Five-card stud against the dealer. Bonus jackpot side bet.
Caribbean Stud Poker is a 5-card stud variant played one-on-one against the dealer. You ante up; you and the dealer each get 5 cards; the dealer reveals one of hers; you choose to fold (lose the ante) or "call" (place a bet equal to 2x your ante). The dealer must qualify with Ace-King or better — if she doesn't, your call bet pushes and your ante pays 1:1.
If she qualifies and your hand wins, ante pays 1:1 and call pays based on hand strength (1:1 for high card or pair, 2:1 for two pair, 3:1 for three of a kind, all the way up to 100:1 for royal flush).
House edge on the basic bet is 5.22% — high for a card game. The popular $1 progressive jackpot side bet has 50%+ house edge unless the jackpot has rolled high enough; check the meter before betting it.
| Royal Flush | 100:1 on call bet |
| Straight Flush | 50:1 |
| Four of a Kind | 20:1 |
| Full House | 7:1 |
| Flush | 5:1 |
| Straight | 4:1 |
| Three of a Kind | 3:1 |
| Two Pair | 2:1 |
| Pair / High Card | 1:1 |
| Dealer doesn't qualify | Ante pays 1:1, call pushes |
Call with anything Ace-King-Jack-8-3 or better. Fold otherwise. The optimal strategy is dense — basically: play any pair or better, play A-K hands when the dealer's upcard is below your high card, fold otherwise. House edge with optimal play is 5.22%.
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Caribbean Stud is a five-card stud variant where you play against the dealer, not other players. The house edge of 5.22% on the Ante is high but the game has appeal as a slow, social table game with a clear payout structure and a progressive jackpot side bet. Skill matters slightly — about 0.5% of edge is leakable to suboptimal play decisions — but Caribbean Stud is more about money management and avoiding the side bets than out-thinking the game.
Place an Ante. You and the dealer each receive five cards face down; the dealer flips one card face up. After looking at your hand, you choose to fold (forfeiting the Ante) or to raise (placing an additional bet equal to 2x the Ante). If you raise, the dealer reveals their hand. The dealer must "qualify" with at least an Ace + King high; if the dealer doesn't qualify, your Ante pays 1:1 and your Raise pushes. If the dealer qualifies, both hands are compared and the better hand wins. Raise payouts use a pay table: Straight pays 4:1 on the raise, Flush 5:1, Full House 7:1, Four of a Kind 20:1, Straight Flush 50:1, Royal Flush 100:1.
The optimal fold/raise decision is well-studied. Raise when you have: any pair or better; OR Ace-King with one of the dealer's possible upcards matching your cards (specifically: Ace-King with the dealer's upcard being a 2-Q if you have a Q or J in your hand; or AKQJ8 with the upcard being a value you don't already hold). Fold everything below Ace-King. The single biggest leakable error is folding pairs of low rank — even a pair of 2s is a profitable raise. The second is raising with Ace-King-high in spots where the math doesn't support it. The Progressive Jackpot side bet ($1 typically) has a house edge that depends entirely on the jackpot size — usually around 25-30% house edge at low jackpot levels, dropping toward break-even when the jackpot exceeds about $250,000. Even at break-even it's a huge variance bet — skip it unless you understand the math.
The 5.22% Ante edge dwarfs blackjack and baccarat, so Caribbean Stud is a worse use of bankroll. Variance per Ante hand is moderate — roughly 2.0 — because of the bonus payouts on premium hands. The dealer qualifies (Ace-King-high or better) about 56% of the time; when they don't qualify, the Raise pushes, which is the lone bright spot in the math. Effective edge per hand wagered ($3 total when you raise) is closer to 2.5%, but that's still bad relative to alternatives.
Caribbean Stud emerged in the 1980s, popularized on cruise ships in the Caribbean (hence the name). The progressive jackpot side bet, introduced shortly after, made it one of the first table games to offer a slot-like top prize and helped spread the game globally.
| Bet | Payout | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Raise — Pair / Two Pair | 1:1 | Most common bonus win |
| Raise — Three of a Kind | 3:1 | |
| Raise — Flush | 5:1 | |
| Raise — Full House | 7:1 | |
| Raise — Straight Flush | 50:1 | |
| Raise — Royal Flush | 100:1 | Plus jackpot if side bet placed |
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