PICKEM POKER RTP
Pickem Poker RTP and House Edge
The full-pay Pickem Poker reference returns 99.9531% under optimal play. This guide shows the exact five-credit paytable, how that return was calculated, what the 0.0469% house edge means, and how paytable changes, strategy errors, and variance affect the result.
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Quick answer
The five-credit 6000-1199-600-90-75-55-25-15-10 reference schedule returns 99.9531% with optimal choices, leaving a 0.0469% house edge. Wizard of Odds publishes this return for the stated schedule. It is a theoretical paytable return, not a promise about one session or proof that a live casino uses this schedule.
RTP and house edge formula
House edge = 100% - RTP
100% - 99.9531% = 0.0469%
RTP is calculated from gross payouts: the credits placed back on the meter, including the wager when a hand returns more than zero. Net profit or loss subtracts the original wager. For example, a five-credit wager that returns 10 credits has a gross payout of 10 and a net result of +5.
Four numbers that should not be confused
- Paytable return under optimal play: the long-run gross return produced by the stated rules, payouts, and best available choice on every deal.
- Theoretical RTP: another way to express that expected gross return; here it is 99.9531% for the reference model.
- House edge: 100% minus theoretical RTP; here it is 0.0469%.
- Realized return: the gross credits a player actually received divided by credits wagered over a particular sample. It can differ sharply from theoretical RTP.
Strategy mistakes do not alter the printed paytable, but they reduce the return the player actually earns from that table. RTP therefore does not predict what one session will return, even when every choice is correct.
Full-pay reference return
The reference is a Nines-or-Better schedule at a fixed five-credit wager. These are gross payouts; the net change after a winning hand is the displayed payout minus five credits.
| Final hand | Gross payout | Net change after five-credit wager |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Flush | 6,000 | +5,995 |
| Straight Flush | 1,199 | +1,194 |
| Four of a Kind | 600 | +595 |
| Full House | 90 | +85 |
| Flush | 75 | +70 |
| Straight | 55 | +50 |
| Three of a Kind | 25 | +20 |
| Two Pair | 15 | +10 |
| Pair of Nines or Better | 10 | +5 |
| Nonpaying hand | 0 | -5 |
Where the return comes from
The largest share comes from common hands, not only from the Royal Flush. Pair of Nines or Better, Two Pair, and Three of a Kind contribute 79.3086 percentage points together. The Royal contributes 0.3411 points despite its large payout.
| Final hand | Frequency | RTP contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Flush | 0.000284% | 0.3411 points |
| Straight Flush | 0.002601% | 0.6237 points |
| Four of a Kind | 0.042358% | 5.0830 points |
| Full House | 0.235632% | 4.2414 points |
| Flush | 0.318887% | 4.7833 points |
| Straight | 0.506554% | 5.5721 points |
| Three of a Kind | 3.001465% | 15.0073 points |
| Two Pair | 6.208766% | 18.6263 points |
| Pair of Nines or Better | 22.837509% | 45.6750 points |
Paytable comparison and expected loss
Expected loss is a theoretical long-run average, not a session forecast. At a 0.0469% house edge, 1,000 credits of total action has an expected loss of 0.469 credits, 10,000 credits of total action has an expected loss of 4.69 credits, and 100,000 credits of total action has an expected loss of 46.9 credits. At five credits per hand, 10,000 credits of total action equals 2,000 hands.
| Configuration | Displayed sequence | Reported RTP | House edge | Expected loss per 10,000 credits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Historical full-pay reference | 6000-1199-600-90-75-55-25-15-10 | 99.9531% | 0.0469% | 4.69 credits |
| Wizard higher-Royal, lower-Straight table | 10000-1199-600-90-75-50-25-15-10 | 99.6885% | 0.3115% | 31.15 credits |
| Wizard 6,000-Royal, lower-Straight table | 6000-1199-600-90-75-50-25-15-10 | 99.4466% | 0.5534% | 55.34 credits |
| Lower Full House and lower Straight table | 6000-1199-600-75-75-50-25-15-10 | 98.7397% | 1.2603% | 126.03 credits |
What the payout reductions cost
With the Royal still at 6,000, reducing the Straight from 55 to 50 removes 0.5066 percentage points of return and produces 99.4466% RTP. Reducing Full House from 90 to 75 as well removes another 0.7069 points, producing 98.7397% RTP. The 10,000-Royal/50-Straight table returns 99.6885%: its larger Royal partly offsets the lower Straight, but does not fully recover the reference return. These differences compare the published returns of the stated schedules; they are not a new exhaustive calculation of optimal choices.
Five credits and the max-coin effect
Every figure on this page uses the displayed five-credit column. The 6,000-credit Royal is therefore already a max-coin payout. This page does not invent a one- through four-credit schedule or assume that a live game scales every row proportionally. If you wager fewer than five credits, inspect each active column and recalculate the return; the 99.9531% figure cannot be carried over automatically.
Strategy error cost
A single close choice can matter. If one stack choice has an expected value of 5.7092 credits and the other has 5.4734 credits, the difference is 0.2358 credits. Repeating that mistake 100 times would cost about 23.58 credits in theoretical value. Actual short-term results can still swing above or below that because the final hands are variable.
Hit frequency and variance
The published distribution gives an overall hit frequency of 33.1541%, or one paying hand every 3.016 hands on average. A Royal Flush occurs in 5,208 of 1,832,266,800 modeled outcomes, approximately 1 in 351,818 hands. The standard deviation is 3.8737 wager units, or about 19.37 credits at a five-credit wager. These are long-run distribution measures, not a schedule of when wins will occur. The odds guide provides the full outcome table and short-session examples.
Realized return versus theoretical RTP
Realized return is what happened in your own sample. Theoretical RTP is what the paytable and strategy imply over a very large number of hands. A player can run above 100% for a while, below the published return for a long while, or miss rare hands entirely in a short sample.
Bonus and casino caution
RTP is not the same as bonus value. A casino bonus can exclude video poker, reduce its wagering contribution, cap winnings, or require play on other games. PickemPoker.com verified the RTG Pickem Poker game in the LasVegasUSA lobby on July 16, 2026, but that verification does not establish the active paytable for every account or guarantee future library availability. Check the live paytable, regional eligibility, banking terms, and bonus rules before wagering.
Sources and Methodology
Published reference: historical RTP, house-edge, and reduced-schedule figures were checked against Wizard of Odds Pick ’em Poker return tables, Beating Bonuses Pickem Poker reference and calculator context, and Henry Tamburin’s Pick ’Em Poker explanation where the historical five-credit table and Royal frequency are discussed.
PickemPoker.com calculation: the published full-pay counts total 1,832,266,800 outcomes. From those counts and payouts we calculate percentages, return contributions, hit frequency, Royal frequency, variance and standard deviation. Expected-loss examples use the rounded published house edges. Reduced-table returns are attributed to the published references; no new exhaustive enumeration is claimed here.
Precision policy: displayed percentages are rounded. They should not be inverted or combined as if the rounded value were exact. No exact lower-coin return, session-return promise, or strategy-error rate is stated without a defined model.
Live status: historical math does not prove that a current casino uses the same paytable. Verify the game and payout column you are actually playing.