How To Play Caribbean Stud Poker – Rules, Payouts & Strategy
If you’re looking for a fun gambling game based on poker, you’re in the right place. Caribbean Stud Poker is a game that many people might not have heard of, but it’s a fun and exciting game that combines classic casino gambling with poker.
We’re going to take a look at the rules of Caribbean Stud, what the payouts are, and the strategy you should use when you play.
What is Caribbean Stud Poker?
Caribbean Stud Poker is a casino game where players play against the dealer to make the best five-card poker hand. Players place wagers before the hand and make a second wager after receiving their hand, determined by its strength. The aim of the game is to make the best hand possible to beat the dealer and win your bet.
Unlike traditional Texas Hold’em poker, there’s no bluffing in Caribbean Stud Poker. The only thing that matters is the strength of your hand. There is also no opportunity to improve your hand. You’re stuck with what you’re dealt. So, if you don’t have a good hand, you have to resign yourself to losing.
The main difference is that you’re not playing against other players; you’re playing against the house! That’s what makes it a casino game.
What are the Rules?
The rules of Caribbean Stud are simple. All you need to do is have a better five-card poker hand than the dealer at showdown to win! However, there are some nuances to the betting and the decision-making, with the inflection point being when you’re dealt your hand. Let’s take a look at these rules in more detail.
Hand Rankings
The first thing you need to learn when playing Caribbean Stud is the hand rankings. The game follows the traditional poker hand rankings, with a royal flush being the best hand, then a straight flush, and so on. We’ve posted a list of the hand rankings below, just to refresh your memory.
If the player and the dealer have the same hand rank (high card, one pair, etc.), the person with the higher value within that rank is the winner. For example, if the player has a pair of aces and the dealer has a pair of queens, the player’s pair of aces will win the hand. An identical five-card hand between player and dealer results in a push, and the player receives their money back.
How Does the Game Work?
Before the hand is dealt, players are invited to make a bet. Once a bet has been placed, the dealer will deal five cards face down to each player who has made a bet, as well as five cards face down to themselves. Once all the cards are dealt, the dealer will turn their last card face up for the table to see.
Players must keep their hands to themselves at the table, as colluding with other players is against the rules. The action starts with the player to the dealer’s left, and each player has the opportunity to act on their hand. When the action gets to you, you have two options.
- Betting – If you think your hand is likely to beat the dealer’s, you place an additional bet of 2x your initial bet.
- Folding – You surrender your hand and your chance of winning, but you don’t have to pay the 2x “extra” bet.
The strategy behind choosing between the two can be boiled down to this; if your hand is good, you should bet, and if your hand is bad, you should bet. We’ll go into exactly what makes a good or bad hand later on in the article.
Folding ends your involvement in the hand; you must wait for the next one to start. However, if you decide to bet, you show your hand down against the dealer’s hand to determine the winner. Before the dealer shows their cards, they must check to see if they qualify. When the dealer doesn’t qualify, the ante bet pays 1-1, and the extra bet is returned to you as a push. When the dealer qualifies and you win, your ante bet pays 1-1, while your extra bet pays according to your hand strength.
But how does the dealer qualify, and what are the payouts for the strongest hands?
How Does the Dealer Qualify?
The dealer’s hand will qualify if their hand is Ace-King or better. This means that the lowest possible qualifying hand a dealer can show is AK234. After all the players have made their actions, the dealer will check their hand to see if they qualify. If their hand does not qualify, they do not show it to the table; instead, the hand is mucked. Players who haven’t folded win their ante bet at 1-1, and their extra bet is returned as a push.
If the dealer qualifies, they reveal their hand to compare it with those of players who haven’t folded. If your hand doesn’t beat the dealer’s hand, you lose both your ante bet and your extra bet. And, If your hand beats the dealer’s qualifying hand, your ante bet pays 1-1, and your extra bet pays according to its strength.
Pay Table
Pay table varies by casino, but the most common one includes:
- High Card/One Pair – Payout of 1-1
- Two Pair – Payout of 2-1
- Three of a Kind – Payout of 3-1
- Straight – Payout of 4-1
- Flush – Payout of 5-1
- Full House – Payout of 7-1
- Four of a Kind – Payout of 20-1
- Straight Flush – Payout of 50-1
- Royal Flush – Payout of 100-1
The better your hand, the higher your payout. Hope the dealer qualifies with a royal flush, or it’s all in vain!
Caribbean Stud Poker Side Bets
In addition to main bets, there are side bets for more action on your hand. The most common side bet you’ll see is a progressive jackpot. In this case you’ll be paid out if you make a strong enough hand. The normal structure is a flush paying out the lowest portion of the jackpot. And, a royal flush paying out 100% of the jackpot, with all the hands in between being somewhere in between. You should see a display of the current progressive jackpot total as you sit down at the table.
You’ll also encounter the 5+1 side bet. You win the bet if you can make three of a kind or better using your five-card hand and the dealer’s upcard. The payout scales for the 5+1 side bet, ranging from 7-1 for three of a kind to 1000-1 for a royal flush.
Caribbean Stud Poker Betting Limits
The betting limits of Caribbean Stud Poker will change drastically depending on whether you’re playing online or in a brick-and-mortar casino. In a live casino, you’ll often find that the smallest Caribbean Stud table has a $5 minimum, with the possibility of a few $3 tables dotted around the place.
Online, the limits are often smaller, and the ante may be capped as low as $2.50 in certain cases! The exact limits will depend on the casino you choose, so always double-check these before you sit down to play.
Caribbean Stud Poker House Edge
Caribbean Stud, like casino games, favors the house with a built-in edge for long-term wins. In this game, that edge is 5.244%, which puts it around average for a casino game; it’s not the best game you can find in the casino, but there are worse ones you can play.
If you want to play any of the side bets, you’ll see that the house edge on those is a lot worse. The 5+1 side bet has a house edge of 8.56%, meaning that for every $100 you bet, your expected losses are $8.56. One bet we’d recommend that you stay away from at the Caribbean Stud Poker table is the progressive jackpots.
These bets may look tempting, bet $1 to potentially win thousands, but they have some of the worst return rates in the casino. The problem is that only a percentage of your $1 bet goes towards the prize pool, and the rest goes to the casino. The average amount the casino takes from this bet is around 25%, but it can be as high as 35%! The overall house edge on these bets is 26.46%, making them less profitable for the player.
While that makes the 5.244% house edge sound tiny in comparison, that number is only achievable with perfect play, so what’s the strategy behind Caribbean Stud Poker?
Caribbean Stud Poker Basic Strategy
The basic strategy of Caribbean Stud isn’t hard to learn. In fact, there are two rules that you can learn right now that will see you play the majority of hands close to perfectly.
- Always bet if you have a pair or higher.
- Always fold if you have less than Ace-King.
These rules apply no matter what the dealer’s upcard is. If you’re dealt less than Ace-King, but the dealer has a 2 showing, it doesn’t matter; you should still fold. Similarly, if you only have a pair of 2s and the dealer is showing an Ace, it doesn’t matter; you should still bet.
The problem is when you’re dealt an Ace-King hand, as these hands aren’t covered in those two rules. Luckily, there are some rules that you can learn for playing those hands.
- Bet if the dealer’s upcard is an Ace or a King and you have a Jack or a Queen in your hand.
- Bet if the dealer’s upcard is a 2 through Queen and matches a card in your hand.
- Bet if the following is true; you have a queen in your hand, the dealer’s upcard does not match any of your cards, and the dealer’s upcard is lower than your 4th highest card.
This collection of rules will see you play Caribbean Stud close to optimally, which is enough to keep the house edge at around 5.2%.
Can You Play Caribbean Stud Poker Optimally?
There are so many hands you can be dealt in Caribbean Stud. Caribbean Stud’s dealer upcard leads to multiple permutations, making it unlikely anyone knows the perfect strategy for this game. However, the rules we’ve listed above are easy to remember and result in only a 0.001% deviation from the optimal house edge (5.225% house edge rather than 5.224%). So, learning optimal strategy just isn’t worth the time and effort.
Where to Play Caribbean Stud Poker Online
Caribbean Stud is available at a range of online casinos. You can choose from the traditional, animated version of the game,. Or, you can play a live dealer version, where you get a fully immersive casino experience.
If you’re looking to play for free while you familiarise yourself with the rules, most casinos will offer a free play option on their site. If your casino doesn’t, plenty of sites allow you to play for free. They even have a progressive jackpot that you can play along with!
Be sure to check out our list of the top online casinos for the best places to play Caribbean Stud.
FAQs
We’ve covered a lot about the game of Caribbean Stud. In case you still have any questions, here’s where you’ll find the answers.
The best hand you can have in Caribbean Stud Poker is a royal flush. The hand pays out 100-1 on the extra bet, as long as the dealer has a qualifying hand.
The house edge of Caribbean Stud is around 5.2% if you follow the best strategies. The house edge on the side bets is a lot higher, around 8.56% for the 5+1 bet and around 26% for the progressive jackpot.
The dealer qualifies by having a hand of Ace-King or better. This means that the lowest qualifying hand the dealer can have in Caribbean Stud Poker is AK234.
Players are expressly forbidden from sharing information about their cards with other players. This is because this information can be used to inform a player’s decision, which may lead to them having an edge over the casino.
Caribbean Stud Poker is a game played against the house and, as such, is a game with a built-in house edge. This means that over the long term, you cannot win at Caribbean Stud.
As Caribbean Stud Poker is a game played against the house rather than other players, it is not featured at the World Series of Poker.
