Five Joker Poker Video Poker

Five Joker Poker video poker brings the excitement to the next level with the
extreme use of wild cards in the game. With five jokers in the deck of 57 cards,
you have a pretty good chance of seeing them in your hand with regularity. And
when that’s the case, you can expect good things to happen to your chances of
winning.

Video poker
is one of the most coveted casino games around because of how it combines the
best of both table games and slot machines. Even though that’s the case, some
people might feel that the gameplay gets a bit tedious on machines like Jacks or
Better. Gameplay is a bit of a grind, with the chance of an impactful payout
only coming on a royal flush.

That’s where the wild cards come into play. Wild cards can be turned into any
other card in the deck that can improve your hand the most. And they are the
staple of video poker variants such as Joker Poker and Deuces Wild.

If those games are still a little tame for you, Five Joker Poker video poker
might be more your speed. As the name implies, it adds five jokers to the deck.

That means that you’re dealing with 57 cards instead of the usual 52. And
five of those 57 cards are wild.

As you might imagine, that greatly increases your chances to make lucrative
hands such as four of a kind, straight flush, or even wild royal flush. These
hands do pay a little lower than you might expect when playing games without
wild cards. But they are still much more in play in Five Joker Poker video poker
than in other games.

That means you can possibly build hands that bring you quick, significant
payoffs. With one, two, or more jokers in your hand, the possibilities are
endless. You might even end up with five jokers in a single hand.

As we mentioned, pay tables have been adjusted to atone for the better chance
of getting these hands. And if you don’t manage to get any jokers on the deal or
the draw, you could have a hard sustaining your bankroll.

In the following article, we’ll take a look at Five Joker Poker video poker
and how the game is played. We will show you how the wild cards can change the
game around. And we’ll also talk about strategy, pay tables, and payback
percentages for this fascinating twist on video poker.

Playing Five Joker Poker Video Poker

If you know how to play basic video poker, you’ll know how to play Five Joker
Poker video poker. And even if you don’t, the learning process is a quick one.
You can go in cold and have a pretty good idea of what’s happening after just a
few hands.

If you’ve ever played Five-Card Draw poker at home or out with friends,
you’ll quickly see that video poker is simply a simulation of that game. You
have a five-card deal, followed by a draw round in which you can exchange cards
to make the best possible hand. The big difference is, with video poker, you
only have to worry about your own cards and not anybody else’s, since it’s just
you and the machine.

When you play video poker for a while, you’ll quickly realize that it’s an
extremely beneficial game for the player. The payback rates are as high as many
table games and much higher than slot machines. And you don’t have to worry
about the pressure that some feel when playing table games.

You can also impact the game with your strategy, something you can’t do when
playing slot machines. Probabilities come into play, and the pay table for the
machine tells you everything you need to know. It really is a game that you can
play for a lifetime and not need to find any other diversions, either in a
casino or at a gambling website.

So how do you play Five Joker Poker video poker? Well, we’ll get to the wild
card concept in a bit. For now, let’s just get the basic mechanics down pat with
this tutorial.

Putting in Your Money

This money will be your bankroll. If you’re playing online, all you have to
do is create an account and use some method to fund it. But you can play in a
casino simply by inserting some money into the machine, or, if you have one, a
redemption ticket.

You can either choose a game with a set denomination or find one that allows
you to choose between several different denominations. The key thing to remember
is that the denomination that you choose, such as a dollar or a quarter, will
also be equal to one credit, or coin. As a result, whatever money you insert
will be divided by the amount of the denomination to determine how many credits
you have to play.

Keep in mind that video poker is a quick-moving game, especially once you
learn how to play. And you can, and should, bet multiple credits per hand. So
make sure you have given yourself enough of a bankroll to play for as long as
you wish.

Making Your Bets

On any given hand of Five Joker Poker video poker, you can bet between one
and five credits. The five-credit bet is also known as the max bet, and it has
its own button representing it on the machine. Or you can toggle with the bet
button to go up and down one credit at a time if you choose to bet lower than
that.

Here’s a clue for you: You shouldn’t mess around with betting less than the
max bet. By betting the maximum amount every time, you’re giving yourself the
best chance of maximizing your winnings. The payoff for the royal flush is
exponentially higher with five coins bet than it is for one through four
wagered.

Playing a Hand

As we mentioned above, most video poker games, including Five Joker Poker
video poker, are replications of Five-Card Draw poker.
It’s played with a simulated deck, which, in the case of Five Joker Poker,
includes the standard 52 cards and five jokers. With these cards, you’ll attempt
to create a winning hand.

These winning hands are the ones that return money to the player. In terms of
Five Joker Poker video poker, those winning hands are:

• Three of a kind
• Straight (five cards of consecutive rank like eight-nine-ten-jack-queen
• Flush (five cards of the same suit)
• Full house (three cards of one rank and two of another, like
  ace-ace-ace-six-six)
• Four of a kind
• Straight flush (five cards of the same suit and consecutive rank)
• Wild royal flush (a royal flush achieved with the help of wild cards)
• Five of a kind
• Four jokers
• Five jokers
• Natural royal flush (ten through ace of the same suit)

When you receive your five-card deal, it’s very possible that you might not
have any combinations that constitute a winning hand. But you could have
something that has the potential to be improved to a winning hand.

Let’s imagine that you received the following deal:

You can immediately see two possibilities in this hand. On the one hand,
there is a pair of fours, which, while not a winning hand as is, can be improved
in a variety of ways. There are also four clubs, which means that you are just
one card away from a flush.

This is the part of video poker where your decision-making will come into
play. You know that there are 52 cards left in the deck. In addition, you know
from the pay table exactly how much each winning hand pays.

Your job, then, is to weigh the chances of making a winning hand with the
amount paid for that hand. Once you decide which direction you’re going, you
press the “Hold” buttons underneath the cards that you wish to keep in your
hand. The remaining cards will be discarded and replaced with fresh cards from
the deck.

And it’s important to understand that those cards are indeed fresh. The
software inside the machine, or inside the gambling website, ensures that each
deal and draw is completely independent of anything that has come before. Don’t
expect, for example, to receive a club on the draw simply because you haven’t
seen clubs in previous hands, because that’s not how it works.

Once you are confident in your choices, you hit the “Draw” button. The
machine will deal out cards to replace the ones you’ve discarded. Keep in mind
that you don’t have to discard any if you love the hand you’re dealt, and you
can discard all five cards if you really dislike your hand.

After the draw, your hand is over. The computer will tally up any winnings
from the hand, and you’ll be set for another hand should you choose to play one
and still have credits left in the machine. Or you can quit and cash out your
winnings, at which point you’ll receive a redemption ticket.

Five Joker Poker video poker is that simple. The only thing in this game that
is somewhat special compared to common video poker is the concept of wild cards.

Playing Video Poker with Wild Cards

A wild card is an element of video poker that many people love to utilize. If
you play Jacks or Better or Bonus poker, you know what you’re getting from the
deck. It’s a standard 52-card deck with no deviations.

But wild card games throw in cards that can be converted into whatever cards
in the deck might be most beneficial to you. And that can really make for some
monster hands in a hurry.

Most wild card games are a bit tamer than Five Joker Poker video poker. For
example, common Joker Poker adds just a single joker as a wild card, meaning you
have a 1 in 53 chance of it turning up at any point.

Deuces Wild goes much further. Since the four 2s, or “Deuces,” in the
standard deck are wild, your chances now rise to 4 in 52, or 1 in 13, of getting
a wild card.

But Five Joker Poker video poker takes it another step. Five out of the 57
cards in the deck are wild. That means your chances are between 1 and 11 and 1
in 12 (almost 9%) of a wild card appearing at any moment.

Let’s see how a hand with wild cards might play out. Here is a potential
deal:

Without the joker, there isn’t too much going on here. But with it, some
possibilities emerge. Right off the bat, you can see that the joker can be
converted into another five, which gives you three of a kind.

Or you might look at it another way and try to make a straight out of the
hand by imagining the joker as a four or eight to go with the five, six, and
seven. Remember that before the draw, you have to think in terms of the
potential of the hand.

Let’s imagine that you decide to keep the pair of fives and the joker, which
gives you that three of a kind, already a winning hand. On the draw, you receive
the following:

The second joker means that you can now change both into fives, giving you
four of a kind. Actually, the computer inside the video poker machine will do
this for you. It will automatically convert whatever jokers you receive into
whatever cards give you the most lucrative hand.

You can see how the wild cards can really explode a hand into something
special. That’s the element of the game that makes Five Joker Poker video poker
special. With the five wild cards, you really have more chances to have that
kind of explosive hand.

Now you know what the wild cards bring to the action. Let’s move on and look
at the pay tables for Five Joker Poker video poker.

Pay Tables

A pay table shows you how much you will receive for each winning hand in a
video poker game. But it also helps with strategy, and it shows you essentially
how much the game pays off to players on average. In short, it’s the most
important piece of information about the game.

Think about it: You have to base your decisions about holding and discarding
cards on what each winning hand pays. The pay table tells you that, while the
mathematics of probability will tell you your chances of attaining each hand.
That’s all you really need to know to play video poker, making it one of the
simplest games to play well.

Let’s start by taking a look at a sample pay table for Five Joker Poker video
poker. This is what’s known as the full-pay version. In other words, this pay
table represents the best that a player can hope to find in a Five Joker Poker
machine or online game.

Five Joker Poker Video Poker Pay Table

Hand	1 Coin	2 Coins	3 Coins	4 Coins	5 Coins
Natural royal flush	250	500	750	1000	4000
Five jokers	250	500	750	1000	4000
Four jokers	40	80	120	160	200
Five of a kind	25	50	75	100	125
Wild royal flush	15	30	45	60	75
Straight flush	9	18	27	36	45
Four of a kind	4	8	12	16	20
Full house	3	6	9	12	15
Flush	2	4	6	8	10
Straight	2	4	6	8	10
Three of a kind	1	2	3	4	5

Let’s talk about some unique elements on this pay table before we look into
what makes it unique. First of all, note the jump in pay for the natural royal
flush and five jokers hands from one through four to five coins. That should be
a clear indication of why you should play the maximum bet whenever you have the
chance or else move to a machine with a cheaper denomination.

You’ll also see that there is a distinction between a wild royal flush and a
natural royal flush in terms of pay. Simply put, a wild royal flush is one
achieved with wild cards, while a natural royal flush doesn’t need any.

For example:

Natural Royal Flush:

Wild Royal Flush:

You can see that in the second hand, the jokers need to be changed into the
jack and ace of hearts to complete the royal flush. A wild royal flush will come
up much more often during gameplay for Five Joker Poker video poker than will a
natural royal flush. That’s why the royal flush pays off so much more.

Note also that there is a payoff for four jokers and a payoff for five of a
kind. When you have four jokers in a hand of Five Card Joker video poker, you
will also naturally have five of a kind. For example, look at the following
hand:

Technically, you have five aces in that hand. But the four jokers supersedes
that, and it pays more, so that is the return you’ll get. You don’t, alas, get
paid off for both.

For those who might never have played video poker before, it might be hard to
grasp what makes a Five Joker Poker video poker pay table different than any
other. That’s why it’s a good idea to compare and contrast it to a more common
form of video poker.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at a pay table for

Jacks or Better. Jacks or Better is the most common form of video poker
found in casinos and online, and it contains no wild cards, just a 52-card deck.
Here is the full-pay pay table for Jacks or Better:

Jacks or Better Video Poker Pay Table

Coins/Hands	1 coin	2 coins	3 coins	4 coins	5 coins
Royal flush	250	500	750	1000	4000
Straight flush	50	100	150	200	250
Four of a kind	25	50	75	100	125
Full house	9	18	27	36	45
Flush	6	12	18	24	30
Straight	4	8	12	16	20
Three of a kind	3	6	9	12	15
Two pairs	2	4	6	8	10
Jacks or better	1	2	3	4	5

You can immediately see some drastic differences. First of all, the winning
hands that pay off in Jacks or Better are different. When playing Jacks or
Better, you’ll get paid for a pair of Jacks or Better and two pair, two hands
that don’t pay in Five Joker Poker video poker.

The reason they don’t pay in Five Joker Poker is that they are simply too
easy to achieve with the wild cards present. If they did pay out, they would
basically tip the balance of the game too far in the gambler’s favor. And that
is essentially the concept that governs the rest of the differences in the two
pay tables.

Since hands like four of a kind and straight flush are much easier to achieve
with the wild cards in the deck, they pay off far less in Five Joker Poker video
poker. Of course, there are several hands that exist in Five Joker Poker that
don’t exist in Jacks or Better. These include five of a kind, the wild royal
flush, and four jokers, hands that can’t be made with the jokers present.

You’ll also notice that the top half of the Five Joker Poker video poker pay
table is loaded with bigger payments than Jacks or Better. That means you can
conceivably get a bigger payoff in a hurry playing Five Joker Poker than you
could playing Jacks or Better. But the fact that Jacks or Better pays at a more
stable level on hands that are easier to achieve makes it easier on your
bankroll if you don’t get a high-paying hand or two early in play.

All of this should factor into your decision about whether or not to play
Five Joker Poker video poker as opposed to other video poker games. Another
crucial piece of the equation is the payback percentage.

Payback Percentages

A payback percentage is a mathematical estimate of what a game will pay back
to a player, on average, when playing that game. It’s rendered in a percentage,
so 100% payback means a player will conceivably walk away from the game with the
same amount that he originally put into his bankroll. As a result, you would
like the percentage to be as close to 100 as possible, or maybe even higher, if
you can find a game like that.

Remember that a payback percentage won’t necessarily be accurate if you are
only playing a game for a short period of time. Luck, or lack thereof, will play
havoc with your results if you only play video poker for a short time. But the
more you play, the more your results will start to resemble the quoted
percentage.

In the case of the full-pay version of Five Joker Poker video poker, the
payback percentage sits at just a few ten-thousandths of a point short of 100%.

That is excellent and makes this a highly recommended game.

Imagine expecting to either break even or come close to it after putting
thousands of dollars through this machine, and then adding to that the rewards
that the casino gives to regular gamblers. You can see how the game can be
beneficial and even profitable over time.

For comparison, the full-pay Jacks or Better pays off 99.54%. For casual
players, this might not mean too much to you. But if you are serious about
playing video poker and playing to win, consistent play at a full-pay Five Joker
Poker video poker machine, if you can find it, is one way to do it.

Alas, you might not be able to find that full-pay machine, and that’s where
things get tricky. For example, some pay tables in the Five Joker Poker video
poker family reduce payback percentage to around 96%. Since anything under 99%
is not something we would recommend to a serious player, you should think twice
about playing a machine like this.

How will you know the pay table is less than full-pay? You’ll notice on the
pay table that certain hands, such as the five of a kind, the wild royal flush,
and the straight flush, pay less than on the full-pay table. That’s why it’s a
good idea to keep an eye on the pay tables before committing to a machine.

Learning Strategy

Again, there’s a big difference between those who are playing casually and
those who are serious about winning over time at Five Joker Poker video poker
when it comes to strategy. The casual player might like to try out their own
strategies in terms of holds and discards, hoping that they get lucky. Those
players might also be more likely to sell out for big hands, knowing that
they’ll only be playing the game for a short time.

Yet a serious player must develop an airtight strategy. After all, the only
way to reach the payback percentages listed for a game like Five Joker Poker
video poker is by making the right choices about what to hold and discard for
every single hand without fail. Each mistake that you make will reduce your
expected payback.

What does it mean to make the “right” choice when playing video poker? You
have to make the choice that maximizes your potential for profit over the long
haul. Each deal has a maximum expected value that can only be reached with the
right combination of holds and discards.

That doesn’t mean that a wrong play can’t get lucky and come out a winner
occasionally. Nor does it mean that the mathematically correct play will
automatically result in you winning the hand. But it does mean that playing the
hand the right way will result in the most winnings after playing the hand an
infinite amount of times.

How do you learn how to do that? Here are the two best ways:

1. Video Poker Training Software: The best video
   poker software will allow you to customize the pay tables and the decks so
   you can play a game like Five Joker Poker video poker and learn how to play
   it perfectly. Such software works by allowing you to simulate play for these
   games. When you make the wrong choice on a hand, you are alerted, meaning
   that you will eventually learn all the right plays if you practice long
   enough.
2. Strategy Charts: A video poker strategy chart is a list of
   combinations of cards that you might receive on the deal which are then
   ranked from best to worst. By comparing your hand to these combinations,
   you’ll be able to tell which cards you need to keep and which can be
   discarded. The best way to use a strategy chart is to memorize it.

Below is a sample Video Poker strategy chart which can help you improve your video poker results immediately

Pros and Cons of Five Joker Poker Video Poker

Conclusion

If you like playing with one, two, or four wild cards, you’ll probably love
upping it to five with Five Joker Poker video poker, whether you come upon the
game in a casino or at your favorite online casino site. It’s the kind of game where your adrenaline will rise with
the sight of each joker. And the best pay tables prove that this game has
substance to match the flash.