How to play
This machine adds a joker to the deck and makes it wild along with all four 2s. That’s five wild cards in 53, so strong hands come thick and fast and the pay table is scaled down to match, with one huge exception at the top.
Controls are the usual video poker set. Bet one cycles your stake through 1 to 5 credits; Deal deals five cards; Bet max bets 5 and deals in one press. Tap a card to toggle Held, then Draw to replace the others from what’s left of the deck. Each hand reshuffles all 53 cards.
Hint shows the best hold after an optional ad. It compares all 32 possible holds over every draw, so it accounts for the joker properly. Play is with virtual credits: you get 1,000, and 1,000 more for free if you run out.
Pay table
| Hand | Per credit | At 5 credits |
|---|---|---|
| Four Deuces + Joker | 1,000 | 5,000 |
| Natural Royal Flush | 250 | 4,000 |
| Four Deuces | 25 | 125 |
| Wild Royal Flush | 12 | 60 |
| Five of a Kind | 9 | 45 |
| Straight Flush | 6 | 30 |
| Four of a Kind | 3 | 15 |
| Full House | 3 | 15 |
| Flush | 3 | 15 |
| Straight | 2 | 10 |
| Three of a Kind | 1 | 5 |
The top line is the whole story. All five wild cards in one hand pays 1,000 per credit, and at max bet that’s 5,000, more than the natural royal. Everything else is cheap: four deuces alone pay only 25, against 200 in Deuces Wild, and a full house pays the same as a flush.
The numbers
Perfect play at 5 credits returns 98.31%, exactly counted over every deal and hold. About half of all hands (50.4%) end on a paying line, but most of those are three of a kind for 1, which just gives your stake back. The jackpot is rare: four deuces plus the joker comes up about once every 134,000 hands under best play, and a natural royal about once every 50,000.
Strategy
Wild cards are always held. The real decisions are about how hard to chase the five-wild jackpot, and the answer is: harder than you’d guess. From the game’s exact hold values:
Four deuces and a King. Throw the King away. Four deuces pay 25 whatever you draw, and one card in 48 is the joker. Drawing is worth about 45 per credit, standing 25.
Three deuces, the joker and a King (2♣ 2♦ 2♥ Joker K♣). As dealt, that’s a wild royal worth 12. Break it, hold the four wild cards and draw one card for the last deuce. The hold is worth about 31 per credit.
A deuce and the joker with nothing else (2♣ Joker 5♥ 8♠ J♣). Keep just the two wilds. Holding the Jack as well is close but slightly worse.
A♣ K♣ Q♣ J♣ with an off-suit card. Go for the natural royal by holding the four clubs. With only one wild card’s worth of help needed, the 4,000-credit royal is still the target.
10♣ J♣ Q♣ plus a deuce. Hold all four: three to a royal plus a wild card is worth more than the three clubs alone.
A useful habit: whenever you hold three or more wild cards, ask whether breaking a made hand would give you a shot at the 1,000. With four wilds, the answer is always yes.
If you enjoy Deuces and Joker, try Deuces Wild or Diamond Line next.
