How to play
Double Joker deals from a 54-card deck: the usual 52 plus two jokers, and both jokers are wild. Each one becomes whatever card makes your hand best. Unlike the deuces games, the 2s here are just 2s.
Your stake runs from 1 to 5 credits. Press Bet one to change it and Deal to get five cards, or Bet max to bet 5 and deal at once. Tap cards to mark them Held, then press Draw and the rest are replaced from what’s left of the deck. Each hand reshuffles all 54 cards.
Hint suggests the best hold after an optional ad. It doesn’t use a chart; it works out the average pay of each of the 32 possible holds over every draw. Credits are virtual: 1,000 to start, 1,000 more free when they run out.
Pay table
| Hand | Per credit |
|---|---|
| Natural Royal Flush | 250 (4,000 at 5 credits) |
| Wild Royal Flush | 100 |
| Five of a Kind | 50 |
| Straight Flush | 25 |
| Four of a Kind | 9 |
| Full House | 5 |
| Flush | 4 |
| Straight | 3 |
| Three of a Kind | 2 |
| Two Pair | 1 |
There’s no line for a single pair. The smallest win is two pair, which returns your bet, and three of a kind already pays double.
Two jokers make the middle of the table much more common than in a natural game, and the wild royal at 100 is the line that sets this game apart. Compare Joker Poker, with one joker in 53 cards, where Kings or better still pay and the wild royal pays 100 too, but five of a kind pays 200.
The numbers
Perfect play at 5 credits returns 99.97%, an exact count over every deal and hold. It’s a lumpy game, though. Only about 36% of hands pay anything, well below the 45% or so of most natural-card tables, because pairs don’t count. In return the bigger hands come often: a wild royal about once every 2,900 hands and five of a kind about once every 2,400, compared with roughly once in 45,000 for a natural royal.
Strategy
Two ideas run through the whole strategy. First, never discard a joker. Second, since no pair pays, high cards have no special value of their own. Ranks matter only for what they can build. Hands checked with the exact hold values:
No jokers, nothing but A-K and junk. Throw all five away. With no paying pair, A-K is worth less than a fresh hand (about 0.27 for the King alone against 0.30 for five new cards).
No jokers, a pair of Jacks. Keep it anyway. It pays nothing yet, but it’s your best route to trips at 2 and better. Any pair is a keeper; Jacks are no better than 5s.
Two pair. Keep both pairs. With 5♣ 5♦ 9♥ 9♠ K♣, the four-card hold is worth about 1.49 against 0.77 for one pair.
One joker with a low pair. Hold the joker and the pair: that’s three of a kind already, with draws to quads, a full house and five of a kind.
One joker with K-Q of one suit. Hold all three. Three to a royal with a wild card aims straight at the 100-credit wild royal.
One joker with A, K, 7, 3. Surprisingly, the best hold is joker plus the 7. A middle card fits more straights than an Ace does, and the Ace has no pair value to make up for it.
Both jokers and a Jack. Keep the Jack with the jokers. It edges out holding the two jokers alone, because J-joker-joker is three cards to a royal.
If you enjoy Double Joker Poker, try Double or Nothing Reels or Dragon Tiger next.
