Full-pay deuces wild for more than a quarter

Full-pay deuces wild offers, far and away, the best percentage return to the skilled play of any widely available video poker game. With perfect play it yields 100.76 percent. It's relatively easy to learn, and it's loads of fun to play. But in recent years, full-pay deuces players have run into some roadblocks.

As more people have learned to play the game well enough to beat it, casinos have taken countermeasures. Most give reduced reward points for playing full-pay deuces and other positive games; at least one, the
Gold Coast, gives no points at all (the Palms, acorss the street, still gives full points for play on positive games). Some, such as Sam's Town, have set the speed on their full-pay deuces at slow. Station casinos no longer mail calendars with free play, point multipliers and other offers to those who play only positive machines. And of course, some casinos have simply taken these games out. (This is one example of the best games being at locals' casinos; there is no full-pay deuces anywhere on the Strip.)

Because players can make money from this game, many would like to play it at high denominations. And because players can make money from this game, almost all casinos have eliminated full-pay deuces for anything more than quarters. At this denomination, a player who pushes $1,000 an hour through the machine can average a maximum of $7.60 an hour. This isn't enough to interest the professionals who can do a casino's bottom line some real damage.

At this time I know of no casinos that offer full-pay deuces for more than quarters. But I do know of two small casinos in Henderson that have machines that allow maximum bets of 10 coins rather than five, effectively making them 50-cent full-pay deuces machines. Neither of these casinos has a slot club, so players earn no points that can be used for comps, cash back or free play. (They do have promotions that can add to the return of the game.)

I noticed a few machines with this game recently during my first visit to Peppermill's Rainbow on Water Street downtown. There are no signs to help you spot these games; you'll have to look for the pay table and "bet 10" on the screen.

The other casino with these games is the Skyline on Boulder Highway just south of Sunset Road. Its machines are old coin droppers outfitted with bill acceptors along the back wall and in the "Deuces Wild Corral." The face plates above the screens say in large characters "Win 8,000 coins." The pay table is printed on the glass. A short cut for spotting full-pay deuces that it's the only version of the game that pays 5 instead of four for four of a kind.

These machines are a bit slow by modern standards, and if you hit the four deuces for $500, you'll have to wait for a hand pay. When you cash out, the machine will drop a load of quarters, which you'll have to take to the cashier's cage to be converted to bills.