Bonus Deuces Wild Video Poker

Written by: Cliff Spiller, Online Casino and Game Expert

April 3, 2024

Bonus Deuces Wild is the result of the marriage between Bonus Poker and Deuces Wild. This game incorporates the use of 2s as wild cards, along with bonus payouts for making extremely strong hands (five of a kind rather than four of a kind in this case).

Following the success of both Bonus Poker and Deuces Wild – two of the most popular video poker variants to emerge from the classic Jacks or Better – it was only natural that the two games would be blended to create something entirely new.

Unless you’ve already familiarized yourself with these other games beforehand, we recommend starting off with a crash course on our Jacks or Better page first. This page will bring you up to speed on all things video poker, including the different coin denominations, pay tables and associated probabilities, wager amounts, and even how the machine functions.

Best Casinos to Play Bonus Deuces Wild Online

Bonus Deuces Wild fuses both Bonus Poker and Deuces Wild, combining elements from each to form an exciting new addition in the catalog of online video poker casinos, so you’ll want to be well acquainted with how these games work before graduating to the next level.

Below you’ll find a handy review of essential information needed to excel at Bonus Deuces Wild. This includes an introduction to the rules and gameplay, a briefing on pay tables and their impact on the game, and even an optimal strategy chart which can help you navigate the ins and outs of extremely close decisions.

Rules and How to Play

As stated above, to learn about the fundamentals of video poker, including the most basic rules and instructions on how to operate the machine, please refer to the Jacks or Better Video Poker hub page.

The most important divergence in the rules between Bonus Deuces Wild and Jacks or Better can be found right in the name: bonus payouts and wild cards are in play.

The deck’s four 2s, also known as deuces, represent wild cards. This means they can be exchanged for any other card in the deck to complete winning hands. When you hold four clubs and a deuce, for example, you’ve really landed a flush, with the 2 acting as the fifth club.

Acting as a genuine wild card, the deuce will always transform into the card needed to form the strongest possible hand. If you find yourself looking down at the , for example, the two deuces could potentially form either three of a kind in 10s or a J 10 9 8 7 straight. A straight always beats three of a kind, so the game will automatically assign these wild cards as the J and the 8, forming the strongest hand available at the moment.

Astute players will notice something different about that hand, though, recognizing that it holds greater potential before the draw. With these five cards, you could also decide to discard the 10s, leaving a combination of or by using your wild cards to form four card straight flush draws.

We’ll have to wait for the strategy section which concludes this page to see which play is considered optimal; keeping the made straight or shooting for the higher payout offered by multiple open-ended straight flush draws.

Of course, with a wild card to work with (and sometimes several wild cards simultaneously), the number of possible poker hands you can make increases in kind. The most important addition to the game of Bonus Deuces Wild is the Five of a Kind, a hand which can only be produced by using at least one wild card. The word “bonus” in the game’s title refers to the additional payouts players could receive for getting the amazing five of a kind hand.

With an expanded menu of hands which can be made at any given point, let’s take a second to review the poker hand hierarchy used to govern every Bonus Deuces Wild game:

	Natural Royal Flush 10 J Q K A, all in the same suit, with no deuces.
	Four Deuces and An Ace Four of a kind in deuces, with an ace kicker.
	Four Deuces Four of a kind in deuces.
	Wild Royal Flush 10 J Q K A, all in the same suit, with one or more deuces.
	Five Aces Five of a kind in aces, using one or more deuces.
	Five 3, 4, or 5 Five of a kind in 3s, 4s, or 5s, using one or more deuces.
	Five of a Kind: 6 through King Five of a kind using cards 6 through King, using one deuce.
	Straight Flush Any five-card straight all in the same suit.
	Four of a Kind Four cards of the same rank.
	Full House Three of a kind AND one pair.
	Flush Any five cards all in the same suit.
	Straight Any string of five consecutive cards.
	Three of a Kind Three cards of the same rank.

A total of six new hands has been added to the rankings, lending Bonus Deuces Wild an air of unpredictability which usually proves to be irresistible to gamblers.

A few items of note concern the Royal Flush, which can now be made in two ways: naturally, using no deuces, or with wild cards as part of the hand. Of course, it’s much more difficult to land a royal flush without using wild cards (somewhere just north of 40,000 to 1 odds against), so this hand occupies the top position in the hand hierarchy.

Interestingly, two hands featuring four deuces are both ranked higher than the royal flush which relies on a wild card.

You’ll also have three different five of a kind hands to hunt for, with five aces ranked as the highest of this variety, followed by five of a kind in either 3s, 4s, or 5s, and finally five of any other card.

These subtle shifts can change the dynamic of the game in a number of ways, prioritizing small cards over Broadway cards in some spots for example, as you’ll discover in the next section’s analysis of Bonus Deuces Wild pay tables.

Pay Table Breakdowns

The most advantageous pay table in Bonus Deuces Wild video poker is known as the 10 / 4 / 4, due to the respective payouts for a straight flush, a full house, and a flush.

Check out the 10 / 4 / 4 pay table, also called the “full pay,” for Bonus Deuces Wild:

If you’ve been brushing up on your lessons from the Jacks or Better, Bonus Poker, and Deuces Wild pages, you’ll immediately notice something different about the pay table above.

Rather than including a much higher payout for making the game’s strongest hand on a maximum bet of five coins, in this case, the natural royal flush, the payouts are flat and incremental across the board. This means that every payout you see when betting the minimum of one coin doubles when you increase the bet the two coins, triples at three coins, and so on through to the five coin maximum.

As such, the expected return rate listed as the bottom figure in each column remains the same across the pay table, fixed at 99.86 percent (this figure assumes players are using optimal strategy, which you’ll learn more about in the subsequent section).

So, in a rare divergence from video poker protocol, Bonus Deuces Wild players don’t necessarily need to max bet in order to derive the best house edge. Of course, you’ll earn a higher payout of 4,000 credits for a natural royal flush when max betting at five coins, but considering that the payout for a four coin wager sits at 3,200 credits, the difference really is relative.

The 10 / 4 / 4 full pay game is the one to search for, but players who prefer Bonus Deuces Wild will quickly realize that several slightly different pay tables are out there waiting. This game actually includes many more alternative paytables than the average video poker variant, but the five most commonly encountered versions have been listed in the grid below.

The # / # / # heading at the top of each column represents the payouts which have been altered from the 15 / 9 / 5 / 3 full pay standard, and these payouts have been bolded for easy reference.

If you can’t find a 10 / 4 / 4 machine in your favorite casino, the negligible difference in expected return between that pay table and the 9 / 4 / 4 variety makes the latter a reasonable option. Even the 8 / 4 / 4 pay table leaves players with an expected return of over 99 percent (equating to a house edge of less than 1 percent), but after that, the rest of the alternatives drop off precipitously.

One final aspect of these pay tables to take note of concerns the relatively top heavy nature of the payout scheme. To see some pay table analysis for the game, visit VP Free.

Bonus Deuces Wild Strategy

As is true with every video poker variant, the most important strategy every player can adapt is the game selection. Simply put, always take your business to a 10 / 4 / 4 full pay game whenever possible. If you can’t find that pay table anywhere in the house, stick to 9 / 4 / 4 or 8 / 4 / 4 machines at the minimum. Straying any further from the full pay structure will significantly erode your expected return rate over the long run.

From there, the nuts and bolts of expert level strategy for Bonus Deuces Wild are far too esoteric to cover concisely on this page. Fortunately, a simplified system has been devised which cuts down the more than 60 rules used to determine optimal play for this game to just five guidelines.

• Never discard a deuce.
• Never break up a Five of a Kind.
• Always keep One Pair over a Four Card Straight draw or Four Card Flush draw.
• Never keep just one card, unless that card is a deuce of course, and draw five new cards instead.
• Two Pair hands don’t get paid, and the payout for a Full House is a paltry 4 credits. So, when you hold Two Pairs, discard one and hold the other in hopes of hitting Four (or even Five) of a Kind. When deciding which pair to keep, look for As, 3s, 4s, and 5s above all else.

Of course, using these five rules alone at the best online casinos in the US will shave some of your expected return away when compared to practicing strict optimal strategy, but the difference is so small it is negligible. And for the majority of us, memorizing a long list of rules with more than 60 entries is unfeasible; especially when it is divided even further depending on how many deuces you hold. After all, we play video poker for the escape and the enjoyment, and these five rules will keep you on the right side of variance going forward.

If, however, you’d prefer to start studying up on your masters level Bonus Deuces Wild strategy, we recommend checking out the strategy sections for the Bonus Poker and Deuces Wild pages. The charts found there essentially approximate those used in this game, and by getting a good grasp on both, you’ll have a greater understanding of how to make the closest decisions optimally.