Joker Poker
Joker Poker deals from a 53-card deck — a standard pack plus one joker — and the joker stands in for whatever card completes the best hand you can make with it. Draw four spades and the joker, and it is the fifth spade; draw three of a kind and the joker, and it is the fourth.
That one wild card is enough to change the minimum paying hand from Jacks or Better's pair of jacks: most Joker Poker pay tables pay from Kings or Better, or from two pair, depending on the exact schedule the machine is running — check the in-game paytable rather than assume, because this is one of the places the notation is not the flat "X/Y" ratio Jacks or Better uses.
The One Verified Number
The only Joker Poker pay table this site has checked against a cited source is Kings or Better, full pay: Kings or Better, 20/7/5 pays back 100.64%. It is not the only Joker Poker schedule in circulation, and a shorter-paying version of the same name returns less — the gap between a full-pay and a short-pay Joker Poker table is one of the widest in video poker.
No RTP figure is stated here for any other Joker Poker schedule, because none has been checked against a source yet. That is a gap in this page, not a claim that every Joker Poker machine matches the number above.
Joker Poker Video Poker Games
The Strategy Is Not Jacks or Better's
A wild card in the deck changes which partial hands are worth drawing to — three of a kind with a joker is closer to a made hand than it looks, and a lone pair is worth less when a fourth wild could have turned it into three or four of a kind instead. The strategy page covers how a wild card changes what to hold; do not carry a Jacks or Better chart over to this game unchanged.
Joker Poker FAQs
53 — a standard 52-card pack plus one joker. The joker is the only wild card; every other card plays as printed.
Any card that completes the best hand available to you. It is never a card in its own right — its value is decided by whatever hand it is drawn into.
No. Kings or Better and two-pair-and-up schedules are both in circulation, and only one full-pay schedule (Kings or Better, 20/7/5) has a verified return on this site — check the paytable screen before you play.