Deuces Wild
Deuces Wild is dealt from a standard 52-card deck in which all four 2s are wild: each deuce becomes whatever card gives the hand its best result. Apart from the wild cards and the special hands described below, hands rank as in any poker game; our how to play page lists them.
With four wild cards in the deck, pairs and two pair are too easy to make to be paid, so the lowest paying hand is three of a kind. Under the Full Pay schedule, three of a kind lands on about 285 of every 1,000 hands after the draw and pays 1 per credit, which gives back the stake on that hand. In Jacks or Better a pair of jacks fills that role.
The wild cards also create hands that a natural deck cannot. Deuces Wild ranks five of a kind (four of a rank plus a deuce, or fewer naturals with more deuces) above a straight flush. Four deuces is a line of its own at 200 per credit. And the royal flush has two separate lines: a natural royal, made without any deuce, pays 800 per credit (4,000 for a five-credit bet), while a wild royal, completed with one or more deuces, pays 25.
Two related games change these rules. Bonus Deuces Wild pays five of a kind by rank and adds a prize for four deuces with an ace, and Joker Poker swaps the four deuces for a single joker in a 53-card deck.
Play Deuces Wild Free
Deuces Wild games here open in demo mode: play free, with no registration and no deposit, and practice the holds by the number of deuces dealt.
The Full Pay Deuces Wild pay table
Full Pay, five credits bet, perfect play. The schedule returns 100.76%, a long-run average that assumes every hold is correct, not a promised session result. Its shorthand, 25/15/9/5/3/2/2, lists the pays from the wild royal down to the straight. Read the right-hand column as each hand's slice of the 100.76%.
Deuces Wild schedules and what they return
All four share the same top and bottom: 800 per credit for a natural royal at the maximum bet, 200 for four deuces and 1 for three of a kind. Check four of a kind first: Full Pay pays 5 for it, the other three tables pay 4, and it is the largest single source of Full Pay's return. Our Habanero game uses one table across its 1, 5, 10, 50 and 100-hand versions; below five credits its natural royal falls to 250 per credit, hence the 94.99%.
How often the deuces arrive, and what they carry
The number of deuces in a five-card deal follows fixed odds that no pay table can change. Across all 2,598,960 possible deals:
- No deuce: 65.88% of deals, about two in three
- One deuce: 29.95%
- Two deuces: 3.99%
- Three deuces: 0.17%
- Four deuces: 0.0018%, or 1 deal in 54,145
Each deuce raises the minimum hand you hold before drawing: one guarantees a pair, which pays nothing, two guarantee three of a kind, three guarantee four of a kind, and four are the Four Deuces hand itself. That is why the hold list below is organized by deuces dealt.
The key point: Most of the return comes from ordinary hands. Four of a kind and three of a kind are its two largest sources, and the natural royal supplies less of it than any of the three other special hands.
Short-run results swing widely around those averages. Across 2,000-hand sessions of perfect play, 40.5% of Full Pay sessions end ahead, against 23.9% on our Habanero schedule.
Hold list by deuces dealt
The lines below are in order of value on Full Pay. Count your deuces, go to that section and keep the first line your hand matches ("counting the deuce" means the deuce is part of the pattern). Played this way, Full Pay returns 100.68%, against 100.76% for perfect play: a cost of 0.083 points.
No deuce is dealt on 65.88% of deals. Play those hands in this order:
- Natural royal flush
- Four of a kind
- Four to a royal flush
- Dealt straight
- Dealt straight flush
- Dealt full house
- Dealt flush
- Four to a straight flush, open-ended
- Four to a straight flush, inside
- Three of a kind
- Three to a royal flush
- One pair (from two pair, keep only one)
- Four to a flush
- Three to a straight flush, connected, below 6
- Four to a straight, open-ended
- Three to a straight flush with a gap
- Three to a straight flush, connected, 6 or higher
- Four to a straight, inside
- Two to a royal flush, jack to king
- Two to a royal flush with a ten
- Discard all five
Exactly one deuce arrives on 29.95% of deals. With one deuce:
- Dealt five of a kind
- Dealt wild royal flush
- Dealt straight flush
- Four to a royal flush, counting the deuce
- Four to a straight flush, open-ended, counting the deuce
- Dealt flush
- Dealt straight
- Four of a kind, counting the deuce
- Dealt full house
- Three of a kind, counting the deuce
- Four to a straight flush, inside, counting the deuce
- Three to a straight flush, connected, 6 or higher, counting the deuce
- Three to a royal flush, counting the deuce
- The deuce alone
Two deuces come on 3.99% of deals. With two deuces:
- Dealt wild royal flush
- Dealt five of a kind
- Four of a kind, counting the deuces
- Dealt straight flush
- Four to a royal flush, counting the deuces
- The two deuces alone
Three deuces are dealt on only 0.17% of deals. With three deuces:
- Dealt wild royal flush
- Dealt five of a kind
- The three deuces alone
With three deuces, a dealt five of a kind or wild royal is kept whole, since each pays more than the 14.95 per credit the three deuces are worth alone. Every other three-deuce hand keeps the deuces and draws two.
Four deuces turn up on 0.0018% of deals, and the hand is simply kept: the 200 is already made.
Where two lines can never appear in the same hand, such as a dealt straight and a dealt straight flush, their order does not matter. The largest single gap to perfect play is four to an inside straight with no deuce, which perfect play sometimes throws away entirely; it accounts for 0.03 of the 0.083 points.
A list is tied to its schedule, and even NSU needs its own; our strategy guide shows what playing one table's list on another costs, and how lists like this are built.
The key number: A Jacks or Better chart is another matter entirely: applied to Full Pay Deuces Wild it plays 57.72% of deals differently and drops the return from 100.76% to 61.71%, a loss of 39 points. The hold priorities of the two games have almost nothing in common.
Hands that decide Deuces Wild
Each value is the average return per credit bet, under perfect play from that point on, on the Full Pay table unless stated.
Dealt K♠ K♦ 7♥ 7♣ 3♠, keeping either pair alone is worth 0.56; keeping both pairs is worth 0.51. Two pair pays nothing here, and with one card to draw it can improve only to a full house, which pays 3 on Full Pay, while one pair draws three fresh cards, any of which may be a deuce. On NSU, where the full house pays 4, the list keeps both pairs instead.
Dealt 2♣ 2♦ 7♠ 7♥ 9♣, the hand is already four sevens. Keeping the four and drawing one is worth 5.85, standing pat 5, keeping the deuces alone 3.26. The draw risks nothing, since the four of a kind cannot be lost, and any of the two remaining sevens or two remaining deuces makes five of a kind. On NSU and on our Habanero table the same hand is worth 5.02 against 4 for standing.
Dealt 2♣ 2♦ 2♥ K♠ Q♦, the hand already pays 5 as four of a kind. Keeping just the three deuces is worth 14.95, keeping them with the queen 11.66, with the king 11.57. The king and queen are worth less than what two fresh cards offer toward four deuces, five of a kind or a wild royal. Only a made five of a kind (15) or wild royal (25) is worth more than the three deuces, and those are kept whole; the NSU list, with five of a kind at 16, stands on it too.
Dealt 2♣ A♥ K♥ Q♥ 5♠, keeping the deuce with the three hearts is worth 3.40. Throwing the deuce to draw at the 800 natural royal with A-K-Q alone is worth 1.15.
Deuces Wild: Pros and Cons
Select an option to sort the items by category or impact.
Advantages
The highest return of any best-known schedule
Full Pay's 100.76% is the highest long-run return of any schedule of any variant on these pages, just above All American 8/8/8 (100.72%) and 20/7/5 Joker Poker (100.65%).
Moderate swings for a wild-card game
Full Pay's standard deviation is 5.08 bets per hand (one bet = one hand's stake), about the same as 20/7/5 Joker Poker (5.12) and below 10/7 Double Bonus (5.32), the top Bonus Deuces Wild table (5.72) and Double Double Bonus (6.49).
Disadvantages
The edge needs long play to show
With perfect play, only 36.5% of 100-hand Full Pay sessions finish ahead, fewer than the 39.1% on 9/6 Jacks or Better, a game that returns less. Over a short session the higher return is too small to see.
Harder to play from memory
The hold list is split five ways by the number of deuces dealt, and even played exactly it leaves about twice the shortfall of the Jacks or Better list.
Impact Analysis
Deuces Wild questions
No. In Deuces Wild four deuces pay 200 per credit whatever the fifth card is. A separate, higher line for four deuces with an ace belongs to Bonus Deuces Wild, a different pay table.
That is the rule of the game, and the pay table follows the rarity. On a dealt hand, five of a kind appears once in 4,165 deals and a straight flush once in 1,257, and Full Pay pays the rarer hand more: 15 against 9 per credit.
On Full Pay, perfect play discards the whole hand on 19.07% of deals, almost one in five. Those are hands with no deuce and nothing worth keeping, where a fresh five cards is worth more than any partial hold.
With perfect play, 99.57%, against 100.76% at five credits. Below the maximum bet the natural royal pays 250 per credit instead of 800, and that single line accounts for the whole difference; the rest of the table is unchanged.