Learn how wild cards change video poker. Compare Deuces Wild and Joker Poker pay tables, exact returns, swings, and hold strategies.
Published:Wild cards change video poker more than any pay table tweak. When some cards can stand in for any other, good hands become common, the lowest paying hand moves up and the strategy you learned for Jacks or Better stops working. This guide covers the two best-known wild-card games, Deuces Wild with its full-pay, NSUD and Loose Deuces tables and Joker Poker, with the exact returns, the swings and the hands worth holding.
Key Takeaways: Wild Card Video Poker
- Higher Paying Thresholds: Wild cards make strong combinations frequent, raising the minimum paying hand to three of a kind in Deuces Wild and eliminating payouts for pairs.
- Standard Strategy Fails: Using Jacks or Better strategy on Deuces Wild crashes the return from 100.76% to 61.71%, with optimal hold decisions differing on 58% of starting deals.
- Mid-Tier Hands Drive Value: Four of a kind hits once every 15 hands in full-pay Deuces Wild, providing roughly 32% of total return, while the natural royal flush offers under 2%.
- Positive RTP Carries Risk: Games returning over 100% still lead to losing sessions most hours, as high volatility concentrates the statistical edge in rare top payouts.
How Deuces Wild Works
In Deuces Wild all four 2s are wild. A wild card counts as whatever card completes the best hand, so a pair plus a deuce is three of a kind, and four cards to a flush plus a deuce is a flush. The pay table adds rows for the hands that wild cards create: five of a kind, a wild royal flush, which is a royal made with at least one deuce, and four deuces.
Because wild cards make good hands common, the paying hands start much higher. Three of a kind is the lowest paying hand, so a pair, two pair and ace-high all pay nothing. The table compares the three pay tables you are most likely to meet, per coin bet.
| Hand | Full pay | NSUD | Loose Deuces |
| Natural royal flush | 800 | 800 | 800 |
| Four deuces | 200 | 200 | 500 |
| Wild royal flush | 25 | 25 | 25 |
| Five of a kind | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| Straight flush | 9 | 10 | 10 |
| Four of a kind | 5 | 4 | 4 |
| Full house | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| Flush | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| Straight | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Three of a kind | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Return with perfect play | 100.76% | 99.73% | 101.60% |
| Swing per hand (in bets) | 5.1 | 5.1 | 8.4 |
Players name the full-pay table by its rows from the wild royal flush down to three of a kind: 25-15-9-5-3-2-2-1. NSUD, short for Not So Ugly Ducks, is 25-16-10-4-4-3-2-1 and returns 1.03 percentage points less. Loose Deuces raises the four deuces prize to 500 and returns 101.60%, at the price of a much larger swing. Full-pay Deuces Wild has become hard to find in casinos, so check which table a game uses before you assume it is the best one.
Why Deuces Wild Plays So Differently
The deuces sit at the center of every decision. About one deal in three, 34.1%, contains at least one deuce, and the value of a hand is mostly the value of its deuces. Dealt K♥ 9♣ 5♦ 4♠ 2♠, the best play is to keep the lone deuce and draw four cards, worth 1.04 per coin bet. Dealt K♥ 9♣ 5♦ 2♠ 2♥, keep just the two deuces for 3.26, which beats adding the king (2.77).
A made hand does not always stay. Dealt 9♣ 7♥ 6♥ 5♥ 2♠, the deuce works as an 8 and makes a straight that pays 2. Yet holding the deuce with the three hearts and drawing one card is worth 2.21, because 14.9% of draws make a straight flush paying 9 and 34.0% make a flush or a straight that still pays 2. Keeping the straight is worth exactly 2.00.
Habits from other games are expensive here. Applying the best Jacks or Better holds to Deuces Wild deals returns only 61.71%, against 100.76% for the right holds, and the two charts disagree on 58% of deals.
Where the Deuces Wild Return Comes From
The table counts every possible final hand in full-pay Deuces Wild when it is played perfectly. The straight and the flush both pay 2, so they share a row.
| Final hand | Pays per coin | Chance per hand | About 1 in | Return supplied |
| Natural royal flush | 800 | 0.002% | 45,282 | 1.77% |
| Four deuces | 200 | 0.020% | 4,909 | 4.07% |
| Wild royal flush | 25 | 0.180% | 557 | 4.49% |
| Five of a kind | 15 | 0.320% | 312 | 4.80% |
| Straight flush | 9 | 0.412% | 243 | 3.71% |
| Four of a kind | 5 | 6.494% | 15 | 32.47% |
| Full house | 3 | 2.123% | 47 | 6.37% |
| Straight or flush | 2 | 7.315% | 14 | 14.63% |
| Three of a kind | 1 | 28.454% | 4 | 28.45% |
| Nothing | 0 | 54.680% | 2 | 0.00% |
| All hands | n/a | 100% | n/a | 100.76% |
Four of a kind lands about once in 15 hands, 6.5% of the time, which is more than 25 times as often as in Jacks or Better. It supplies 32.47% of the return, the largest slice of any hand, and three of a kind adds 28.45% more. The natural royal flush lands about once in 45,282 hands and supplies only 1.77%.
Joker Poker: One Joker in a 53-Card Deck
Joker Poker adds a single joker to the 52-card deck, for 53 cards. The joker is wild, so it can complete any hand, and it creates a five-of-a-kind row. The most common table, Kings or Better, pays from a pair of kings, and its full-pay version returns 100.65%. The joker is in the first five cards on 9.4% of deals. The table shows the final hands, per coin bet.
| Final hand | Pays per coin | Chance per hand | About 1 in | Return supplied |
| Natural royal flush | 800 | 0.002% | 41,214 | 1.94% |
| Five of a kind | 200 | 0.009% | 10,713 | 1.87% |
| Wild royal flush | 100 | 0.010% | 9,611 | 1.04% |
| Straight flush | 50 | 0.057% | 1,740 | 2.87% |
| Four of a kind | 20 | 0.856% | 117 | 17.11% |
| Full house | 7 | 1.568% | 64 | 10.98% |
| Flush | 5 | 1.558% | 64 | 7.79% |
| Straight | 3 | 1.659% | 60 | 4.98% |
| Three of a kind | 2 | 13.394% | 7 | 26.79% |
| Two pair, or kings or better | 1 | 25.283% | 4 | 25.28% |
| Nothing | 0 | 55.603% | 2 | 0.00% |
| All hands | n/a | 100% | n/a | 100.65% |
The joker changes the hold. Dealt A♠ K♠ 7♦ 4♣ Joker, keep the king, the ace and the joker: the joker already pairs the ace, so the hand pays 1 before the draw, and the average value is 1.95 per coin bet. With A♠ K♠ Q♠ 4♣ Joker the four cards to a royal flush are worth 6.23, yet completing the royal pays 100, not 800, because a royal made with the joker is a wild royal flush.
Wild-Card Games Compared
| Game | Wild cards | Lowest paying hand | Return with perfect play | Hands that pay | Swing per hand (in bets) | Return from hands paying 25 or more |
| Deuces Wild, full pay | Four deuces | Three of a kind | 100.76% | 45.3% | 5.1 | 10% |
| Deuces Wild, NSUD | Four deuces | Three of a kind | 99.73% | 44.3% | 5.1 | 10% |
| Loose Deuces | Four deuces | Three of a kind | 101.60% | 45.2% | 8.4 | 16% |
| Joker Poker, Kings or Better | One joker | Kings or better | 100.65% | 44.4% | 5.1 | 8% |
Three of these tables return more than 100%, which sounds like a way to win. It is not. At $1.25 a hand and 600 hands an hour, full-pay Deuces Wild has an expected gain of $5.71 an hour, yet the chance of finishing a 600-hand hour ahead is 34%, and the middle result is a loss of $30.00. The average is carried by rare large hands, which is why it takes a very large number of hands to show up.
For a plain-spoken view of the money, NSUD at 99.73% has an expected cost of $2.04 an hour at the same stake. Our video poker volatility guide explains how far a real hour can stray from either number.
The Other Seven Video Poker Guides
This guide is one of eight in the series. Pick the next topic from the list below or go back to the directory of all video poker guides.
- how video poker works: one hand from bet to payout, what five coins buy and what an hour at the machine costs.
- the pay table guide: which rows to check, how to spot a short-pay game and where the return comes from.
- popular Jacks or Better variants: side-by-side returns and swings for the best-known pay tables.
- the multi-hand video poker guide: Triple Play to Hundred Play, with the swing per deal worked out.
- how video poker volatility works: swing per hand, the royal flush effect and sensible stake sizes.
- video poker strategy and common mistakes: what optimal play does, what it cannot do and what errors cost.
- how US regulators handle video poker: state licensing, testing labs and where land-based machines fit in.
Wild Cards Are Not a Cost-Free Edge
Wild cards make hands more frequent and tables more generous, but they also make swings bigger and mistakes costlier. Video poker with wild cards is still paid entertainment: the expected cost is built into the pay table, and no game or strategy can promise a profit. Decide your budget before you play and use the tools on our responsible gaming page to keep it.
❓ Deuces Wild and Joker Poker: Frequently Asked Questions
Why does Deuces Wild pay nothing for two pair?
What does NSUD mean in Deuces Wild?
Can I use Jacks or Better strategy in Deuces Wild?
Author:
Lucas Portela
Owner, BoldGambler • Avanhandava/SP
Oddsmaker, affiliate and content creator in the iGaming industry.