If you want a wild-card poker variant with a return in the top tier of casino games, this one qualifies on the published number: 99.07% with perfect play. That is 1.57 percentage points above the 97.5% average across the games catalogued on this site, and it sits close to the 98.89% average across Red Rake Gaming’s twenty titles here. The free demo means you can learn the hold decisions without spending anything, which matters more in a wild-card game than in a straight Jacks or Better.
How Deuces & Jokers plays
The core loop is the same as any single-hand video poker machine. You place a bet, five cards are dealt from a freshly shuffled 52-card deck, you choose which cards to hold, the rest are replaced, and the final five-card hand is paid according to the pay chart. There are no reels and no weighted symbols. Every card that can appear is a real card in a real deck, and the probability of each outcome follows from the composition of that deck.
The name identifies the wild-card structure. In a deuces-based game all four 2s act as wild cards, standing in for whatever rank and suit completes the best hand, and joker-based games add one or more jokers as additional wilds. Wild cards make made hands far more frequent, which is why games built on them typically pay nothing on low pairs and start the pay scale higher up the hand ranks, often at three of a kind. The exact minimum paying hand and the exact payout on each rank belong to this game’s own pay chart, and this listing does not publish it, so open the in-game pay table before your first real-money hand.
What wild cards reliably change is the shape of the session. More small wins, fewer dead hands, and a different set of correct holds compared with a non-wild game.
Red Rake Gaming and this game
Red Rake Gaming has twenty games listed on this site, and their average published RTP is 98.89%. This title’s 99.07% sits slightly above that average, which tells you it is a mainstream member of the studio’s poker range rather than a low-return outlier. Whether you like the presentation is a matter of taste; the return figure is the part you can check against other options.
If you want to compare inside the same studio, Jacks or Better (Red Rake Gaming) is the obvious reference point at 99.55%, and it is a non-wild game, so the strategy chart is shorter and easier to memorise if you are starting out. Royal Court carries the highest published figure of the group at 99.78%, worth a look purely on the numbers. For a bonus-style paytable where specific four-of-a-kind ranks pay extra, Double Aces and Faces lists 99.27% and rewards a different set of holds.
Those differences are not marketing distinctions. A 0.7-point gap between two games in the same range is a real difference in expected cost per hand played, and it is visible before you stake anything.
Reading the 99.07% figure
The 99.07% return is a long-run theoretical figure, and it assumes two things at once: that you are playing this exact paytable, and that you make the mathematically best hold decision on every single hand. Miss holds and your actual return drops below the headline. That is not a penalty the game applies; it is simply that the number was computed from perfect play, so imperfect play produces a different number.
It is also an average across an enormous number of hands, not a description of a session. A 99.07% game does not hand back 99.07 units for every 100 staked over an evening. Wild-card poker has meaningful variance because a large share of the return comes from rarer high hands, so short runs can land far from the average in either direction. Nothing that happens in one session tells you anything about the next: each deal comes from a fresh shuffle and carries no memory of what came before. A machine is never due, never hot and never cold.
The useful way to read 99.07% is comparatively. Against the 97.5% corpus average it is a strong figure, and among the fifty Cards-theme games listed here it stands near the top.
Why the paytable moves the return more than almost any other game
Video poker is the most transparent game on a casino floor because its return is not hidden anywhere. There is no reel weighting to discover. The return comes entirely from the pay chart plus optimal play, which means two machines with identical names and identical artwork can return completely different amounts.
The standard illustration is Jacks or Better. The 9/6 paytable, paying 9-for-1 on a full house and 6-for-1 on a flush, returns roughly 99.5% with perfect play. Drop those two lines to 8/5 and the same game returns about 97.3%. Drop them to 6/5 and the return falls well below 95%. Two numbers on a chart, more than four percentage points of swing.
| Hand | 9/6 Jacks or Better | 8/5 Jacks or Better | 6/5 Jacks or Better |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full house | 9 for 1 | 8 for 1 | 6 for 1 |
| Flush | 6 for 1 | 5 for 1 | 5 for 1 |
| Straight | 4 for 1 | 4 for 1 | 4 for 1 |
| Three of a kind | 3 for 1 | 3 for 1 | 3 for 1 |
| Return with perfect play | about 99.5% | about 97.3% | below 95% |
Those rows are the general Jacks or Better reference, not this game’s chart. Red Rake Gaming has not published the paytable for this exact version here, and since the paytable decides the return more directly than in any other casino category, check the in-game pay chart yourself before you play for money.
Optimal strategy: a chart, not a system
Optimal video poker strategy is a solved hold-and-discard chart. For a given paytable, someone has calculated the expected value of every possible way to hold cards from every possible deal, and the chart lists which hold wins. It is published, checkable arithmetic, not a tip.
Two things follow. First, the chart is paytable-specific. A chart built for one payout schedule gives slightly wrong answers on another, which is why the correct order of operations is read the pay chart, then find the matching chart. Second, wild-card games have their own charts. In a deuces-based game the number of wilds in your hand is the first thing you look at, because holding two deuces and three junk cards is frequently better than holding a made pair. That instinct runs against normal poker sense and it takes practice.
What a strategy chart never does is change the deck. It changes which five cards you keep, and nothing else. No staking pattern belongs in this conversation either. Raising your bet after losses, lowering it after wins, or any other progression leaves the expected return exactly where the paytable put it. It only changes how fast money moves.
Free play before real money
A Deuces & Jokers free demo is available here, and for a wild-card variant that is genuinely worth using. Demo mode lets you sit with a strategy chart open and work through hands until the wild-card holds stop feeling counterintuitive, at no cost. It is also where you should read the pay chart and confirm which hand ranks pay what.
Demo results tell you nothing about real-money results, in either direction. A demo streak is a small sample from the same independent deals, and it carries no predictive weight.
If you do move to real stakes: this is 18+ only. Set a budget before you start, treat it as money you have already spent on entertainment, and stop when it is gone. Video poker is something you pay to play, not a way to make income, and a 99.07% return is still a house edge.
Final take on Deuces & Jokers
On the published numbers this is a solid choice: 99.07% under optimal play, above both the 97.5% site-wide average and Red Rake Gaming’s own 98.89% studio average, and it ranks 49th here with a popularity percentile of 65.7. The wild-card format gives you more frequent made hands and higher variance than a straight Jacks or Better.
Two caveats keep it honest. The 99.07% assumes perfect play against this game’s specific paytable, and that paytable is not published in this listing, so verify it in-game. And if you want a shallower learning curve at a higher published return, Russian Poker at 98.42% offers a different table-poker structure worth comparing against. Read the pay chart, use the demo, then decide.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I play Deuces & Jokers for free?
Yes, a free demo is available on this page with no download and no deposit. Demo play uses the same deck and the same pay chart as the real-money version, so it is the right place to learn the wild-card holds. Demo results do not predict real-money outcomes in either direction.
What is the RTP of Deuces & Jokers?
The published return is 99.07%, which is 1.57 points above the 97.5% average across games listed here. That figure assumes optimal play against this game's exact paytable across a very large number of hands. Play imperfectly and your actual return falls below it; it is a long-run average, not a session forecast.
Which variant is this and how does the strategy work?
The name identifies a wild-card variant: deuces-based games make all four 2s wild, and joker games add jokers as extra wilds. Wild-card games typically pay only from three of a kind up. Optimal play means following a published hold chart built for that specific paytable, where counting your wilds comes before reading pairs.
Why does the paytable matter so much in video poker?
Because the return comes entirely from the pay chart plus perfect play, with no hidden reel weighting. Jacks or Better shows the scale: 9/6 returns about 99.5%, 8/5 about 97.3%, 6/5 below 95%. Two numbers on the chart move the return several points, so always read the in-game pay table first.
How does it compare to Jacks or Better from Red Rake Gaming?
Jacks or Better (Red Rake Gaming) publishes a higher 99.55% return against this game's 99.07%, and as a non-wild game it has a shorter, easier strategy chart. This title trades that half point for wild cards, which produce more frequent made hands and higher variance. Both come from the same studio's twenty-game range.
