A royal flush is the highest straight flush in poker, so every royal flush is a straight flush. But only one straight flush in ten is a royal. Both hands are five cards in sequence and in matching suits. The difference is where they sit on the scale, and the odds of hitting each one are very different.
What Is a Straight Flush?
A straight flush is five cards in a row, all in the same suit, like 7♦️8♦️9♦️10♦️J♦️. It beats four of a kind and everything beneath it in the poker hand rankings, and the only thing that beats it is a higher straight flush.
The lowest one you can make is A-2-3-4-5 in one suit, known as the steel wheel, where the ace counts as a one. The ace can play at either end of a straight flush, but it can't wrap around, so Q-K-A-2-3 isn't a hand.
Royal Flush: The Hand Nothing Beats
A royal flush is A-K-Q-J-10 in a single suit. There's no separate rule that makes it special. It's simply the top end of the straight flush scale, and that's why nothing can beat it.
Exactly four exist in a 52-card deck, one per suit. Make one using at least one hole card and the pot is yours.
How Do the Odds Compare?
Dealt five cards from a fresh deck, the gap between the two hands is enormous. In Hold'em you get to make your best five from seven, which shortens the odds across the board:
- Royal flush, five cards: 4 hands in 2,598,960, or about 1 in 649,740
- Straight flush (excluding royals), five cards: 36 hands, or about 1 in 72,193
- Royal flush, seven cards: roughly 1 in 30,940
- Straight flush (excluding royals), seven cards: roughly 1 in 3,591
So a non-royal straight flush turns up around nine times more often than a royal. If you want to see how those numbers are built, the maths behind poker hands probability works the same way for every hand on the chart.
Who Wins When Two Players Have a Straight Flush?
Two straight flushes are settled by the top card. A 9-high straight flush loses to a 10-high straight flush, and suits never break a tie in Texas Hold'em.
Two players can't hold separate royal flushes in the same deal, because there's only one of each suit. The only way a royal gets shared is when all five cards are sitting on the board, in which case everyone still in the hand splits the pot. A board straight flush works the same way unless someone's hole card extends it.
Famous Hands and Bad Beat Jackpots
The best-known royal flush in televised poker came at the 2008 WSOP Main Event, where Motoyuki Mabuchi made four aces and still lost the pot to Justin Phillips. It remains the benchmark for a hand that nobody could have folded. You'll find it alongside other showdowns of that size in our round-up of famous poker hands in history.
Hands like that are also what bad beat jackpots exist for. Most live rooms pool a small amount from each pot and pay it out when a very strong hand loses, with the losing hand typically needing to be aces full or better, beaten by four of a kind or better, and both hole cards required to play. Thresholds vary from room to room, so check the posted rules before you count on one. Our piece on the bad beat jackpot royal flush covers how those payouts tend to be split.
Key Takeaways
- A royal flush is just the highest possible straight flush, A-K-Q-J-10 in one suit.
- A straight flush is any five suited cards in sequence, with A-2-3-4-5 the lowest.
- Only a higher straight flush beats a straight flush, and nothing beats a royal.
- In Hold'em, a royal comes around once in roughly 30,940 hands, a straight flush once in about 3,591.
- Two straight flushes are settled by the highest card, and a royal on the board splits the pot.
