DJ Wild: How to Play and Game Strategy

There are poker-based options aplenty among modern table games, whether in online casinos or live casinos. Almost all use standard 52-card decks and few include wild cards.

That makes DJ Wild a game with a difference. The "DJ" stands for deuces and Joker, and those cards are wild. They may take the place of any other card in forming a high-ranking hand.

With the Joker, that makes a 53-card deck and a total of five wild cards that include all four 2s.

DJ Wild is distributed by Light & Wonder, a major manufacturer of slot machines, electronic games and table games. The game inventor, Shufflemaster, was merged into Scientific Games, which has since become Light & Wonder.

As with many poker-based games, play is multifaceted. On an ante-play portion of the game, you win if your hand beats the dealer. On a Blind bet, you win varying amounts if you have a straight or better, push on three of a kind or less. And on an optional Trips bet, you win with three of a kind or better.

HAND RANKINGS

With all those wild cards, you'll see more high-ranking poker hands than in games with no wilds. The wilds also enable five-of-a-kind hands, which are impossible in traditional games.

Five of a kind has to be accommodated in the ranking of hands, which is as follows:

1. Five wild cards
2. Royal flush
3. Five of a kind
4. Straight flush
5. Four of a kind
6. Full house
7. Flush
8. Straight
9. Three of a kind
10. Two pair
11. One pair
12. Ace-high or less

BETTING 

To start play, there are two mandatory bets: the Ante and the Blind.  Ante and Blind bets must be of equal size, so if you bet $10 on ante you must also  bet $10 on blind.

The Trips bet also is available before cards are dealt.  Your Trips bet does not have to equal your Ante or Blind bets.

There is one more wager in DJ Wild: the Play bet. Play bets must be twice your ante, but are not made until after you've seen your cards. If you bet on play, you're betting your hand will outrank the dealer's hand and is taken in combination with the ante.

That leaves wagers on three ways to win: Ante-Play on a hand comparison against the dealer; Blind, evaluated on a pay table  that starts payoffs with straights; and Trips, which pays on three of a kind or better.

You do not have to beat the dealer to win Trips bets, but the Blind bet is part of the main game, not a side bet. If you don't beat the dealer, you lose the Blind bet even if you have a hand on the pay table.

GAMEPLAY

After initial wagers are posted, players and the dealer each are dealt five cards. After you see your cards, you must either make the Play bet to stay in the hand, or fold and forfeit your Ante and Blind.

Once all players Play or fold, the dealer cards are turned face up. If your hand beats the dealer, Ante and Play bets are paid at even money and Blind bets are paid according to the pay table.

If the dealer hand beats yours, you lose Ante, Play and Blind bets.

Finally, Trips bets are paid according to the pay table. You're eligible to win even if you lost to the dealer, and can win even if you didn't make the Play bet. However, all winning Trips hands are strong enough that optimal strategy calls for you to Play, so that shouldn't be an issue.

STRATEGY TO PLAY OR FOLD

To get the most out of DJ Wild, knowing when to Play and when to fold is the core of the game. That the eligibility for the Blind pay table is dependent on making the play bet complicates calculations. We Play a little more often than we would if there was no Blind to consider.

Still, the resulting optimal strategy as detailed by Michael Shackelford at wizardofodds.com is easy:

Make the play bet with a pair of 4s or better, with one exception. With two 4s and a single 3 among your five cards, fold instead.

Shackelford explains that if the dealer has a pair of 3s, you'd win with a pair of 4s. If you have a 3 in your hand, it makes it slightly less likely the dealer has a pair of 3s and slightly more likely he'll have something better.

That small difference shifts the odds just enough that it's better to fold a pair of 4s with a 3 than to Play.

The "3" factor comes into play only if your hand tops out at a pair of 4s. If you have a pair of 5s or better, two pairs or any higher poker hand, make the Play bet regardless of the rank of other cards in your hand.

THE BLIND PAY TABLE

If you beat the dealer and win the Ante and Play bets, you'll get an additional playoff of up to 1,000 times your Blind bet if your hand is strong enough to make the pay table. Payoffs are as follows:

Note that any hand of less than a straight pushes on the Blind bet provided you beat the dealer. The beating the dealer requirement is enough that there don't have to be losing hands on the pay table for the house to have an edge.

Another thing of note: five wild cards and five of a kind are possible only with wild cards, but on other hands there is no difference in payoff between hands with and without wilds. That differs from Deuces Wild video poker games, which have bigger jackpots on natural royal flushes than royals with wild cards.

THE HOUSE EDGE ON ANTE, PLAY AND BLIND

At wizardofodds.com, Shackelford lists the house edge on DJ Wild as 3.47% of the ante or 1.73% if you take the required Ante and Blind bets together.

That house edge derives from the Blind being a required bet. Losing to the dealer means not only losses on Ante and Play, as in many poker-based games, but an extra loss on Blind. Even though when you beat the dealer Blind never loses, extra-bet losses to the dealer mean profit to the house.

You'll have paying hands of a straight or better only 5.98% of the time, and player losses come to 38.2% of bets on Blind,

THE TRIPS PAY TABLE

Multiple pay tables are available from Light & Wonder for use in online casinos and live casinos. On all, Trips payoffs differentiate  between hands with or without wild cards.

The biggest payoff, 2,000-1 on the most common pay table, is for five wild cards. Next biggest is 1,000-1 on a natural royal flush, but a royal with wild cards is lower on the scale at 90-1.

Pay tables displayed by casinos usually list payoffs on natural hands separately from payoffs on wild hands. Let's look at the most common pay table.

TRIPS PAYOFFS ON NATURAL HANDS

TRIPS PAYOFFS ON HANDS WITH WILD CARDS

You'll be dealt a winning hand on an average of 22.1% of hands.

The house edge with this pay table is 6.16%. At that level, Trips is a bet for jackpot chasers dazzled by the rare shot at a 2,000-1 bonanza, but the better percentage play is to stick with Ante-Blind-Play and skip the Trips.

Others among the four known pay tables are more generous. The only version to raise the return on natural three of a kind to 7-1 also has other payoff enhancements and a house edge that's a mere 0.59%. That version of Trips is a better play than the main game. Other versions carry house edges of 1.19% and 3.16%.

However, the low-edge pay tables are rarely seen. You're most likely to encounter the table listed above.

A FINAL WORD

The house edge of 1.73% of the required Ante and Blind bets puts DJ Wild among the better plays in the category of poker-based games. You can do better if you know blackjack basic strategy, stick to the best bets at craps or play baccarat. But with an easy-to-master strategy and an outside shot at some big blind plays DJ Wild gives you a  fun option for your game collection.