System, method and computer program products for probing a hash table by receiving a compressed input key, computing a hash value for the compressed input key and probing one or more buckets in a hash table for a match. Each bucket includes multiple chunks. For a bucket in the hash table, chunks are searched in that bucket by comparing in parallel the hash value with multiple slots in each chunk, such that if a value in a chunk equals the hash value of the compressed input key, then a match is declared and a vector is returned with a significant bit of a matching slot in the bucket set to a value. If a value stored in a chunk corresponds to an empty slot, then a mismatch is declared, and the vector is returned as the result with the significant bit of a matching empty slot set to the value.