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Free Caribbean Stud Poker

The five-card casino table game, played against the dealer for chips that are worth nothing, with the one decision it asks of you priced exactly every hand.

Play chips

1,000

No real money, no prizes, nothing to buy.

One deck · shuffled every hand

Dealer

You

25 chips down, and 50 more if you raise.

RaiseTwice the Ante
A winning raise pays, to 1:
Royal flush 100 · Straight flush 50 · Four of a kind 20 · Full house 7 · Flush 5 · Straight 4 · Three of a kind 3 · Two pair 2 · Pair or less 1

Session coach

Last round

Nothing played yet. After each of your hands the coach says what the round cost and what decided it.

Decide the cost before you start

Gambling is entertainment with a price, like a concert ticket. The useful question is not how much you might win but how much the evening is allowed to cost. Pick that number first, and treat reaching it as the end of the session. You can set one below and the coach will hold you to it.

Next bet

25 chips at a 5.22% house edge: an expected cost of 1.3 chips.

This table is for practice and entertainment only. How to keep gambling safe

Decision coach

Every raise or fold is priced exactly, not checked against a rule of thumb. The coach settles a raise against each of the 163,185 hands the dealer could hold behind the card you can see, and compares the average with the one Ante a fold costs. The cards decide whether a hand wins. The decision is the part you control.

See Caribbean Stud next to every other casino game

This session

Hands played
0
Right plays
None yet
Net chips
0
Expected
0
0 in Antes at 5.22%
Given up by decisions
0
On average, on top of the edge
On the table if you raise
75
Ante plus raise, per hand

Expected is the house edge taken on the Antes you have put down. That edge is the cost under optimal play, as a share of the Ante, so every decision that is not the right play costs more on top. A short session swings well away from both in either direction.

Built by Alexander Korsager · last updated October 3, 2026 · corrections

House edge under optimal play, as a share of the Ante
5.22%
Dealer hands the coach settles each raise against
163,185
Of hands the dealer qualifies on
56.3%
Times the Ante: the fixed size of every raise
2x

01 / 03

A raise priced against every dealer hand

Caribbean Stud is a casino table game, not a poker room game.

You play one five-card hand against the dealer's, there are no other players to read or bluff, and nobody draws a card. It borrows poker's hand rankings and little else: you put down an Ante, see your five cards and one of the dealer's, and make a single choice between raising twice the Ante or folding.

What you can see when you decide

Dealer, one card up and 4 down

You, all 5 face up

Raise
A second bet of exactly 2 times the Ante
Fold
Gives up the Ante

Nobody draws a card. The other 46 cards in the deck are the ones you have not seen.

That choice has a right answer every time, but no short rule that finds it, so the coach works it out instead of quoting one.

It settles a raise against all 163,185 hands the dealer could hold behind the card you can see, and tells you which play was right and how many chips the other one gives up on average. Played perfectly the game still costs 5.22% of every Ante, which is the edge under optimal play as a share of the Ante. Practice keeps the cost down to that. It does not remove it.

163,185 dealer hands, every one settled
Dealer does not qualify
50.2%
Dealer qualifies and your hand is higher
1.3%
Dealer qualifies and beats you
48.5%
Exact tie
0.0%

Ace-king with jack, 8, 3 against a dealer jack. Raising averages −0.91 Antes against −1.00 for folding, so the coach says raise. The right play is whichever average is higher, even when both are below zero.

02 / 03

Rules at this table

What a winning raise pays
Your handRaise pays
Royal flush100 to 1
Straight flush50 to 1
Four of a kind20 to 1
Full house7 to 1
Flush5 to 1
Straight4 to 1
Three of a kind3 to 1
Two pair2 to 1
Pair1 to 1
High card1 to 1

Paid on the raise, by your own hand, only when the dealer qualifies and your hand is higher. No cap at this table.

How often the dealer qualifies
Dealer qualifies
56.3%
Dealer does not qualify
43.7%

Ace-king or better qualifies. When the dealer does not, the Ante pays 1 to 1 and the raise is returned, whatever you hold.

  • One 52-card deck, shuffled before every hand.
  • Bet the Ante to be dealt in. You and the dealer get five cards each. One dealer card is face up, and the other four stay face down until you decide.
  • Then either raise, which always costs exactly twice the Ante, or fold. Folding gives up the Ante.
  • Hands rank as in poker, from the top: royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, pair, high card. Suits never break a tie.
  • The dealer needs ace-king or better to qualify: any pair or better, or a hand with no pair that holds both an ace and a king.
  • If the dealer does not qualify, the Ante pays 1 to 1 and the raise is returned, whatever you hold.
  • If the dealer qualifies and your hand is higher, the Ante pays 1 to 1 and the raise pays by your hand. If the dealer's is higher, both bets lose. On an exact tie both are returned.
  • There is no progressive side bet at this table.

  • The Ante takes 5 to 300 chips, and the table only takes an Ante you can also cover a raise for.

    R
    Raise
    F
    Fold
    Enter
    Deal

FAQ

Is this Caribbean Stud game played for real money?
No. The table uses play chips that have no value, cannot be bought, and cannot be cashed out or exchanged for anything. If you run out, you are handed another stack for free. There is no account and nothing to download.
Is Caribbean Stud poker played against other players?
No. It is a house-banked casino table game. You play your five cards against the dealer's five, nobody else's hand affects yours, there is no bluffing and no pot, and the only decision is whether to raise or fold. The payouts are fixed by the rules, and they favor the house.
When should I raise and when should I fold?
Raise every pair or better, and fold every hand that is less than ace-king. The hands in between, ace-king with no pair, are the hard ones: whether a raise beats a fold depends on the dealer's upcard and on your other three cards, and holding a card of the same rank as the dealer's upcard helps, because it makes a dealer pair less likely. The coach does not use a rule for these. It counts all 163,185 hands the dealer can hold and compares the average result of a raise with the one Ante a fold costs. It grades the decision, not the outcome: a right play can still lose the hand.
What is the house edge in Caribbean Stud?
About 5.22% of the Ante under optimal play, with the pay table used here. It is quoted against the Ante because that is the bet you choose. The raise adds twice the Ante on the hands you play, so the cost per chip actually put on the table is lower than that figure, but the cost per hand is what the Ante figure says. The dealer fails to qualify on 43.7% of hands, and on those a raise wins only the Ante however strong your hand is, which is why a strong hand is worth less here than its payout suggests.

How this game works

Every hand is dealt from one 52-card deck, shuffled in your browser with a Fisher-Yates shuffle so that every ordering is equally likely. Nothing about the deal depends on your bets, your balance or your results. Hands are ranked by a five-card evaluator that is tested against all 2,598,960 possible hands: it counts each kind of hand at its known frequency and breaks ties card by card. The dealer qualifies on 56.3% of those hands, counted exactly.

The coach prices the raise by enumeration. With your five cards and the dealer's upcard known, 46 cards are unseen, and the dealer's four hidden cards can be any 163,185 combinations of them. A raise is settled against every one under the rules above, and the average is compared with folding, which always loses exactly one Ante. The right play is whichever is higher, and the difference times your Ante is what the other choice gives up on average.

The 5.22% house edge is the published figure for this pay table under optimal play, as a share of the Ante. It is not recomputed here: it is read from the Caribbean Stud row of the house edge comparison, so this page and that one cannot disagree. The expected figure in the session panel is that edge taken on the Antes you have put down, and it assumes every decision was the right play.

Limits

  • The coach uses only the six cards you can see. It is the best play with that information, and it does not turn the game in your favor.
  • Pay tables vary by casino, and many cap the most a single raise can be paid. This table has no cap. A different pay table has a different house edge.
  • Most casino tables offer a progressive jackpot side bet. This table does not deal it.
  • Play chips do not feel like money. Decisions that are easy here are harder with a real stake on the table.

This is a practice game for adults. It has no real-money play and links to none. Caribbean Stud played for money has a house edge on every hand, and no amount of practice removes it.

Gambling can cause serious harm. The National Problem Gambling Helpline is free, confidential and open 24/7, call or text 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738), or chat at ncpgambling.org/chat.

03 / 03

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