What You Are Sitting Down To
Bonus Poker Deluxe is a five-card draw video poker game. You are not playing against other players or a dealer's hand. You are playing against a pay table: a printed list of payouts for each final hand. The machine deals five cards, you choose which to keep, the machine replaces the rest, and your final five cards are paid according to that table. Every decision you make matters only because the pay table rewards some hands more generously than others.
The game shares its core structure with Jacks or Better, but the pay table is compressed. The payout for four of a kind is larger than in the base game, while the payout for two pair is reduced to a flat, even-money return. That shift changes which cards you hold and which you throw away, so a strategy chart written for Jacks or Better does not transfer directly to this game.
The Sequence of a Hand
You begin by choosing a coin value and the number of coins to wager. The machine then deals five cards face up. This is your first and only decision point of the hand: you may hold any number of cards from zero to five. The cards you release are discarded and replaced from the remaining deck. The hand is then complete, and the machine compares it to the pay table.
There is no draw round after the replacement, no raising, and no bluffing. The entire hand is one hold decision followed by one settlement. If the final hand qualifies for a payout, the machine credits your balance. If it does not, the wager is lost and the next hand begins.
Reading the Pay Table Before You Play
The pay table is the single most important piece of information on the screen. It lists payouts as multiples of your bet, usually for a five-coin wager. A full-pay Bonus Poker Deluxe table pays 4000 coins for a royal flush, 400 for four aces, 320 for four 2s, 3s or 4s, and 250 for any other four of a kind. A straight flush pays 250, a full house 40, and a flush 25. Two pair pays 5, which is the same as a single pair of jacks or better.
Different machines carry different versions of this table. Some reduce the full house or flush payout, and that changes the game's long-run return. Before you insert money, read the column for the coin count you intend to play. The payout for a royal flush is often much larger at five coins than at four, because the fifth coin unlocks the top jackpot line.
What Each Decision Point Means
The hold decision is where the game is played. You are choosing which cards to keep based on two things: the current value of your hand and the expected value of the draws that each hold makes possible. Expected value is the average return of a hold across all possible replacement cards, weighted by the pay table. A hold that looks safe can be worth less than a riskier hold that opens the door to a four of a kind.
In Bonus Poker Deluxe, the elevated four-of-a-kind payouts push you toward keeping cards that can still become quads. A low pair is often held over three cards to a straight flush, because the pair can draw to three of a kind, a full house, or four of a kind. A single high card is usually held over nothing, because it can pair up and pay even money. The exact ranking of these holds depends on the precise pay table in front of you.
How the Main Hands Compare
Not all paying hands are equally likely, and not all are equally rewarded. The table below compares the main hand types in Bonus Poker Deluxe, what they require, and how the pay table treats them relative to a standard Jacks or Better game.
| Hand | What it requires | Typical Bonus Poker Deluxe payout | How the game treats it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Royal flush | A, K, Q, J, 10 of one suit | 4000 coins at five-coin bet | Top payout; the fifth coin is usually required to qualify for the full amount |
| Four of a kind | Four cards of the same rank | 250 to 400 coins depending on rank | The defining hand of this game; payouts are higher than in Jacks or Better |
| Straight flush | Five sequential cards of one suit | 250 coins | Rare; paid the same as a non-special four of a kind |
| Full house | Three of a kind plus a pair | 40 coins | Reduced on some machines; check the table |
| Flush | Five cards of one suit, any order | 25 coins | Reduced on some machines; check the table |
| Two pair | Two separate pairs | 5 coins | Paid at even money, unlike the 10-coin payout in Jacks or Better |
| Jacks or better | A pair of jacks, queens, kings or aces | 5 coins | The minimum paying hand |
The compression of two pair to a single-coin payout is the biggest structural difference from Jacks or Better. It means a hand that is a reliable small win in the base game becomes a push in Bonus Poker Deluxe, and it changes the value of holding two pair versus drawing to a higher-paying hand.
Strategy Charts Derive from the Exact Rule Set
A strategy chart is a ranked list of holds. It tells you, for every possible five-card deal, which cards to keep. The chart is not a general guide to video poker. It is specific to one game and one pay table, because a single change to a payout line can reorder several holds.
For Bonus Poker Deluxe, the chart is built around the elevated four-of-a-kind payouts and the reduced two-pair payout. A chart written for Jacks or Better will mislead you here, because it assumes two pair pays twice as much and four of a kind pays less. If you want to play this game correctly, find a strategy chart that names Bonus Poker Deluxe and matches the pay table on the machine you are sitting at. If the full house or flush line on the machine is lower than the chart assumes, the chart is no longer exact for that machine.
Procedural Mistakes That Cost New Players
The first mistake is playing fewer than five coins. The royal flush payout is typically flat for one through four coins and then jumps sharply at five. Playing four coins forfeits the disproportionate top payout, which is a material part of the game's long-run return. If the bet size at five coins is too large, move down in coin value rather than down in coin count.
The second mistake is holding a high card over a low pair. In many video poker games a high card is a reasonable hold, but in Bonus Poker Deluxe the elevated four-of-a-kind payouts make a low pair more valuable. The pair can draw to three of a kind, a full house, or four of a kind, and those outs outweigh the single high card's chance to pair.
The third mistake is trusting a strategy chart that does not match the machine. A chart is only as good as the pay table it was built for. Before you apply any hold list, compare the full house, flush, and four-of-a-kind lines on the screen to the lines the chart assumes. If they differ, the chart is not authoritative for that machine.
Where the Numbers Come From
The return of a video poker game is a long-run statistical average, not a per-session guarantee. It is calculated from the pay table and the probabilities of every possible final hand under optimal hold decisions. The house edge and the return to player are complements: they sum to 100% for the same game under the same pay table. A machine with a reduced full house or flush payout has a lower long-run return than a full-pay machine, and no hold decision can recover that difference.
Volatility describes how payouts are distributed over time. Bonus Poker Deluxe is a higher-volatility game than Jacks or Better because more of its return is concentrated in four-of-a-kind hands. That means longer stretches of small or break-even results, punctuated by larger four-of-a-kind payouts. The volatility does not change the game's long-run return; it changes what a session feels like.
FAQ
Is Bonus Poker Deluxe the same as Bonus Poker?
No. They share the elevated four-of-a-kind payouts, but the pay tables differ. Bonus Poker Deluxe pays two pair at even money and concentrates its return in four of a kind, while standard Bonus Poker pays two pair at a higher rate and uses a different structure for the four-of-a-kind ranks. A strategy chart for one does not apply to the other.
What is the best hand to hold in Bonus Poker Deluxe?
There is no single best hold, because the correct choice depends on the five cards you are dealt and the exact pay table. In general, a low pair is held more often than in Jacks or Better because of the elevated four-of-a-kind payouts, and a two-pair hand is held less often because of the reduced two-pair payout. The authoritative answer for any deal is the strategy chart that matches the machine's pay table.
Do I need to bet five coins to play correctly?
The game functions at any coin count, but the royal flush payout is usually structured so that the fifth coin unlocks a disproportionately large top prize. Playing four coins forfeits that jump and lowers the game's long-run return. If five coins is too expensive, reduce the coin value rather than the number of coins.
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