Every hand, counted
These are not estimates. Each row is an exact count from enumerating every possible five-card hand from a 52-card deck.
| Dealt hand | Combinations | Probability | Roughly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Royal flush | 4 | 0.000154% | 1 in 649,740 |
| Straight flush | 36 | 0.001385% | 1 in 72,193 |
| Four of a kind | 624 | 0.024010% | 1 in 4,165 |
| Full house | 3,744 | 0.144058% | 1 in 694 |
| Flush | 5,108 | 0.196540% | 1 in 509 |
| Straight | 10,200 | 0.392465% | 1 in 255 |
| Three of a kind | 54,912 | 2.112845% | 1 in 47 |
| Two pair | 123,552 | 4.753902% | 1 in 21 |
| Jacks or better | 337,920 | 13.002124% | 1 in 8 |
| Low pair | 760,320 | 29.254779% | 1 in 3 |
| Nothing | 1,302,540 | 50.117739% | 1 in 2 |
What the table tells you
You are dealt nothing 50.1% of the time. Just over half of all hands arrive with no pair, no draw worth the name, and nothing that pays. That is the normal state of the game, not bad luck.
A low pair is the most common single holding at 29.3%, more frequent than a paying pair. On a Jacks or Better machine it pays nothing, and what you do with it is most of the game's strategy.
A royal on the deal is once in 649,740 hands. At a brisk 600 hands an hour that is roughly once every 1,083 hours of play, which is why the royal is chased on the draw rather than waited for on the deal.
Why the deal is only half the game
Video poker's return comes from the draw, not the deal. A hand dealt as nothing still holds high cards, three to a royal, or four to a flush, and the whole skill of the game is knowing which fragment to keep.
Our hold decisions page computes the exact value of each choice on the hands where it is genuinely hard.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How often am I dealt a royal flush?
- Four hands in 2,598,960, or once in 649,740 deals.
- How often is a video poker hand dealt with nothing?
- 50.12% of the time, which is just over half of all hands.
- What is the most common dealt hand?
- Nothing, then a low pair at 29.3%, then a paying pair at 13.0%.
- Are these numbers exact?
- Yes. They are counts from enumerating all 2,598,960 possible five-card hands, not estimates from simulation.
Hold values and hand frequencies on this page are computed by full enumeration: every one of the 2,598,960 five-card deals, and every possible draw from the 47 remaining cards. The evaluator is checked against published hand counts before any page is generated. Full-game return percentages such as 99.54% come from published optimal-play analyses and are attributed rather than derived here, because deriving them requires evaluating every hold for every deal. Pay tables vary by machine, so read the screen.