Bonus Poker at Springbok: four aces, an odd row and how to hold

The deal is the same five-card draw as Jacks or Better: set a coin value and 1 to 5 coins, take five cards from a natural deck, keep what you want and draw once. The hand selector offered a single hand per deal when this table was read, so Springbok's Bonus Poker is strictly single-hand play. Lobby reading · 9 Oct 2026 (opens the source)

What changes is the reward for four of a kind. Plain Jacks or Better pays every quad at one rate. This machine rewards the ranks at the two ends of the deck: Aces return the most, 2s, 3s and 4s come second, and the middle ranks take the base quad payout, which the game's help page describes as four 5s through Kings.

A winning hand can go straight to your balance or into the Double or Nothing round, where your pick has to beat the dealer's card to double the win and a lower card loses it. It is an extra all-or-nothing bet with its own rule, best decided before the session rather than after a big hand.

The Wizard of Odds publishes a detailed strategy for the Bonus Poker table described above, with a ranked list, exceptions and worked conflict hands. Springbok's straight flush and four-aces rows return a little less than that table, so the chart is a close guide rather than an exact fit. Applied hand after hand, it shaves the house edge; it never wipes it out.

Most of it reads like Jacks or Better, which makes this a gentle step up from the plain game:

• Dealt quads, straight flushes and royals stay as they are. Next is four to a royal, which outranks a dealt flush or straight.
• Two pair stays two pair. The chart keeps both pairs, even when three of the cards are also three to a royal.
• Three of a kind is held alone. Draw two cards; three aces get no kicker either.
• A high pair beats three to a royal, and three to a royal beats four to a flush.
• An unsuited King, Queen, Jack and 10 outrank a low pair. This is one of the places the detailed chart reads differently from the short Jacks list, as in the hand beside this section.
• With nothing made: the list works down through suited high cards, straight flush draws and unsuited groups of high cards. A lone Ace ranks above a lone King, Queen or Jack, and redrawing all five is the last line.

The exceptions on the source page mostly concern hands with two or three loose high cards and partial straight flush draws. They are worth reading once the main order is second nature, and they matter less than never breaking two pair or keeping a kicker. For how the families compare, see the strategy basics guide, and for the plain version of this game, Jacks or Better at Springbok.

The royal is the only row on this table that grows faster than the bet: 250 coins at 1 coin, 4,000 at 5. Every other row, the four-aces line included, scales evenly with the coins. So the case for five coins rests on the royal alone, and a smaller coin value keeps that royal in reach for the same cost per hand as a single coin at a bigger value.

Bonus Poker plays in the mobile lobby: its table was read on the mobile client, and the desktop lobby showed a Flash-retirement notice on 9 October 2026 saying the video poker games remain available on mobile. Its Try It! mode lets you rehearse the holds with play credit first. Springbok says the practice credit is not replenished, so spend it learning the four-aces decisions rather than passing time. Springbok's claim · 9 Oct 2026 (opens the source)

Fix your session budget before the first deal, and keep to it whatever the quads do. If you notice you are chasing four aces, step away and talk to someone: NRGP counsellors answer on 0800 006 008 at no cost.