Ultimate Texas Holdem Payout: Blind and Trips Pay Tables

Ultimate Texas Hold'em settles four wagers, and only two of them pay a flat rate. The Ante and the Play pay even money; the Blind and the optional Trips bet pay from posted tables, with the Blind reaching 500 to 1 and Trips 50 to 1 on a royal flush under the Massachusetts rules. The Trips table a casino chooses matters more than any single line on it, because the published variants move the house edge on that bet from under 1 percent to more than 6 percent.

What follows catalogues each Ultimate Texas Holdem payout as the regulators print it. The rules of play themselves, from the deal to the decision points, sit in the shelf's main entry on Ultimate Texas Holdem poker rules; this page keeps to the money, alongside the rest of the Texas Hold'em shelf.

Which wagers pay even money and which pay from a table?

The Ante and Play pay 1 to 1; the Blind and Trips pay by hand rank from a posted schedule. New Jersey's gaming rules state the first part plainly: the casino must pay winning ante and play wagers at even odds (rule text as of June 2025).

The two table-driven wagers behave differently. The Blind pays on the strength of the player's hand and pushes on anything weaker than a straight. Trips is a side bet placed before the deal, and Massachusetts specifies that it is paid from the posted table regardless of how the player's hand fares against the dealer's.

What does the Blind pay?

The Blind pays on a straight or better and pushes on everything below it. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission's rules, dated September 2021, list the Blind schedule hand by hand:

The flush line is the one fractional payout in the game: a $10 Blind on a flush returns $15 in winnings. How rarely the top rows arrive is a matter of counting combinations, a method set out in the entry on the probability of poker hands.

What does the Trips bet pay across the four regulator tables?

Trips pays on three of a kind or better, and the casino picks which of several approved tables applies. New Jersey requires the casino to pay Trips at no less than the odds of the alternative pay table it pre-selected, so the schedule is a house choice within regulated bounds rather than a single fixed list.

Massachusetts prints four Trips tables, labelled A to D. All four pay 50 to 1 on a royal flush, 40 to 1 on a straight flush and 3 to 1 on three of a kind. They part company only in the middle rows:

Tables B and D trade a richer straight for a leaner flush or full house; Table A is the most generous on the full house and flush together.

How does the Trips pay table move the house edge?

The middle rows decide the edge on Trips, not the headline royal flush. PokerNews observes that small differences mid-table change a lot, and puts numbers to it: a table paying 30, 9, 7 and 4 on four of a kind, full house, flush and straight (Table A above) leaves the house under 1 percent, while one paying 20, 7, 6 and 5 (Table D) gives the house a more than 6 percent advantage.

That spread dwarfs the base game. Played correctly, PokerNews puts the base game's edge near 2 percent, so a Trips bet on the weakest table costs the player roughly three times as much per dollar as the main hand, while the best table costs less than the main hand does. Reading the posted table before placing Trips is the single most useful habit at this game. Related arithmetic for other games is kept on the poker odds shelf.

Is there a cap on what one hand can pay?

Yes: both New Jersey and Massachusetts cap the combined payout on one hand. New Jersey sets the aggregate limit across all four wagers at $50,000 or the most one patron could win per round betting the minimum, whichever is greater (rule text as of June 2025). Massachusetts carries the same $50,000 aggregate cap in its rules dated September 2021.

The cap is written across the Ante, Play, Blind and Trips together, so a large Blind and a large Trips win on the same royal flush count toward one ceiling rather than two.

From the reference desk

Is a 3 of a kind better than a full house?

No. A full house outranks three of a kind, and the tables reflect it: Trips pays 7 to 1 to 9 to 1 on a full house against 3 to 1 on three of a kind, and the Blind pays 3 to 1 on a full house while three of a kind only pushes.

What does a royal flush pay in Ultimate Texas Hold'em?

Under the Massachusetts rules a royal flush pays 500 to 1 on the Blind and 50 to 1 on Trips, on every one of the four Trips tables. The Ante and Play pay even money on any winning hand.

Which Trips pay table should a player look for?

The one with the strongest middle rows. A table paying 30 to 1, 9 to 1, 7 to 1 and 4 to 1 on four of a kind, full house, flush and straight gives the house under 1 percent according to PokerNews; the 20, 7, 6, 5 version gives it more than 6 percent.

Bibliography

• New Jersey Administrative Code (Division of Gaming Enforcement rules, via Justia), N.J.A.C. 13:69F-32.11 Payout odds (Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em), register of June 16, 2025.
• Massachusetts Gaming Commission, Ultimate Texas Hold'Em Rules, September 23, 2021.
• PokerNews, Ultimate Texas Holdem Poker Strategy: How to Play & Win?, undated, accessed October 30, 2026.