You raise with a pair or better and with the ace-king hands the strategy chart says to raise, and fold the rest. No progressive side bet. Play money only.
Your session
Press "Simulate the session" to play every hand and see how your money moves.
- Maths reviewed by Josh Miller
- Tested by Diana Westfield
The Caribbean Stud simulator deals five cards to you and five to the dealer, decides raise or fold with the strategy chart, and pays the raise by the standard table, from 1 to 1 for a pair up to 100 to 1 for a royal flush. Deal a hand to see a decision, or simulate a session to see how much one big hand can mask a slow leak.
A Caribbean Stud session in numbers
With the chart, you raise about 52% of hands and fold the rest for one ante. Of the hands you raise, around 43% meet a dealer who doesn’t qualify, which pays your ante and hands back the raise: the frustrating “I had a flush and won £10” moment that defines the game. Altogether you win about 39% of hands and lose 61%, and the money still comes out close because wins on raised hands pay more.
| 1,000 hands at a £10 ante | Result |
|---|---|
| Average result | about −£522 |
| Middle session in our runs | −£540 |
| Best 5% of sessions | +£620 or better |
| Worst 5% of sessions | −£1,660 or worse |
| Sessions that finish ahead | about 23% |
The spread is wide because a single full house pays 7 raises, 140 antes’ worth of fun at the right moment, and four of a kind pays 20. You’ll often see a session drift down for 300 hands and jump back on one hand. That’s the shape of a game where the rare hands carry the payout table.
The strategy it plays
Raise any pair or better. Fold anything below ace-king. With ace-king, raise when the dealer’s card matches one of yours, when the dealer shows an ace or king and you hold a queen or jack, or when you hold a queen and the dealer’s card is lower than your fourth-highest card. That’s the full chart from our Caribbean Stud strategy page, which can also check any single hand exactly. Over 700,000 simulated hands it came out a little under 5% of the ante, in line with the 5.2% usually quoted.
The progressive side bet isn’t included. On most tables it returns well under 80% unless the jackpot has grown huge. The CasinoCalcs Caribbean Stud calculator has the hand odds and pay table if you want to price it yourself.
The simulator plays with exactly the strategy described here. You can deal one hand at a time to see the decisions, or run a whole session to see how far luck pulls the result away from the average.
Most sessions finish down. Keep the stakes at a level that doesn’t sting. BeGambleAware.org has free advice and tools.