Games · DJ Wild
DJ Wild: five wild cards, one sentence of strategy
Four deuces and a joker are wild, so you will make a pair or better almost every hand, which is exactly how the game feels generous while charging 1.73% of everything you are required to post. The whole strategy is one sentence. The pricing is in the two bets nobody reads.
Educational simulation: fun credits only, no real money. The ante and blind are BOTH required, so the honest cost is 1.73% of what you must post, not the 3.47%-of-ante figure usually quoted. The Trips side bet costs between 0.59% and 6.16% depending on a paytable most players never check; see the Odds tab.
One seeded random stream per run, settlement in exact cents, no reseeding. The tie rate is the sharpest test of the hand-comparison code and the average wager is the sharpest test of the strategy, an edge that looks right while either of those drifts means something is wrong underneath.
Three numbers, one game. Which is "the" house edge depends entirely on what you divide by, and the friendliest of the three is the one you will usually see quoted. We show all three because the money you actually put at risk is closer to 3.39× your ante than 1×.
The Blind bet; pays on a straight or better
| Hand | Blind pays | Frequency | Odds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Five wilds | 1000:1 | 0.0000% | 1 in 2,869,685 |
| Royal flush | 50:1 | 0.0350% | 1 in 2,858 |
| Five of a kind | 10:1 | 0.0488% | 1 in 2,050 |
| Straight flush | 9:1 | 0.1271% | 1 in 787 |
| Four of a kind | 4:1 | 1.8012% | 1 in 56 |
| Full house | 3:1 | 0.5244% | 1 in 191 |
| Flush | 2:1 | 0.6606% | 1 in 151 |
| Straight | 1:1 | 2.9272% | 1 in 34 |
| Three of a kind or less | push | 93.88% | n/a |
The blind only comes alive on 6.12% of deals, and it must also beat the dealer to collect. It is the flashiest line on the felt and the quietest one in practice.
The Trips side bet: same hands, four prices
| Hand | Frequency | 90-25-7 | 90-30-6 | 90-25-6 | 60-25-6 ★ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wild five wilds | 1 in 2,869,685 | 2000 | 2000 | 2000 | 2000 |
| Natural royal flush | 1 in 717,421 | 1000 | 1000 | 1000 | 1000 |
| Wild royal flush | 1 in 2,870 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 90 |
| Wild five of a kind | 1 in 2,050 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 70 |
| Natural straight flush | 1 in 79,713 | 200 | 200 | 200 | 200 |
| Wild straight flush | 1 in 794 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 25 |
| Natural four of a kind | 1 in 5,435 | 90 | 90 | 90 | 60 |
| Wild four of a kind | 1 in 56 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
| Natural full house | 1 in 906 | 40 | 40 | 30 | 30 |
| Wild full house | 1 in 242 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Natural flush | 1 in 576 | 25 | 30 | 25 | 25 |
| Wild flush | 1 in 205 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Natural straight | 1 in 282 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 |
| Wild straight | 1 in 39 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Natural three of a kind | 1 in 68 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
| Wild three of a kind | 1 in 7 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| House edge | 0.59% | 1.19% | 3.16% | 6.16% |
Read the placard before you bet this. The cheapest schedule (90-25-7) costs 0.59%; the most common one (60-25-6, marked ★) costs 6.16%: over ten times as much for hands that arrive at exactly the same rate. The tell is natural four of a kind: 90 on the good table, 60 on the bad one.
The whole strategy
Raise with a pair of fours or better: except a pair of fours with a lone three, which folds.
That is the entire published strategy, and by our enumeration it raises on 69.3% of hands, which is where the 3.39× average wager comes from (1 ante + 1 blind + 2 more on 69.3% of deals). The odd exception is real: a pair of fours beats a pair of threes, and holding a three yourself makes the dealer's pair of threes less likely, so the marginal hand tips to a fold.
How this simulation works
- Rules modeled
- DJ Wild poker: a 53-card deck (standard 52 plus one joker) in which all four deuces and the joker are wild, five wild cards. Player posts equal Ante and Blind, both required, and may add an optional Trips side bet. After seeing five cards the player either folds (losing ante and blind) or raises exactly 2× the ante. The dealer's five cards are then revealed; there is NO dealer qualifier. Player wins: ante and play pay even money, the blind pays its table (five wilds 1000:1 down to a straight 1:1, and pushes on three of a kind or less). Tie: everything pushes. Dealer wins: ante, blind and play all lose. Hand order runs five wilds, royal flush, five of a kind, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, pair, high card.
- Assumptions
- One freshly shuffled 53-card deck per hand, fair and independent. Fun credits only, no real money. The strategy built into the Play hint and the simulator is the published one (raise with a pair of fours or better, except a pair of fours with a lone three) not a derived-optimal strategy; it raises on roughly 69.3% of hands. Trips resolves on the player's five cards whether they fold or raise, and 'natural' means the dealt cards form the category at face value, so a deuce may count as an ordinary 2.
- Mathematical basis
- Hand frequencies are ours: an exact enumeration of all 2,869,685 five-card deals, recomputed by the test suite on every run so the published-looking numbers on the Odds tab can never drift from the evaluator that produces them. House edges, the strategy and the four Trips paytables are published figures (Wizard of Odds): 3.47% of the ante, 1.73% of both required bets, element of risk 1.02% against an average 3.39× ante, tie rate 0.0114%, Trips 0.59% / 1.19% / 3.16% / 6.16%, every one of which our own enumeration or Monte-Carlo reproduces.
- Validation
- Independently reviewed before publication (gate D-008). The reviewer rebuilt the evaluator from scratch and swept the entire deal space: zero category mismatches across all 2,869,685 hands, hand ordering verified as a strict order-isomorphism (so ties and kickers are exactly right, not approximately), naturalness and the strategy agreeing hand for hand, and all four Trips edges re-derived independently. The base-game edge has no exact solver, it is Monte-Carlo bound to the published figure within 3 standard errors, and that limit is stated on the record.