Your hand and the flop
What the game costs
Call or fold: the exact numbers
| If you call | Chance | You get |
|---|
Every possible turn, river and pair of dealer cards is played out (1,070,190 deals), so these are exact figures, not a simulation. Ante pays 1 to 1 for a straight or less, 2 for a flush, 3 for a full house, 10 for quads, 20 for a straight flush and 100 for a royal flush. The call bet pays 1 to 1 and pushes when the dealer doesn't qualify. Results are in antes: folding always costs exactly 1.
- Maths reviewed by Josh Miller
- Tested by Diana Westfield
A Casino Hold’em strategy calculator answers one question per hand: call for two antes, or fold and lose one? Pick your two cards and the three flop cards. The CasinoCalcs calculator plays out every possible turn, river and dealer hand (all 1,070,190 of them) and gives you the exact expected value of calling. It’s free, and it takes about a fifth of a second.
Casino Hold’em strategy in one line
Call unless calling costs you more than the ante you’d lose by folding. That rule sounds lazy, but it does most of the work, because folding is so expensive. Look at how many weak hands still call:
| Your cards | Flop | Call (antes) | Decision |
|---|---|---|---|
| K♥ 5♣ | 9♦ 7♠ 2♣ | −0.66 | Call |
| Q♣ 3♦ | 8♠ 6♥ 2♣ | −0.91 | Call, just |
| K♠ 7♦ | Q♣ 7♣ 2♥ | +0.55 | Call |
| 7♥ 4♥ | K♥ 9♥ 2♣ | +0.26 | Call (four to a flush) |
| 3♣ 2♦ | K♠ J♠ 8♥ | −1.75 | Fold |
| 9♥ 4♣ | Q♠ Q♦ 7♥ | −1.14 | Fold |
King-high with nothing is still a call. The dealer fails to qualify about a third of the time, and when that happens your ante gets paid no matter what you hold. That free money props up a lot of junk.
When to fold
The folds cluster in two places. First, two low cards that miss a high flop: 3-2 against K-J-8 wins under 4% of the time against a qualifying dealer. Second, a paired board. If the flop is Q-Q-7, the dealer always has at least a pair of queens, so the “dealer doesn’t qualify” safety net vanishes completely. With 9-4 there you need to improve to win, and you usually won’t.
A workable simple strategy: call with any pair or better that uses one of your cards, any four to a flush or an open-ended straight, and any ace or king. Fold small unpaired cards on a high or paired flop. Use the calculator on the borderline hands, which is where the money is.
The house edge and what it costs
With the usual ante pay table (1 to 1 up to a straight, 2 for a flush, 3 for a full house, 10 for quads, 20 for a straight flush, 100 for a royal), the house edge is about 2.16% of the ante. At £10 antes and 40 hands an hour, that’s about £8.64 an hour on average. Fold too often and it climbs fast, because every needless fold throws away a full ante.
Played other poker-based table games? The Ultimate Texas Hold’em strategy chart works the same way for the pre-flop raise, and the Let It Ride calculator covers the game where you get to take bets back. For real-money poker against people, the poker odds calculator is the tool.
Other casino poker games have their own charts: three card poker, Let It Ride and Caribbean stud.
Perfect strategy still loses about 2% of the ante. BeGambleAware.org is there if the losses start to matter.