Wild-Card Video Poker: Deuces Wild and Joker Poker

Learn how wild cards change video poker. Compare Deuces Wild and Joker Poker pay tables, odds, returns, and key card-holding decisions.

Wild cards turn video poker upside down. Strong hands arrive all the time, the lowest paying hand climbs to three of a kind and the instincts built on Jacks or Better start to lose money. This guide covers Deuces Wild in its three best-known tables and Joker Poker in its most common one, with exact returns, hands where the right hold surprises and a final table that ranks the wild-card games side by side.

What a Wild Card Does to the Pay Table

A wild card takes the identity of whichever card makes the best hand. In Deuces Wild all four 2s are wild, so a deuce beside a pair is three of a kind, and a deuce beside four suited cards is a flush. New rows appear for hands that cannot exist without a wild card: four deuces, five of a kind and the wild royal flush, which is a royal containing at least one deuce.

With so many hands qualifying, the table starts at three of a kind, and two pair pays nothing. Strategy starts with a count of the deuces in your hand, because that number decides which holds are on the menu at all.

Three Deuces Wild Tables Compared

Three pay tables account for nearly every Deuces Wild game. The table reads from the top prize down, per coin on a five-coin bet, and closes with each table’s return, swing and share of hands that pay.

NSUD stands for Not So Ugly Ducks. It pays more for the flush and the full house, pays less for four of a kind and gives up 1.03 percentage points of return against full pay. Loose Deuces lifts four deuces to 500, adds a little to five of a kind and the straight flush, and pays for it with four of a kind at 4. That gives it the highest return of the three, 101.60%, and by far the highest swing. Only the screen tells you which table you are playing, so read it before the first deal.

A Lone Deuce Beats a Deuce With Three Hearts

Take K♥ 9♣ 8♥ 4♥ 2♥. A deuce and three hearts look like a flush waiting to happen, since any heart completes it, and the instinct is to keep all four. The exact values disagree.

Keeping the deuce alone and drawing four cards gives you the most chances at the hands that matter in this game, three and four of a kind, because every pair or trio that arrives is lifted by the wild card. The flush draw needs one of the nine hearts, or one of the three other deuces, among the 47 cards you cannot see, and the flush pays only 2 in two of the three tables. Even NSUD, whose flush pays 3, still leaves the draw 0.05 of a coin behind.

Deuce With Company: Two Holds Worth Memorising

A deuce joined by cards that fit together is a different animal. In both deals below the best hold keeps the wild card and the cards that work with it.

In the first deal the deuce and three consecutive spades are four cards to a straight flush with four cards (9♠ 8♠ 4♠ 3♠) that complete it. In the second, the deuce turns a three-card royal draw into four cards to a wild royal flush, and the deuce alone is worth only 1.04.

Made Hands That Still Deserve a Draw

Deuces Wild makes made hands look more final than they are. Each of the deals below pays something as dealt, and in each one the best hold throws cards away.

The four of a kind in the middle row is the subtle one. Two deuces and a pair of 7s already pay 5, and the 9 adds nothing, so it is a dead card. Throwing it away and drawing one card keeps the 5 and gives four of the 47 unseen cards, the two other 7s and the two other deuces, the power to turn the hand into five of a kind, which pays 15.

The third row works for a similar reason. Three deuces make four of a kind, and two cards drawn from 47 include the last deuce 4.3% of the time. In full pay that hand is four deuces and pays 200. Holding on to the 5 or the 9 as well spoils it, since the hold then draws one card and is worth 10.47 or 10.38.

Where the Return Comes From in Full-Pay Deuces Wild

The table shows how the full-pay return is made up when every hand is held correctly. Straights and flushes pay the same 2, so they share a row.

Four of a kind carries the most weight. It arrives about once in 15 hands and contributes 32.47 percentage points, ahead of every other hand. Three of a kind contributes 28.45 percentage points. The natural royal flush comes about once in 45,282 hands and four deuces about once in 4,909, and between them they supply 1.77 percentage points and 4.07 percentage points.

Joker Poker: A 53-Card Deck With One Wild Card

Joker Poker adds one joker to the 52 cards. The joker is wild, five of a kind becomes possible and Kings or Better is the usual version, which starts paying at a pair of kings. The full-pay 20/7/5 table (four of a kind 20, full house 7, flush 5) returns 100.65%, with 44.4% of hands paying and a swing of 5.1 bets. The joker is among the first five cards in about 9.4% of deals.

The joker changes what a pair is worth. Dealt J♠ J♥ 8♦ 3♣ Joker, a pair of jacks pays nothing in Kings or Better, but with the joker the same cards are three jacks, which pays 2. Keeping the two jacks and the joker and drawing two cards is worth 3.94 per coin bet, adding the 8 lowers that to 3.06 and standing pat is worth 2.00.

Wild cards also make draws more valuable. Dealt K♦ 10♠ 9♠ 8♠ Joker, the joker and three suited cards in a row are four to a straight flush, worth 6.02, while the king and the joker together are worth only 1.70. And a royal flush made with the joker pays 100 in this table, not the 800 of a natural royal.

Other Wild-Card Games in the Lobby

Two more wild-card games turn up often enough to be worth naming. Double Joker puts two jokers in with the 52 cards, while Deuces and Joker Wild keeps the four deuces wild and adds a joker, so five of the 53 cards are wild. Every one of these games has a pay table, a set of best holds and a return of its own, which means habits formed on either of the games above do not transfer. Find the published pay table and strategy for the exact game before you play, and check that the screen matches.

The Wild-Card Games Ranked by Return

Three of the four tables return more than 100%, but that is no promise of income. At £1 a hand, full-pay Deuces Wild is expected to gain £4.57 in 600 hands. Yet the chance of finishing such an hour ahead is 34%, and the middle hour loses £24, since a few large, rare hands carry the average and most hours miss them.

Chart habits matter more here than almost anywhere. Play full-pay Deuces Wild with the Jacks or Better chart and the return falls to 61.71%, against 100.76% with the right holds, a gap that our guide to the costliest holds prices in pounds.

Where to Go After the Wild Cards

The remaining seven guides are listed below, and the video poker hub gathers all eight in one place:

• how to play video poker in the UK: bet, deal, hold and draw followed through one real hand, with an hour priced in pounds.
• how to read a pay table: which rows set the price of a game and where its return comes from.
• Bonus Poker and Double Bonus compared: return, hit rate and swing for each well-known table.
• the multi-hand video poker guide: three to a hundred hands from a single deal, priced in pounds.
• how video poker returns are worked out: house edge, the royal flush share and how to size a stake.
• strategy and common mistakes in video poker: a ranked order of holds, deals where instinct fails and what each slip costs.
• how the Gambling Commission oversees casino games: licensing, technical standards, complaints and the checks to make before a deposit.

Generous on Paper, Rough in Practice

Wild cards put strong hands within easy reach and a few tables return more than they take, yet the swings grow and mistakes cost more. This is still entertainment with a cost. Even a table above 100% describes a long-run average, the middle hour still loses and no game or strategy can promise a profit. Settle a budget first and use the tools described on our safer gambling pages to stay within it.

Author:

Lucas Portela

Owner, BoldGambler • Avanhandava/SP

Oddsmaker, affiliate and content creator in the iGaming industry.

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