What is Caribbean Stud Poker?
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Caribbean Stud is a casino poker game where you play five-card stud against the dealer. There are no drawing rounds — each hand is played on the cards dealt. One of the dealer’s five cards is shown face up, which you use to inform your decision.
How it works
Place an Ante bet and optionally a progressive jackpot side bet. You receive five cards face down; the dealer receives four face down and one face up. After looking at your hand you can either fold (losing the Ante) or raise by placing a Raise bet equal to twice the Ante. The dealer needs ace-king or better to qualify. If the dealer doesn’t qualify, the Ante pays 1:1 and the Raise pushes. If both qualify, the better hand wins both bets.
The progressive jackpot
Most Caribbean Stud tables offer a £1 side bet that feeds a progressive jackpot. A royal flush pays the full jackpot (often hundreds of thousands), a straight flush pays a percentage, four of a kind pays a fixed amount, and full houses and flushes pay smaller fixed amounts. The side bet’s house edge is high — the jackpot would need to reach several hundred thousand to make it mathematically worthwhile.
Ben Barber got into the gambling industry through the poker rooms of London in the early 2000s. After building up a solid grounding in casino, sports betting and poker, he made the move to Malta where he spent close to a decade writing for some of the biggest affiliate networks in the region. A few years ago he relocated to Bali, which shifted his focus toward website strategy and affiliate marketing. The casino side never really left, though. He still writes reviews, how-to guides and in-depth pieces on everything from slots and live dealer tables to crypto casinos and sweepstakes sites. His approach is fact-first: help players understand how online gambling actually works before they deposit a cent.