WinPalace Poker UK

Deuces Wild

Deuces Wild uses a standard 52-card deck, but all four twos act as wild cards that slot into any hand you're building. Land four deuces and you're sitting on the second-best hand in the game, beaten only by a Royal Flush. Three of a Kind sits at the bottom of WinPalace's paytable, and it pays the same flat amount no matter which three cards make it.

Because wild cards push your odds of winning higher, WinPalace's Deuces Wild variant trims the payouts elsewhere to balance the house edge. I noticed the same trade-off on the Not So Ugly Deuces version, which pays a touch better but caps the biggest wins.

Jacks or Better

Jacks or Better is the version most beginners start on, and WinPalace measures every other poker variant against it. The name comes from the lowest hand that pays: a pair of Jacks. Nothing lower gets you anything back.

The paytable is easy to read at a glance, and the odds stay favourable enough that I kept coming back to it between sessions on other games. If you're new to video poker, start here before moving to variants with wild cards or shifted paytables.

Tens or Better

Tens or Better runs on the same deck and hand rankings as Jacks or Better, but the bar drops to a pair of tens. That change means smaller, more frequent payouts rather than bigger, rarer ones.

WinPalace's version pays 6x your stake for a Full House and 5x for a Flush, against 9x and 6x on the Jacks or Better game, so the full-pay math here works out lower overall. The double-up bonus round still applies if you win, giving you a shot at doubling your payout before it lands.

Joker Poker

Joker Poker adds a 53rd card, the Joker, to the deck as a wild that completes hands the way the deuces do in Deuces Wild. Wins start at Kings or Better here rather than Jacks, so the odds shift again.

Five of a Kind ranks just under a Natural Royal Flush (a Royal Flush with no wild cards involved), and a Straight Flush with the Joker sits third from top. WinPalace runs the 7/5 pay table on this one, which gives you better odds than the 6/5 version some sites still offer.

Aces and Faces

Aces and Faces builds on Jacks or Better with one change: Four of a Kind hands made up of Aces or face cards pay more. On WinPalace's 8/5 table, Four Aces pays 80 to 1 rather than the 50 to 1 you'd get on a Straight Flush elsewhere in the pay chart. Four face cards return 40 to 1.

I found the extra payout tiers worth studying before playing for stakes, since the jump between a low Four of a Kind and an Aces-heavy one changes your expected return.

Bonus Poker

Bonus Poker keeps the Jacks or Better hand rankings and pays more on Four of a Kind hands. Four Aces pays 80 to 1 on WinPalace's table.

The full-pay version runs 8/5 (Full House pays 8x, Flush pays 5x), with a 7/5 version also on offer. Double Bonus Poker, a further variant with its own tweaks to the Four of a Kind payouts, sits in the same section of the lobby.

Learn the Hold/Discard Strategy

Every video poker variant runs on the same core decision: which cards to hold, which to discard. Charts exist for each variant that show the optimal hold for any five-card hand, and running through one before you play for real money changes your results more than any other single habit. No chart guarantees a win, since video poker stays a game of chance, but it narrows the gap between the paytable's odds and the odds you get in practice.

Compare Paytables Before You Commit

The same variant name can hide different payouts. WinPalace's 8/5 Bonus Poker pays more than the 7/5 version sitting a few games over in the lobby, even though both carry the same name, the same way slot RTPs shift between versions of the same title. Check the paytable button before you stake anything, and pick the version with the higher numbers on Full House and Flush.

Set a Limit Before You Start

Video poker plays fast because it's a solo game with no dealer pace to slow you down. I lost track of time on Jacks or Better more than once during testing, and only stopped because I'd set a timer on my phone beforehand. Decide your budget and session length before you open the game, and walk away the moment either runs out, or the moment the game stops feeling fun. WinPalace's site links to BeGambleAware and lets you set deposit limits or self-exclude through GamStop if a session turns into something you don't want.