Caribbean Stud is a five-card poker variant played against the dealer rather than other players, and RTG’s implementation follows the standard structure: an ante, a decision to fold or raise at double the ante, and an optional progressive side bet. The house edge against the ante is approximately 5.2 percent under optimal play.
The Qualification Rule and Where the Edge Comes From
The dealer qualifies only with ace-king or better. When the dealer fails to qualify, the ante pays even money and the raise pushes, meaning the player’s larger wager earns nothing on the hands they are most likely to win. That asymmetry is the structural source of the house edge and it cannot be strategically avoided.
Optimal strategy is nonetheless straightforward: raise on any pair or better, fold on hands worse than the dealer’s qualifying minimum, and follow a small set of borderline rules for ace-king hands based on the dealer’s exposed card. Because the raise is fixed at twice the ante, the edge is often quoted per ante, which understates the cost relative to total money at risk.
Progressive Side Bet Economics
The side bet is a fixed small wager paying escalating amounts for flushes and above, with the top award drawn from a progressive meter. Its house edge at typical seed levels is very high, frequently above 25 percent, because the meter must be well above seed before the wager approaches break-even.
There is a computable break-even meter height at which the side bet becomes theoretically neutral, and in most deployments the meter rarely reaches it. Treating the side bet as an entertainment expense rather than a value play is the accurate framing, and a player focused on return should place the ante and decline the side wager entirely. Doing so keeps the effective cost of play at the base game figure rather than blending it with a wager carrying several times the edge.