When you start to learn to play video poker, you probably start with Jacks or Better or Deuces Wild. These are the most basic versions of non-wild and wild video poker, respectively, and while there are some general concepts that you have to learn for all video poker games, the division between these two types means that there are certain ideas you'll need to keep separate for each of the groupings. We want to give you a list of the main differences between these two kinds of video poker to help you understand what you should be focusing on if you switch between them.

The first key difference to keep in mind is that non-wild card games almost always have payouts for high pairs. There will be certain high cards that can get a payout if they have just a single pair, and that means that you'll have to play pair hands based on which kind of pair you have. In wild card games, however, there usually aren't single pair payouts, so you have to treat all single-pair hands as drawing hands since they have to improve if you want to win anything.

Second, you have to learn to play draws differently in these two types of video poker. The payouts for straights and flushes are typically higher in the non-wild games, but the chances of hitting those hands are always higher in wild card versions. The point here is that certain draws can be worth more or less in these different types of scenarios based on whether you have wilds in your hand or whether there are wilds in the deck to begin with, and since a lot of key video poker hands that determine your payout rate are based on draws, this is a key consideration.

Third and finally, you have to think about where your value comes from in these games. In non-wild card games, you're going to make worse hands on average, and although the paytable is adjusted to compensate for this, you have to understand that a lot of your value is going to come from playing relatively bad hands correctly. You have to learn to play the weaker hands at a high level to make the most out of them if you want to maximize your overall payout rate, and this is less of an issue in wild card games.