Aces and Eights Video Poker Explained

What this guide covers

Aces and Eights is another member of the Bonus family built around boosting specific four-of-a-kind hands, but it picks a different set of ranks to reward than its closest relatives. This guide covers exactly which quads get bonus treatment, how that compares to Double Bonus Poker and Aces and Faces, and what it means at a strategic level without walking through a full hold-by-hold chart. For the game this variant is most often compared to, see Double Bonus Poker explained; for a full ranking of variants by return, see best video poker games ranked by RTP.

The defining feature: two separate bonus tiers

Aces and Eights uses the standard 52-card deck and the familiar Jacks-or-better qualifying hand, same as the rest of the Bonus family. What sets it apart is which four-of-a-kind hands get bonus payouts. Rather than concentrating the entire bonus on Aces the way Double Bonus Poker does, Aces and Eights pays elevated, separate bonus tiers for two distinct groups:

• Four Aces, which gets its own boosted payout tier, similar in spirit to what Double Bonus and Bonus Poker do.
• Four 7s or four 8s, which get their own separate, also-boosted payout tier — a bonus structure Double Bonus Poker doesn't offer at all.

This two-pronged structure is the entire identity of the game. It's not simply "Double Bonus with a different name" — it's a genuinely different allocation of where the bonus value sits on the pay table.

How this differs from Double Bonus Poker

Double Bonus Poker, covered in detail elsewhere in this series, puts almost all of its bonus emphasis on four Aces specifically, with a much smaller or nonexistent bump for other quad ranks. Aces and Eights spreads that bonus emphasis across two separate rank groups instead of concentrating it entirely on one. The practical result is a pay table where hitting quad 7s or quad 8s feels meaningfully rewarding in its own right, not just as a consolation compared to the "real" bonus hand of quad Aces.

This changes the shape of the game's variance profile slightly compared to Double Bonus: because there are effectively two separate "big win" categories to hit instead of one, the largest payouts are a bit less concentrated into a single rank, even though the overall variance is still elevated compared to plain Jacks or Better or Bonus Poker.

How this differs from Aces and Faces

Aces and Faces is a related sibling variant that also boosts four Aces specifically, but pairs that with a bonus for four-of-a-kind hands made of face cards (Jacks, Queens, Kings) rather than 7s and 8s. Comparing the three side by side makes the family logic clearer:

• Double Bonus Poker — boosts Aces heavily, with little separate emphasis elsewhere.
• Aces and Eights — boosts Aces, plus a separate tier for 7s and 8s specifically.
• Aces and Faces — boosts Aces, plus a separate tier for the face-card quads (Jacks, Queens, Kings).

All three start from the same basic Bonus-family logic — reward specific quad ranks more than others, fund it by trimming elsewhere — but each picks a different second group of ranks to single out alongside Aces. Understanding one makes the logic of the other two much easier to follow. For the detailed strategy differences that follow from Aces and Faces's specific structure, see the Aces and Faces strategy guide.

What this means for how the game plays

Without walking through a full strategy chart, the high-level effect on decision-making is straightforward: drawing toward three-of-a-kind in Aces, 7s, or 8s carries slightly more value in Aces and Eights than drawing toward three-of-a-kind in an unrelated rank, since only those specific ranks lead to a boosted four-of-a-kind payout if the draw connects. That's a modest tilt in a hand-selection decision that would otherwise be closer to a coin flip in plain Jacks or Better, where all four-of-a-kind ranks pay identically regardless of which rank you're holding.

This tilt is smaller and more distributed than the Ace-specific tilt in Double Bonus Poker, since two additional ranks (7s and 8s) share meaningfully in the bonus structure rather than a single rank absorbing nearly all of it.

Where it sits on variance

Aces and Eights carries higher variance than plain Jacks or Better and Bonus Poker, for the same underlying reason every Bonus-family game does: value is pulled away from common mid-tier hands and concentrated into rarer quad hands. Compared to Double Bonus Poker specifically, the variance profile is broadly similar in magnitude but shaped a little differently, since the bonus value is split across two rank groups rather than piled almost entirely onto Aces alone. Neither structure is objectively better — they simply produce a slightly different distribution of where the big hits land.

Who Aces and Eights suits

This is a good fit for players who already enjoy the Bonus family's basic trade-off — bigger quads, smaller everyday hands — and specifically like the idea of two separate quad categories to watch for rather than one. It's a reasonable lateral move for someone who's played Double Bonus Poker and wants a similar variance experience with a different flavor, rather than a bigger step up or down in intensity.

Frequently asked questions

Which four-of-a-kind hands get bonus payouts in Aces and Eights? Four Aces get their own boosted tier, and four 7s or four 8s share a separate boosted tier — two distinct bonus categories rather than one.

How is this different from Double Bonus Poker? Double Bonus concentrates its bonus almost entirely on four Aces; Aces and Eights spreads bonus value across Aces and a second group (7s and 8s).

How is this different from Aces and Faces? Aces and Faces pairs its Aces bonus with a separate tier for face-card quads (Jacks, Queens, Kings) instead of 7s and 8s.

Does Aces and Eights change basic hand rankings? No — hand rankings stay the same as Jacks or Better. Only the payout size for specific four-of-a-kind ranks changes.