Report No. 189

Video Deuces Wild Poker: How Four of a Kind Sets Return

Full-pay Deuces Wild returns 100.76% on optimal play. Cut four of a kind by one coin and it drops to 99.73%. Here is why that line rules the paytable.

Filed by The SonicBet DeskOct. 23, 20263 min read

A woman's hand presses the row of buttons on a casino video poker machine while other players sit along the row.

Photo: Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels

The brief

Video deuces wild poker turns all four twos into wild cards, and that one rule decides where the money in the paytable sits. The verdict: read the four of a kind line before anything else. Full-pay Deuces Wild returns 100.76% with optimal play, and a single coin cut on four of a kind is enough to pull the return down to 99.73%.

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How four wild deuces reshape the hand ranking

Wild deuces add hands a standard deck cannot make, so the paytable grows new lines above the straight flush. Four deuces get their own line near the top, followed by the wild royal flush and five of a kind. The full-pay version lists these lines, as of October 2026:

Hand	Pays per coin
Four deuces	200
Wild royal flush	25
Five of a kind	15
Straight flush	9
Four of a kind	5
Full house	3
Flush	2
Straight	2

The wild cards make strong hands common, which is why the pays for full houses and flushes look small next to a game without wilds such as free Jacks or Better video poker.

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Why four of a kind decides the return

Four of a kind is the single largest source of return in full-pay Deuces Wild, because wild cards make it frequent. In the Wizard of Odds full-pay table, the lines compare like this:

Line	Pays	Share of hands	Contribution to return
Four of a kind	5	0.064938	0.324691
Wild royal flush	25	0.001796	0.044896
Four deuces	200	0.000204	0.040741
All hands			1.007620

The headline pays look dramatic, but the wild royal and four deuces together add less to the total than a sliver of the four of a kind line. A machine's fate is set by the dull line that hits often, not the big line that rarely does.

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Full pay versus Not So Ugly Deuces

Not So Ugly Deuces shows the trade in practice. It lowers four of a kind from 5 to 4 and raises five of a kind to 16 and the straight flush to 10. Because four of a kind is so frequent, Pure Video Poker's paytable comparison finds the one coin cut moves the game from 100.76% to 99.73%. Bigger pays on rarer hands do not buy back the loss.

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What US regulators require

Regulators set floors far below either paytable. New Jersey requires every wagering game to carry a theoretical return of at least 83 percent, and for strategy games such as video poker that figure is calculated on optimal player strategy. Nevada's Regulation 14 payout floor is 75 percent for each wager available on a device. Both rules were current as of October 2026. A Deuces Wild machine below break-even is therefore entirely legal, and the posted return assumes optimal holds, so the paytable is the only reliable signal a player has.

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Common questions

Does full-pay Deuces Wild return more than is wagered?

On paper, yes. The full-pay table carries a theoretical return of 100.76% under optimal strategy, per the Wizard of Odds return table. That is a long-run average, not a promise about any session, and it falls the moment a player deviates from optimal holds.

How often do four deuces appear?

In the same full-pay analysis, four deuces occur in 0.000204 of hands. The line pays 200 per coin but adds only 0.040741 to the total return because it is so rare.

What is the lowest return a Nevada video poker machine can be set to?

Nevada Regulation 14 sets the floor at 75 percent for each wager available on a gaming device.

How does New Jersey calculate video poker return?

New Jersey computes the theoretical return of a strategy game such as video poker on the assumption of optimal play, and every wagering game must reach at least 83 percent.

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