Deuces Wild and Joker Poker

Explore Deuces Wild and Joker Poker in Canada. Compare full-pay, NSUD, and Loose Deuces pay tables, exact returns, and wild holds.

Add wild cards to video poker and the game changes shape. Strong hands turn up all the time, the lowest paying hand rises, and the habits that work in Jacks or Better start to cost money. Below you will find Deuces Wild in three pay tables, then Joker Poker, each with exact returns, swings and worked hands, plus a short note on the other wild-card versions you may meet.

How Wild Cards Rewrite the Rules

A wild card stands in for whichever card gives the best hand. In Deuces Wild every 2 is wild, which turns a pair plus a deuce into three of a kind and four suited cards plus a deuce into a flush. New rows appear on the pay table for hands that only wild cards can make: five of a kind, the wild royal flush (a royal that includes at least one deuce) and four deuces.

Because strong hands arrive so often, the pay table starts at three of a kind. Anything lower, including two pair, pays nothing.

Deuces Wild Pay Tables: Full Pay, NSUD, and Loose Deuces

Three pay tables dominate Deuces Wild. They are laid out below per coin bet, from the lowest paying hand at the top to the natural royal flush, with the return and the swing at the end.

Full pay is the reference table. NSUD, short for Not So Ugly Ducks, pays more for a flush and a full house but trims four of a kind from 5 to 4, and it returns 1.03 percentage points less. Loose Deuces pays 500 for four deuces and a little more for five of a kind and a straight flush, financed by four of a kind falling to 4. That gives it the highest return, 101.60%, and by far the largest swing. A full-pay game cannot be assumed, so identify the table before you play.

Two Deuces Wild Hands That Surprise Players

Take Q♥ Q♦ 7♣ 4♥ 2♠. Keeping the deuce and the two queens already gives three of a kind, worth 1, and the two replacement cards come from the 47 you cannot see. They end up like this:

• 74.1% of the time nothing improves, and the hand pays 1.
• 5.6% of the time you make a full house and are paid 3.
• 19.4% of the time you make four of a kind, paying 5.
• 0.9% of the time you make five of a kind, paying 15.

Averaged out, the hold is worth 2.02 per coin bet. Adding the 4 as a fourth card lowers that to 1.55, and the deuce alone is worth just 1.04.

The second hand goes against instinct. With K♠ 9♠ 9♥ 5♦ 5♣ and no deuce, two pair feels like a keeper, yet it pays nothing in this game. Holding both pairs leaves eight cards among the 47 unseen that complete a full house paying 3: the two remaining nines, the two remaining fives and the four deuces. That is a 17.0% chance and a value of 0.51, while keeping a single pair and drawing three cards is worth 0.56. The right play is to break up the two pair.

Habits from other games get expensive here. The best Jacks or Better holds, applied to full-pay Deuces Wild, return 61.71% instead of 100.76%, and the two charts pick different holds in 58% of deals.

What Each Hand Contributes in Full-Pay Deuces Wild

Here is the full distribution of final hands in full-pay Deuces Wild when every deal is held correctly. Because straights and flushes pay the same 2, they sit on one row.

Four of a kind is the workhorse. It appears in 6.5% of hands, about one in 15, a rate more than 25 times higher than in Jacks or Better, and it supplies 32.47% of the return, more than any other hand. Three of a kind adds 28.45%. The natural royal flush is a rarity, about one hand in 45,282, and adds just 1.77%.

Joker Poker: Fifty-Three Cards, One Wild

A single joker joins the 52 cards, so the deck has 53, and it can stand in for any card. That opens a row for five of a kind. Kings or Better is the usual table: it pays from a pair of kings, and its full-pay version returns 100.65%. About 9.4% of deals include the joker among the first five cards. The distribution of final hands follows, per coin bet.

The joker changes the hold. Dealt 8♠ 8♦ 5♥ 2♦ Joker, keep the two eights and the joker: they already make three of a kind, which pays 2, and the draw of two cards adds a full house 5.9% of the time, four of a kind 8.2% of the time and five of a kind 0.09% of the time. The hold is worth 3.94 per coin bet, and keeping the 5 as well lowers it to 3.06. A royal flush built with the joker pays only 100, not 800, because it counts as a wild royal flush.

Other Wild-Card Versions Worth Knowing

Two more wild-card games are worth knowing by name. Double Joker adds two jokers to the 52-card deck, and Deuces and Joker Wild makes the four deuces and one joker wild, which gives five wild cards in a 53-card deck. Each has its own pay table, its own best holds and its own return, so the rules of thumb for Deuces Wild or Joker Poker do not carry over. Before you try a version that is new to you, find its published pay table and strategy and check that the table on the screen matches it.

Wild-Card Games Side by Side

Three of the four tables return more than 100%, and that does not make them a reliable earner. At C$1 a hand and 720 hands an hour, full-pay Deuces Wild has an expected gain of C$5.49 an hour. Yet the chance of ending a 720-hand hour ahead is 35%, and the median hour loses C$27, because the average leans on rare large hands that most hours never see.

For contrast, the NSUD table, which returns 99.73%, is expected to cost C$1.96 an hour at the same stake. Our guide to hours, swings and budgets shows how far a real hour can wander from either figure.

Keep Exploring the Video Poker Series

The remaining seven guides in the series are listed below. You can also go back to the complete list of video poker guides at any time.

• how to play video poker online: the deal, the hold and the draw followed through one complete hand, with an hour priced in Canadian dollars.
• the pay table reading guide: two numbers on the screen that separate a full-pay game from a short-pay one.
• Bonus Poker, Double Bonus, and Aces and Faces: how a bigger prize for four of a kind reshapes a game.
• the guide to multi-line video poker: lines from three to a hundred, and how far one deal can swing.
• how video poker returns are measured: perfect-play RTP, the royal flush share and the chance of finishing ahead.
• video poker strategy and mistakes: the order of holds, the price of each slip and the limits of strategy.
• how Canadian regulators oversee video poker: AGCO standards, provincial platforms and what gets tested.

Generous Tables Still Come With Swings

Wild cards make strong hands common and some tables generous, but they enlarge the swings and make errors dearer. This is still entertainment you pay for. Even when a table returns more than 100% over the long run, the typical hour can end in a loss, so the cost of play is real, and no game or strategy guarantees a profit. Decide your budget first and rely on the tools described on our responsible gambling page to keep to it.

Author:

Lucas Portela

Owner, BoldGambler • Avanhandava/SP

Oddsmaker, affiliate and content creator in the iGaming industry.

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