Discount Gambling

Arizona Stud is a new poker-based table game debuting at the Red Wind Casino in Olympia, WA next week (6 Aug 2014). In this game, both the Dealer and the player each receive three hole cards. The player must discard one of his hole cards before the flop, while the Dealer must use exactly two hole cards to make a hand. After the player discards, he may wager a Play bet of 2x-4x the Ante, or check pre-flop. The two card flop is then revealed, as well as one of the Dealer’s hole cards. If the player checked pre-flop, he must then make a 1x Play bet, or fold. Finally, the community river card and all Dealer hole cards are revealed. The Dealer qualifies with a hand of AK-high or better. The Ante pushes if the Dealer doesn’t qualify. The Play bet always receives even-money action against the Dealer hand.

The set of all possible outcomes for the optimal player is listed in the table below. The total in the lower right corner shows a house edge of 1.34% of the Ante. Note that you should either 4x bet pre-flop, or check. You should never only bet 2x.

The basic strategy for the game is listed in the table below, which returns a 1.70% house edge. The player should 4x his hand about 27% of the time, 1x call about 46% of the time, and fold the remaining 27% of the time.

The game looks like fun. The strategy is actually pretty simple, but you get to make the occasional decision. I’ll actually be in Seattle next week (my first time), so I’ll try to check out the game. Maybe I could hit a nice bad beat for once.

The optional 2 Pair Plus Bonus bet pays for the final hand made by the player. The house edges for the various offered paytables are listed below.

The Player Bad Beat Bonus bet pays when a player’s Jacks-or-Better hand is beat by the Dealer. The following table shows the optimal outcomes for the strategy maximizing the Bad Beat Bonus return. The house edge for the optimal Bad Beat Bonus strategy is 8.00%.