Wild! Wild! Wild!

Introduction

Wild! Wild! Wild! is a video poker variant attached to multi-play video poker. If the player bets 10 credits per play, the game will randomly add one to three wild cards to the deck with certain probabilities. The price to invite this feature is 5 credits per play.

Rules

1. Wild! Wild! Wild! is an optional feature added to multi-play video poker.
2. If the player bets one to five coins per play, the game will play like conventional multi-play video poker, which I assume the reader is familiar with.
3. If the player bets ten coins per play, he will invoke the feature. Wins will be based on five coins bet per play, with the other five coins considered a fee a pay for the feature.
4. Depending on the game and pay table, the game may add 1 to 3 wild cards to the deck. For example, in 9-6 Jacks or Better, the probabilities of added wilds are as follows:
   • 0 added = 40%
   • 1 added = 19%
   • 2 added = 21%
   • 3 added = 20%
5. The game does inform the player the player how many wilds were added.
6. If the player invokes the feature, in addition to the wild cards, the game will boost the pay table wins and add wins for a five of a kind in what are normally not wild card games.

Example

In the image above two wilds were added to the deck.  You can tell because it says so right above the credit meter of 9280.  On the deal I got one of them.  

 

In the image above, I choose to hold the wild card and the suited ace and king. 

 

After the draw, two hands improve to a three of a kind, one to a flush, one to a full house and one remains a high pair.  The total "win" is 5 + 2*15 + 30 + 55 = 120 credits.  The bet amount was 5*10 = 50 credit, so the actual profit was 70 credits. 

Analysis

The following is my analysis of 9-6 Jacks or Better. First I will present four return tables, for 0 to 3 wild cards added. In each table, the return column is the produce of the win, probability and 0.5. The reason for dividing by 2 is wins are based on half the bet amount.

The following table summarizes the return by the number of wilds added. The lower right cell shows a return of 99.63%.

The following table also summarizes the whole game according to each paying hand. The lower right cell again shows a return of 99.63%.

The following set of tables show the pay tables available for each game, the probabilities for 1 to 3 wilds, the 5-coin return and 10-coin return. You can see the 10-coin return is always a little higher.

The 8-5 pay table for Bonus Poker is the only one where the wild card probabilities are not exact as shown. The are based on the following weights:

• 0 wilds = 355
• 1 wild = 100
• 2 wilds = 440
• 3 wilds = 100

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank VideoPoker.com for the math on this page as well as permission to use the screenshots in the example section.

External Links

Discussion about this game in my forum at Wizard of Vegas.

Written by: Michael Shackleford