- Maths reviewed by Josh Miller
- Tested by Diana Westfield
The Caribbean Stud calculator does two jobs. It shows what the main game costs (a 5.22% edge on your ante, so about £26 an hour at £10 and 50 hands), and it prices the £1 progressive side bet at whatever the meter says. With the usual payouts, that side bet only breaks even once the jackpot passes about £218,000. Below that it’s a donation. The calculator is free and you can change the fixed payouts to match your table.
Caribbean Stud poker odds and payouts
You and the dealer get five cards each, one of the dealer’s face up. You fold (losing the ante) or raise twice the ante. The dealer needs ace-king or better to qualify. If not, you win the ante at evens and the raise pushes. If the dealer qualifies, the better hand wins and your raise is paid on this table:
| Your hand | Raise pays | Chance of being dealt it |
|---|---|---|
| One pair or ace-king | 1:1 | 42.3% (pair) |
| Two pair | 2:1 | 4.75% |
| Three of a kind | 3:1 | 2.11% |
| Straight | 4:1 | 0.39% |
| Flush | 5:1 | 0.20% |
| Full house | 7:1 | 0.14% |
| Four of a kind | 20:1 | 0.024% |
| Straight flush | 50:1 | 0.0014% |
| Royal flush | 100:1 | 1 in 649,740 |
The sting is the qualifying rule. When you’ve got a big hand, the dealer fails to qualify about 44% of the time and your straight gets paid at evens on the ante only.
Basic Caribbean Stud strategy
Raise with any pair or better. Fold anything below ace-king. With ace-king, compare your hand card by card with A-K-J-8-3: raise if yours is that good or better, fold if it’s worse. That simple rule is within a whisker of perfect play, which has a 5.22% edge on the ante.
The progressive side bet
The £1 jackpot bet pays on your own five cards, whatever the dealer has. Royal flush takes the whole meter, a straight flush usually 10% of it, and quads, full houses and flushes fixed amounts. Those fixed amounts carry about 36p of every pound. The rest has to come from the jackpot, and a royal turns up once in 649,740 hands.
So the meter matters enormously. At £150,000 you lose about 16p per £1 bet. At £300,000 you’d be ahead about 24p. Payouts vary between casinos, so open the “More options” box and type your table’s numbers.
For other carnival games, see the CasinoCalcs three card poker calculator and the Ultimate Texas Hold’em strategy. All the house edges sit side by side on best odds in the casino.
Other stud-style table games: Casino Hold’em strategy, Let It Ride and the simplest of the lot, Casino War.
The full raise-or-fold rules, including the tricky ace-king hands, are on the Caribbean stud strategy chart.
For the swings of a real session, the Caribbean Stud simulator plays thousands of hands with chart strategy.
A big jackpot meter is designed to catch your eye. Decide your budget before you sit down. BeGambleAware.org is free if you need it.