Each decision is the exact best play for the cards you hold, the same maths as our strategy checker, on the standard pay table (royal flush 1,000 to 1). 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 Let It Ride simulator deals five cards, makes both ride-or-pull decisions with the exact maths of every card still to come, and pays the standard table, 1 to 1 for 10s or better up to 1,000 to 1 for a royal flush. Deal hands one by one to see when the strategy lets a bet ride, or simulate a session to see the long flat stretches and the occasional spike.
What a Let It Ride session looks like
The striking thing is how rarely anything rides. With perfect strategy the first bet stays up on about one hand in thirteen, a paying pair or a strong three-card flush draw, and the second on about one in seven. So most hands play for a single bet, and about three in four of those lose it. When something does land, it lands hard: a flush pays 8 to 1 on every bet still up, and if all three are riding that’s 24 bets.
Over 1,000 hands at £10 the maths expects a loss of £351, and in our test sessions nine in ten landed somewhere between £1,760 down and £1,830 up, with the middle one about £560 down. More than one in four finished ahead, nearly always thanks to a single straight flush or four of a kind. The CasinoCalcs simulator counts those big hands for you at the end.
The strategy it plays
Rather than a chart, each decision is worked out exactly, the same way our Let It Ride strategy checker does it. With three cards it averages all 1,176 ways the next two cards can fall; with four, all 48 last cards. A bet rides only when that average is above zero. We checked this against every one of the 22,100 starting hands, and the result is a house edge of 3.506% of one bet, matching the published figure.
| Decision | Rides how often | Typical hands |
|---|---|---|
| First bet (three cards) | 7.5% | Pair of 10s or better, three to a royal, strong three-card flush runs |
| Second bet (four cards) | 15.2% | Any paying pair, four to a flush, open-ended straights 10-high or better |
Side bets like the three-card bonus aren’t in the simulator. For the pay table with side bets, see the Let It Ride calculator.
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.
Perfect strategy still loses about 3.5% of a bet each hand. Play for fun, with money set aside for it. BeGambleAware.org offers free, confidential support.