Paytables are the instruction manuals of casino games, yet most players skim them or skip them entirely. That’s a costly habit. A paytable tells you exactly what every symbol, hand, or outcome is worth, and it often reveals the house edge you’re up against. Learning to read one properly takes minutes and can save you hundreds of dollars over a year of play. Whether you’re spinning pokies in Sydney or playing blackjack online, the same core principles apply across every game format available to Australian players. Read more about this at Gamdom.
The Basic Structure of a Paytable
Every paytable lists outcomes on one side and payout amounts on the other. In pokies, this means matching three, four, or five symbols across a payline. For table games like video poker, it’s a ranked list of hands from a royal flush down to a pair of jacks. The layout varies, but the logic never does: find your result, read the number beside it.
Payouts are usually expressed as multipliers of your bet or fixed credit amounts. A symbol paying “50” on a $1 bet returns $50, not $50 per credit. Always check whether the table shows credits or dollars, because this trips up plenty of newcomers.
Some paytables split into base game and bonus sections. The base section covers standard wins, while the bonus section explains free spins, multipliers, or pick-and-win features. Read both before you commit real money.
You’ll also notice that low-paying symbols cluster at the bottom and premium symbols sit at the top. That hierarchy tells you which combinations to hope for and which are just filler.
Reading Pokies Paytables for Real Value
Pokies dominate Australian gambling, accounting for roughly 75% of all casino expenditure nationally according to long-running industry data. That makes paytable literacy essential here. Start with the return-to-player (RTP) figure, usually displayed in the game’s help screen. A pokie with 96% RTP returns $96 for every $100 wagered over millions of spins , the remaining 4% is the house edge.
Next, compare symbol values. If the top symbol pays 500x your line bet and the next pays 100x, most of the game’s volatility sits with that single symbol. High volatility means rare but large wins; low volatility means frequent, smaller returns.
Payline count matters too. A 243-ways pokie pays for matching symbols in any position across adjacent reels, while a 20-payline game requires exact line matches. More ways generally means smaller individual payouts.
Look for wild and scatter explanations. Wilds typically substitute for all symbols except scatters, and scatters usually trigger free spins. Their payout values are often listed separately.
Finally, check whether wins pay left to right only or both directions. This single detail can double your hit frequency on certain titles.
Table Games and Video Poker Paytables
Table game paytables work differently but follow the same principle. In blackjack, a 3:2 payout on a natural blackjack beats 6:5 every time. That difference sounds small, but on a $100 bet it’s $150 versus $120 , a 30% swing on your best hand.
Roulette paytables are fixed by rule. A straight-up number pays 35:1, a split pays 17:1, and even-money bets pay 1:1. Knowing these ratios lets you calculate exactly what each chip placement returns.
Video poker is where paytable reading separates winners from casual players. A Jacks or Better machine paying 9 credits for a full house and 6 for a flush (known as a 9/6 machine) returns 99.5% RTP. The same machine paying 8/5 drops to around 97.3%. That 2.2% gap is enormous over thousands of hands.
Baccarat paytables are simple: the banker bet pays 0.95:1 after commission, the player bet pays 1:1, and the tie bet pays 8:1 or 9:1 depending on the table.
Before you sit down at any table or load any game, spend sixty seconds scanning the paytable. That minute is the highest-value minute in your entire session.
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