Fifty-three cards, exactly one joker
The deck contains the standard 52 cards plus one wild joker. Ordinary twos retain their normal rank; they are not wild. A player receives five cards, selects holds and draws once from the 48 cards outside the initial deal. The joker can represent whichever card gives the highest applicable final award. A pair of kings or aces pays; a lone pair of queens or jacks does not.
Identify the top awards as well as 7/5
The selected schedule pays natural royal 800, five of a kind 150 and wild royal 80 per unit wager. Straight flush pays 50, quads 20, full house 7 and flush 5. Those first three awards distinguish it from other Joker schedules that also use a 7/5 shorthand. This page and its simulator link use the 99.9763% table, not a 100%-plus alternative with larger top awards.
The complete five-coin paytable
| Final category | Credits won (5 coins) |
|---|---|
| Natural Royal Flush | 4,000 |
| Five of a Kind | 750 |
| Wild Royal Flush | 400 |
| Straight Flush | 250 |
| Four of a Kind | 100 |
| Full House | 35 |
| Flush | 25 |
| Straight | 15 |
| Three of a Kind | 10 |
| Two Pair | 5 |
| Kings or Better | 5 |
| All other hands | 0 |
These awards include the original wager. Five credits returned means break-even, not five credits of profit. At $0.25 per credit, a hand costs $1.25 and a 4,000-credit award returns $1,000. Changing denomination scales the dollars without changing probabilities. This model always wagers five coins, preserving the maximum-coin royal; it does not apply the same return to smaller coin-count schedules.
The joker does not guarantee a win
A final Joker, K♣, 3♦, 7♥, 9♠ can use the joker as a second king and return the stake. Replace the king with a queen and the hand loses: a pair of queens is below the minimum and the other cards do not form a better combination. A joker plus two natural pairs can complete a full house; a joker plus three matching natural cards can complete quads. All five physical cards must remain distinct.
Strategy begins with what the joker can complete
Separate hands containing the joker from natural hands when studying strategy. A four-card royal can lead to either a natural or wild royal depending on the replacement; their awards differ substantially. High-pair intuition from Jacks or Better is also incomplete because jacks and queens have no standalone pair payout. Use an analyzer configured to this exact schedule for close choices involving suited draws, pairs and the joker.
Five of a kind is not a royal
Joker, 7♣, 7♦, 7♥, 7♠ is five of a kind, paying 750 credits for five coins. Joker, J♥, Q♥, K♥, A♥ is a wild royal, paying 400 credits. The natural heart royal pays 4,000. Keeping a dealt natural royal is decisive: no replacement can exceed its award. These examples establish the award hierarchy; they do not constitute a complete optimal hold strategy.
High return still allows losing sessions
The selected integer-weight model has an optimal theoretical RTP of 99.9763%. Its calculated variance is 23.691955 in squared total-stake units; standard deviation is 4.867438 stakes per hand. Those figures assume independent hands and optimal decisions on this exact paytable, with no progressive jackpot, cashback, promotions or strategy mistakes.
For a fixed number N of hands, expected loss is N times the total hand wager times one minus the return fraction. The standard deviation of total net return is the hand wager times the square root of N times variance. Rare jackpots make short-session outcomes asymmetric, so this formula is not a promise that a particular session ends near its expectation. An affordable bankroll can still run out before the requested hand count.
Compare several sessions with the same settings, then change one setting at a time. A faster speed changes only the pace. Increasing the stake magnifies dollar swings without making a jackpot due. Set an affordable entertainment limit; simulated results are neither income projections nor a reason to chase losses.
Sources & calculation notes
This table uses the reduced weighted denominator 2,047,405,460,100. It is not the number of distinct five-card deals. A 53-card draw analysis can use a denominator twelve times larger; mixing counts between those representations would corrupt every probability. Each published count here is divided by the total from this same table.
The counts preserve the published analyst’s precision. They verify the implemented distribution, not an independent re-enumeration of every possible optimal hold. Displayed percentages are rounded; sampling uses the original integer weights.
Reviewed October 4, 2026. The worked examples explain particular rules and decisions; they are not a complete optimal strategy chart.