Caribbean Stud Poker Online (2026): Rules, the Ace-King Decision, and Why the Progressive Is a Donation
Caribbean Stud is five-card poker against a dealer who must show a hand of ace-king or better to play. Its base bet carries a house edge of 5.22% with perfect strategy, which is the highest of the house-banked poker games and about the cost of a pokie; its A$1 progressive side bet averages 26.46%, which is the most expensive wager we know of on any casino floor. Both numbers are decided by two choices you make every hand — whether to raise on ace-king, and whether to drop the dollar in the jackpot slot — and this page is about making them correctly.
How a hand runs
- Ante. You place an ante and, optionally, A$1 on the progressive.
- Deal. Five cards to you face down, five to the dealer with one face up.
- Decide. Fold and lose the ante, or raise by placing exactly twice the ante.
- Dealer qualifies? The dealer needs ace-king or better (the lowest qualifying hand is A-K-4-3-2). If the dealer does not qualify, the ante pays even money and the raise is returned.
- Showdown. If the dealer qualifies and your hand is higher, the ante pays even money and the raise pays by the table below; if the dealer's hand is higher, both bets lose; a tie pushes both.
The raise paytable and what it does to the edge
| Hand | Raise pays | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Royal flush | 100 to 1 | Only paid if the dealer qualifies |
| Straight flush | 50 to 1 | — |
| Four of a kind | 20 to 1 | — |
| Full house | 7 to 1 | — |
| Flush | 5 to 1 | — |
| Straight | 4 to 1 | — |
| Three of a kind | 3 to 1 | — |
| Two pair | 2 to 1 | — |
| One pair or ace-king | 1 to 1 | The bulk of winning hands |
With this table and optimal play the house edge is 5.224% of the ante, or 2.555% of all money bet (the “element of risk”, counting the raises). The catch in the paytable is that the big payouts require the dealer to qualify: hold a royal flush against a dealer with nothing and you win one ante, not a hundred raises. Online versions of the game occasionally cap the raise payout or change the full-house and flush lines; a table paying 6 to 1 on a full house or 3 to 1 on a flush is a worse game, and the paytable is shown in the game's rules panel before you bet.
Strategy: three rules, one of them hard
Optimal play, as published by Wizard of Odds
- Raise on any pair or better. Always, whatever the dealer shows.
- Fold anything below ace-king. Always. Raising on king-queen-high against any up-card costs more than the ante you save.
- With ace-king, raise if any of these is true: the dealer's up-card is a two through queen and matches one of your five cards; the dealer's up-card is an ace or king and you hold a queen or a jack; the dealer's up-card matches none of yours, you hold a queen, and the dealer's card is lower than your fourth-highest card. Otherwise fold.
The third rule is where the 5.22% comes from: ace-king with no pair is dealt about one hand in fifteen, and the difference between raising all of them and raising the right ones is a measurable slice of the edge. Folding every ace-king costs more than raising every one, because the dealer fails to qualify on the majority of those hands and pays the ante for free. The logic behind the matching rule is that a dealer up-card you also hold is one fewer card the dealer can pair, which lowers the chance the dealer qualifies with a better ace-king or a pair.
The progressive jackpot
The A$1 side bet pays on your own hand regardless of the dealer's: typically the full jackpot for a royal flush, 10% of it for a straight flush, and fixed amounts for four of a kind, full house and flush. Because the top prizes are so rare (a royal flush is one hand in 649,740), the bet's value depends almost entirely on the size of the meter. Wizard of Odds computes an average house edge of 26.46% across the common paytables, with break-even jackpots ranging from about A$29,000 to A$425,000 depending on the table's fixed payouts. Below the break-even figure for the table in front of you, the bet is a donation; above it, it is a bet with a small positive expectation that pays off about once in 650,000 hands. Online tables rarely publish the meter's history, and RNG versions often run a fixed jackpot far below break-even. Skip it.
What an hour costs
- Base game, optimal play: at a A$10 ante and 60 hands an hour, expected cost is 60 × A$10 × 5.22% = about A$31 an hour. Variance is moderate: most hands settle at ±A$10–30.
- With the progressive: 60 × A$1 × 26.46% adds about A$16 an hour for a bet that almost never pays.
- For comparison at the same A$10 and 60 hands: blackjack with basic strategy about A$3; baccarat on the banker A$6; Three Card Poker ante/play about A$20; Casino Hold'em about A$13.
Where it is dealt
Caribbean Stud is on the lobby page at King Johnnie (as Caribbean Stud Poker, Caribbean Poker and the Caribbean Beach and Club variants), at Wolf Winner and Jackpot Jill on the same platform, and in the Realtime Gaming table set at Lucky Tiger, Rich Palms, Shazam, Fair Go, Ozwin and PlayCroco. The Novatrix sites (Golden Crown, PlayAmo, Woo, CasinoChan, King Billy, Ricky) deal it at live tables from Evolution and Playtech inside the live category, where the progressive is a real shared meter rather than a fixed figure, and as RNG tables in the table-games category. In bonus rules the game counts at 5% (Golden Crown), 50% (Grand Rush) or not at all (the RTG sites); play it with real money. The poker card games hub compares it with the other variants; live casino games covers the live tables.
FAQ
How do you play Caribbean Stud Poker?
Place an ante, receive five cards, see the dealer's one up-card, and either fold or raise exactly twice the ante. The dealer needs ace-king or better to qualify; if not, the ante pays even money and the raise is returned. If the dealer qualifies, the higher hand wins: your ante pays even money and your raise pays from 1 to 1 for a pair up to 100 to 1 for a royal flush.
What is the house edge in Caribbean Stud Poker?
5.22% of the ante with optimal strategy on the standard paytable (2.56% of all money wagered including raises). The A$1 progressive averages 26.46%.
Should I raise with ace-king?
Only when the dealer's up-card matches one of your cards, or is an ace or king while you hold a queen or jack, or is lower than your fourth-highest card while you hold a queen. Otherwise fold. Raising or folding every ace-king regardless costs extra edge.
Is the progressive jackpot worth it?
Only when the meter is above the break-even figure for the table's paytable, which runs from about A$29,000 to A$425,000 by table. Below that, and at every fixed-jackpot online table we have seen, it is the most expensive bet in the casino.
What is a high-limit Caribbean Stud table?
The same game with a higher minimum and maximum ante, usually a live-dealer table; the edge and strategy are unchanged. At a A$100 ante the expected cost is about A$310 an hour at 60 hands.
Sources and method
Rules, paytable, house edge, element of risk, ace-king strategy and progressive figures are from the Caribbean Stud Poker analysis published by Wizard of Odds (read 19 September 2026); we did not recompute them. Hourly costs are arithmetic from those figures. Lobby contents were read from each operator's rendered lobby page the same day from an Australian IP address; bonus weightings are quoted from the operators' terms. We earn a commission when readers sign up through links on this site; it did not decide what is written here.
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