Free Joker Poker Video Poker
A 53-card deck with one wild joker, kings or better to pay, and every hold checked against the exact best one.
Play chips
1,000
No real money, no prizes, nothing to buy.
| Natural royal flush | 20,000 |
|---|---|
| Five of a kind | 5,000 |
| Wild royal flush | 2,500 |
| Straight flush | 1,250 |
| Four of a kind | 425 |
| Full house | 175 |
| Flush | 125 |
| Straight | 75 |
| Three of a kind | 50 |
| Two pair | 25 |
| Kings or better | 25 |
Pick a bet and deal.
Session coach
Last round
Nothing played yet. After each of your hands the coach says what the round cost and what decided it.
Decide the cost before you start
Gambling is entertainment with a price, like a concert ticket. The useful question is not how much you might win but how much the evening is allowed to cost. Pick that number first, and treat reaching it as the end of the session. You can set one below and the coach will hold you to it.
Next bet
25 chips at a 1.91% house edge: an expected cost of 0.5 chips.
- Hands played
- 0
- Chips bet in total
- 0
- Bets raised after a loss
- 0
Where the result came from
- House edge, on average
- 0
- Decisions on strategy
- None yet
- Your off-strategy plays
- 0
- Luck
- 0
- Result
- 0
The report fills in as you play. How a video poker return is solved exactly
Set a session limit
Your leaks
None recorded. A spot you play off the best strategy is listed here so you can practise it, and drops off once you get it right three times running. The list is kept in this browser only.
This table is for practice and entertainment only. How to keep gambling safe
Hold coach
Every hand has 32 ways to hold it, and one of them returns the most on average. After each draw the coach tells you which, worked out exactly from the 48 cards you could not see, the joker among them unless you are holding it.
This session
- Hands played
- 0
- Best holds
- None yet
- Net chips
- 0
- Expected with best holds
- 0
This machine returns 98.09% of the chips bet when every hold is the best one, a house edge of 1.91%. Almost all of a short session is luck: the natural royal flush alone is 2.0 points of that return and arrives about once in 40,000 hands.
Built by Alexander Korsager · last updated October 3, 2026 · corrections
- Returned with every hold played right
- 98.09%
- House edge that best play still leaves
- 1.91%
- Hands with the joker among the first five cards
- 9.4%
- Hands that pay nothing at all, about
- 56%
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A machine with one wild card in the deck
Joker Poker adds one card to the deck: a joker that stands for whatever you need.
It is in the first five cards on 9.4% of hands, and when it is, the hand is a different game. The joker is always held, a pair with it is already three of a kind, and four cards toward a straight or a flush become a made hand. When it is not dealt, it is still in the deck, so every draw has one more card that helps. In exchange the pay table asks for more at the bottom: a pair pays only from kings up.
The joker with a pair
Three of a kind as dealt, which pays 2 for each chip bet
- Held
- Held
- Held
- Not held
- Not held
Best hold: Joker 8♠ 8♦
The joker with four cards of one suit
Flush as dealt, which pays 5 for each chip bet
- Held
- Held
- Held
- Held
- Held
Best hold: Joker 5♥ 9♥ 3♥ Q♥
The joker with four cards in a row
Straight as dealt, which pays 3 for each chip bet
- Held
- Held
- Held
- Held
- Held
Best hold: Joker 5♠ 6♦ 7♣ 8♥
The joker is among the five cards dealt on 9.4% of hands. Each best hold is found by drawing every possible replacement, the way the coach does at the table above.
After each draw the coach shows the best hold for the hand you were dealt and, if yours was different, how many chips the difference costs on average.
That figure is worked out exactly, by drawing every possible replacement from the 48 cards you could not see. The 98.09% return quoted for this pay table assumes every single hold is the best one. Each hold that is not comes straight off it.
- Not held
- Held
- Held
- Not held
- Not held
- Hold 7♥ 7♦70.80
The best hold of this hand
- Hold K♠ 7♥ 7♦50.80
Gives up 20 chips on average
- Hold K♠45.20
Gives up 25.60 chips on average
Chips back on average on a 100-chip bet, from every possible draw out of the 48 cards left, the joker among them.
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Rules at this table
| Hand | Pays per chip | Points of the return |
|---|---|---|
| Natural royal flush | 800 | 2.0 |
| Five of a kind | 200 | 1.9 |
| Wild royal flush | 100 | 1.0 |
| Straight flush | 50 | 3.0 |
| Four of a kind | 17 | 14.5 |
| Full house | 7 | 10.9 |
| Flush | 5 | 7.9 |
| Straight | 3 | 5.1 |
| Three of a kind | 2 | 26.7 |
| Two pair | 1 | 11.1 |
| Kings or better | 1 | 14.1 |
Points are each hand's share of the 98.09% return with every hold played right: how often the hand arrives, times what it pays.
- One 53-card deck, the standard 52 and one joker, shuffled fresh for every hand.
- The joker is wild: it counts as whichever card makes the best hand. It is tagged Wild on the table.
- You are dealt five cards, hold any of them, and the rest are replaced once.
- A pair of kings or aces is the lowest hand that pays, at 1 for each chip bet. Two pair also pays 1.
- Five of a kind, four of a rank and the joker, pays 200. A royal flush that uses the joker pays 100.
- A natural royal flush, made without the joker, pays 800 for each chip bet, the rate a real machine pays at its maximum bet.
- Bets are 5, 25, 50, 100 chips a hand.
- 1 to 5
- Hold or release a card
- Enter
- Deal or draw
FAQ
- Is this Joker Poker game played for real money?
- No. The table uses play chips that have no value, cannot be bought, and cannot be cashed out or exchanged for anything. If you run out, you are handed another stack for free. There is no account and nothing to download.
- How does the joker change which cards to hold?
- With the joker in your hand, hold it and ask what the other four cards are closest to: any pair is three of a kind, three cards of one suit in sequence are a strong draw to a straight flush, and a lone king or ace is a paying pair. Without it, the game plays like Jacks or Better with a higher bar. Jacks and queens are no longer worth holding on their own, and a low pair, which pays nothing yet, is usually still worth more than a single king.
- Can perfect play beat this machine?
- No. With every hold played correctly, this pay table returns 98.09% of the chips bet, a house edge of 1.91%. The joker makes big hands more common, and the pay table is set with that already counted. A machine that pays less for four of a kind, a full house or a flush returns less, whatever you hold.
- Why do most sessions still lose chips?
- Because the return is carried by hands that rarely arrive. The natural royal flush is worth 2.0 points of the 98.09% and comes about once in 40,000 hands, and five of a kind about once in 10,800. About 56% of hands pay nothing at all. In a session without the big hands, which is most sessions, the game returns well under its headline figure.
How this game works
Each hand is dealt from one 53-card deck shuffled in your browser so that every ordering is equally likely. The joker is resolved to the best hand it can complete, and the classifier that does this is tested against the count of every hand category across all 2,869,685 possible five-card hands.
The coach prices all 32 holds of a dealt hand by full enumeration of the remaining 48 cards, with no sampling and no rounding. The 98.09% return is computed the same way for every one of the 2,869,685 possible deals, taking the best hold of each. It is exact, not simulated, and it is recomputed from the pay table each time the site's tests run.
The method is the one the video poker return calculator uses for the games without a joker. The expected figure in the session panel is the house edge under best play multiplied by the chips you have bet. What your own holds gave up is reported separately, so the cost of the machine and the cost of mistakes are never mixed.
Limits
- The best hold maximizes the average return. It is not the hold most likely to win this hand, and the two often differ.
- Real machines pay the top natural royal rate only at the maximum bet. This table pays that rate at every bet size.
- A richer pay table that pays more for four of a kind exists and is rare. Which holds are best depends on the pay table, so the coach here is right for this one.
- Play chips do not feel like money. The long gaps between big hands are harder to sit through with a real stake.
This is a practice game for adults. It has no real-money play and links to none. Joker Poker played for money has a house edge on this pay table even when every hold is perfect, and practice only brings you closer to that edge, never past it.
Gambling can cause serious harm. The National Problem Gambling Helpline is free, confidential and open 24/7, call or text 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738), or chat at ncpgambling.org/chat.
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