Poker Hand Probability Chart (5-Card Odds)

Here are the exact odds of every poker hand from a random five-card deal, from the 1-in-649,740 royal flush down to the coin-flip-common high card. The rankings aren’t arbitrary — each hand ranks exactly by how rare it is. There are 2,598,960 possible five-card hands, and dividing the count of each hand by that total gives you the probability below.

The complete probability chart

Odds of being dealt each hand in a five-card deal, best to worst:

Hand	Combinations	Probability	Odds (≈)
Royal flush	4	0.000154%	1 in 649,740
Straight flush (excl. royal)	36	0.00139%	1 in 72,193
Four of a kind	624	0.0240%	1 in 4,165
Full house	3,744	0.144%	1 in 694
Flush (excl. straight flush)	5,108	0.197%	1 in 509
Straight (excl. straight flush)	10,200	0.392%	1 in 255
Three of a kind	54,912	2.11%	1 in 47
Two pair	123,552	4.75%	1 in 21
One pair	1,098,240	42.3%	1 in 2.4
High card	1,302,540	50.1%	1 in 2
Total	2,598,960	100%	—

Every number is a hand count over 2,598,960. Add all the combinations and you get exactly 2,598,960 — the chart accounts for every possible deal.

Reading the chart: rarity sets the rankings

Look at the two ends. There are just 4 royal flushes but 1,302,540 high-card hands — over 325,000 times as many. That gap is precisely why the royal flush is the highest hand and high card is the lowest.

The middle tells the same story. A flush (5,108 combos) is rarer than a straight (10,200 combos) — almost exactly half as common — which is the mathematical reason a flush beats a straight. Rarity, not intuition, decides the order.

Where the numbers come from

You can derive any row with basic combinatorics. Two quick examples:

• Four of a kind: pick the rank (13 ways), take all four cards (1 way), then pick any of the remaining 48 cards as the fifth (48 ways). 13 × 48 = 624.
• Flush: pick a suit (4) and choose 5 of its 13 cards (1,287 ways) = 5,148, then subtract the 40 straight flushes = 5,108.

Divide each by 2,598,960 (the number of ways to choose 5 cards from 52) and you get the probability. The math is exact — these aren’t estimates.

A worked comparison

Say you’re deciding whether a made flush is “safe” against a possible full house. The chart gives you the intuition:

• Full house: 3,744 combos (1 in 694)
• Flush: 5,108 combos (1 in 509)

A full house is rarer than a flush, which is exactly why a full house outranks a flush. When both are possible on a board, the rarer full house wins the category — the probabilities predict the ranking every time.

What the odds mean at the table

The chart also explains why certain hands feel “big.” Roughly 92% of all deals are a pair or worse (one pair 42.3% plus high card 50.1%). So any hand of two pair or better already puts you ahead of more than nine in ten random five-card holdings. That’s why two pair, at just 1 in 21, is a genuinely strong starting point at showdown even though it sounds modest.

At the other end, everything from a straight upward — straight, flush, full house, quads, and straight flushes — together makes up under 0.8% of deals. Combined, made “big hands” are rarer than a single three of a kind. When you hold one, you’re in the top fraction of a percent of all possible hands, which is why they win large pots so consistently.

These are five-card deal odds — Hold’em differs

Important caveat: this chart is for a straight five-card deal (like five-card draw on the initial hand). In Texas Hold’em you build the best five cards from seven, so every hand gets much more likely:

• Flush: about 1 in 32 by the river (vs 1 in 509 here).
• Full house: about 1 in 37 (vs 1 in 694).
• Straight: about 1 in 21.

The order stays the same because relative rarity is preserved, but the absolute odds shift a lot. For draw-and-river math specific to Hold’em, head to the odds and math hub.

Bottom line

Every poker hand’s rank is set by its probability from a five-card deal: 4 royal flushes at one extreme, over 1.3 million high-card hands at the other. Rarer always beats common — that single rule generates the entire ladder. Explore the full order and the reasoning behind each matchup in the poker hand rankings hub, and dig into draw and pot odds in the odds and math section.