How to play
Aces and Eights is draw poker against a fixed pay table. There’s no dealer to beat and no opponent: if your final five cards make a hand listed on the table, you’re paid.
You start with 1,000 virtual credits. Choose a stake of 1 to 5 credits with Bet one, which steps the bet up and wraps back to 1 after 5, then press Deal. Bet max skips that and deals at 5 credits right away. Tap any card to mark it Held, tap again to release it, and press Draw. The cards you didn’t hold are replaced from the rest of the same 52-card deck, and a fresh shuffle comes with every new hand.
If you’re unsure what to keep, Hint plays a short optional ad and then marks the hold with the highest expected value. It isn’t a rule of thumb: the game checks all 32 ways to hold your five cards against every possible draw. Run out of credits and you can claim another 1,000 for free.
The name comes from the old “dead man’s hand” of poker folklore, but here it simply tells you which quads matter.
Pay table
Payouts below are per credit. A 5-credit bet multiplies everything by five, except the royal flush, which jumps to 4,000.
| Hand | Pays | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Flush | 250 | 4,000 at 5 credits |
| Straight Flush | 50 | |
| Four Aces or four Eights | 80 | the namesake bonus |
| Four Sevens | 50 | a smaller second bonus |
| Any other four of a kind | 25 | same as Jacks or Better |
| Full House | 8 | one less than the 9/6 table |
| Flush | 5 | one less than the 9/6 table |
| Straight | 4 | |
| Three of a Kind | 3 | |
| Two Pair | 2 | still pays double here |
| Jacks or Better | 1 | pair of J, Q, K or A |
So it’s a Jacks or Better game that has moved money from the full house and flush up into three ranks of quads. Eights are an odd choice for a bonus, since an 8 is a low card that never makes a paying pair on its own, and that’s what gives the game its own flavour.
The numbers
Played perfectly at 5 credits, this table returns 99.78% of what you bet. That figure comes from an exact count over every possible deal and every hold, not from a simulation. The remaining 0.22% is the house edge, and no betting pattern changes it.
A few frequencies under best play, from the same exact count:
- Four Aces or four Eights: about once every 2,686 hands.
- Royal flush: about once every 40,000 hands.
- Any paying hand: about 45.5% of hands.
That’s why sessions feel like the ones you’d have at Jacks or Better: mostly small pays and pushes, with the occasional quad lifting the balance.
Strategy
The bonus for Eights is the trap. Players tend to fall in love with a pair of 8s, but a pair of 8s pays nothing on its own, so the usual low-pair rules still hold. Three cases checked against the game’s own hold calculator:
8♣ 8♦ 3♣ 6♣ K♣. Keep the four clubs and throw the second 8. The flush draw is worth about 1.02 credits per credit bet; the pair of 8s about 0.97. Close, but the flush wins, exactly as it would on a 9/6 Jacks table.
A♣ A♦ 8♥ 8♠ K♣. Keep both pairs. Two pair pays 2 here, and holding all four cards is worth roughly 2.51 against 1.68 for the Aces alone. Games where two pair pays only 1 can flip this decision; this one doesn’t.
8♣ 8♦ 8♥ 5♠ K♣. Keep the three 8s and draw two. Never hold a kicker with trips in this game: the extra draws for the fourth 8 (worth 80) and the full house add up to far more.
For hands with no pair, lean on high cards. With A-K of mixed suits and junk, keep both rather than the Ace alone; the difference is small, but it adds up over thousands of hands. And bet 5 credits whenever you can, because the royal pays 800 per credit only at max bet.
If you enjoy Aces and Eights, try Aces and Faces or Acey Deucey next.
