 — the “8/5”.
The configured perfect-play return is 99.17%. Compared with 9/6 Jacks or Better, more value sits in the premium quad rows and less sits in ordinary full houses and flushes.
What to practice
Strategy priorities
- 1Aces edge up in close decisions — four aces pay 80-for-1, more than three times the JoB quad.
- 2Two pair still pays 2-for-1, unlike Bonus Poker Deluxe and Double Bonus.
- 3Flush draws are worth less than in 9/6 JoB — the flush pays 5 — so made hands win more of the close calls.
- 4Check both the quad bonuses and the 8/5 middle lines when identifying the game.
Worked decision
Keep both pairs, then draw one
Discard K♠ and hold aces and sevens.
Both pairs: 2.511 EV per coin · aces alone: 1.683.
Two pair already pays 2-for-1, and any remaining ace or seven improves it to a full house. The ace bonus is not large enough to justify breaking this two-pair hand.
EV is per coin and comes from enumerating every legal draw for this exact five-card deal.
Baseline
Compared with 9/6 Jacks or Better
8/5 Bonus Poker changes both the payouts and the decision priorities. Percentage-point deltas below use 9/6 Jacks or Better as the reference.
| Metric | 8/5 Bonus Poker | 9/6 baseline | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Perfect-play return | 99.17% | 99.54% | ▼ −0.37 pp |
| House edge | 0.83% | 0.46% | ▲ +0.37 pp |
| Sharper Edge volatility | Low–Med | Low | ▲ +0.5 levels |
Keep comparing
Related pay tables
Turn the pay table into a decision habit
Practice 8/5 Bonus Poker with all 32 holds ranked by exact EV, then review the cost of every decision separately from the cards you happened to draw.