At this point all players will know the result of their PAIR PLUS bet, they will either have a hand or not. However they do not know what the dealer has so they will not know if they have beaten the dealer for their ANTE.

To continue the hand, the player must now judge for themselves if they have beaten the dealer.

FOLD if you want, losing only the stakes you put down so far.

OR bet on the PLAY. The PLAY bet can only be the exact same matched bet that the ANTE was when you placed it.

In effect, having now looked at your cards you have the option to either fold or double your bet.

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If you want to bet that you beat the dealer,
you must now match your ANTE bet on the PLAY bet square.

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When all players have either folded or bet the PLAY it is now time to reveal the dealers hand.

In seeing the dealers hand, all players now know the full outcome their bets and all players are settled one by one starting from the right hand side of the table from the dealer.

If the player beat the dealers hand he/she is paid 1:1 for the ante and 1:1 for their play. They would get paid ante bonus too if they had straight, trips or straight flush. The pair plus bet is paid (see paytable) or taken accordingly regardless of the dealers hand.

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Dealer doesn't qualify

The dealer must have a hand that is Q high or better. If not, the play bet is paid to all players (who didn't fold) and the ante bet is returned to all players. If you had already folded, this is the time to sigh and think "I wish I didn't" because you could have won. You can liken this to the dealer going bust in blackjack where all remaining players get paid.

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Summary

3 card poker is a simple and straightforward game. When you actually look at how the game works and the house edges however, it's a bit more complicated for such a seemingly simple game.

If you deal 1, 3 or a million cards to both a player and dealer/opponent, the odds of who wins would always be 50:50 like a coin flip. The overall odds for ante/play bets is not 50:50 though, the house edge exists through the fact that the dealer has to qualify with Q high else payout is halved. If the dealer has a bad hand (doesn't qualify) the payout is 1:2, bet #10 pays #5 (ante paid, play stands) and so in many hands the players possible win is reduced. Also players will fold hands before the dealers hand is even shown in which case the the showdown never happens.

When dealer doesn't qualify players with good hands would be annoyed that they didn't get their maximum payout but players with medium to bad hands can/will get their risk rewarded. The house pays out to all valid hands (hands that weren't folded). While the house has an advantage in chips taken from the hands folded before the showdown, all players are getting paid whether they beat the dealer or not when dealer has not qualified. In this way the overall payout from the house is balanced back a bit. The ante bonus payouts also gives back any advantage gained through the dealer must qualify rule.

The dealer must qualify rule and the payout of ante bonus's balance to give the house an overall an edge of around 3%.

Strategy and Odds

The strategy considered best for 3 card poker is to play when you have a hand of Q 6 4 or better. This gives you best probability of return over both games with house edge being about 3%.

Calculating the odds of getting a pair:

52 cards, 4 of each denomination

You will always get some random card first - so assume the first card dealt to the player is a 5. To match the 5 to make a pair there are 3 of them left in the deck to hit out of the 51 cards left, there are the 3 possible outcomes:

1) The second card is a 5, third card is not a 5:
p1 = (3/51)(48/50) = 5.647%

2) The second card is not a 5, third card is a 5:
p2 = (48/51)(3/50) = 5.647%

3) second and third card are not 5's but are same rank as each other:
p3 = (48/51)(3/50) = 5.647%

p1 + p2 + p3 = 16.94%

The other ones are bit harder to work out but no need to, they are as follows:

Odds of hitting a Pair Plus

PAIR 16.94%
FLUSH 4.96%
STRAIGHT 3.26%
THREE OF KIND 0.24%
STRAIGHT FLUSH 0.22%

If you add all these up together you get the overall percentage of hitting any kind of pair plus hand and this is 25.62%, roughly one in four.

If perhaps you've ever wondered how many hands statistically speaking should be played before a STRAIGHT FLUSH turns up?
Answer: 100/0.22 = 454.5

IF you bet #5 on the pair plus for 100 hands, statistically you would win:
pair 1:1 16.94 times, 16.94*5=#84.70
flush 4:1 4.96 times, 4.96*20=#99.2
straight 6:1 2.36 times, 3.26*30=#97.8
three of a kind 33:1 0.24 times, 0.24*165=#39.6
straight flush 35:1 0.22 times, 0.22*175=#38.5

add all these up together (84.70+99.2+97.8+39.6+38.5)= #359.8

Now we add on the stakes that we didn't lose when we hit the hands - 25.62*5=#128.1
#359.8+#128.1=#487.9

house wins #12.10,

house edge 2.42%

I made this calculation myself, as far as I can tell its right. The booklet of the casino says "pair plus house edge 2.7%" but I think this very small difference could be from the rounding down of the decimal numbers. What's important is that by breaking it down in this way shows clearly that betting EQUALLY each time you bet -provides the best statistical chance of maximum return when playing over long periods of time :)

If you were to bet #100 on a lucky shot at a pair plus bet, you would only have a 1 in 4 chance of winning anything. The odds are in the casinos favor that you will lose. But spread the bet into 20 #5 bets and you stand much more chance of a good return. The moral of the story is that you should ration your bankroll into smaller bets.

Final Summary:

the only control that you have as a 3 card poker player is:

(a) how much you wager on the play and pair plus bets
(b) Play the hand or fold it.

If you play Q 6 4 or better and bet equally on ante and pair plus - consistently, whatever your stakes, this strategy is considered to reduce the house edge down to the minimum. That's the strategy and the breakdown, hope you liked it, it took me quite a while! Best of luck!

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