Table Game Jackpots

8 May 2022

By John Grochowski

There once was a clear division among casino games: Jackpot hunters flocked to the slots, while table players tried to grind out profits.

Caribbean Stud Poker and Let It Ride broke the mold in the 1990s. Let It Ride pays 1,000 on royal flushes. Caribbean Stud pays 100-1 on royals on main game and jackpots that sometime reach hundreds of thousands of dollars on a side bet.

Today, the most common poker-based games include Three Card Poker, Mississippi Stud and Ultimate Texas Hold'em. Let's check out their jackpots and your chances of winning them. Jackpot side bets also are available, but let's stick with the main games for now.

THREE CARD POKER: The biggest payoffs are in the Pair Plus portion of the game, with the biggest jackpot set at 40-1 on a straight flush.

That's barely bigger than the 35-1 on a single-number bet in roulette or the 30-1 on 2 or 12 in craps, though in Pair Plus, you have a chance at payoffs lower on the pay table, much like slots.

You have a 1 in 460 shot at a three-card straight flush.

Some tables have bigger payoffs for a mini-royal with Ace-King-Queen in the same suit. Payoffs vary, but some pay as little as 50-1 or as much as 200-1. Your chances of being deal a mini-royal are 1 in 5,525.

MISSISSIPPI STUD: A five-card stud-based game, Mississippi Stud has a pay table that maxes out at 500-1 on a royal flush.

That can be quite a large chunk of change. You open with an ante, then have three opportunities to add bets of one to three times that ante. By the end of the hand, you could have 10 times your ante on the table. A 500-1 royal payoff would look really nice.

As a five-card stud-based game, Mississippi Stud will average a royal once per 649,740 hands. There are 2,598,960 possible five-card hands in which card order doesn't matter. Four of those are royals -- one in each suit. So your chance of a royal is 1 in (2,598,960) divided by four, or 1 in 649,740.

Caribbean Stud and Let It Ride also are five-card stud games, so your chance at a royal in each of those also is 1 in 649,740.

Some Mississippi Stud tables have a Millionaire Progressive side bet. It's a $5 side bet with a Mega jackpot that starts at $1 million for a royal in spades, a Major jackpot for other royals, Minor jackpot for straight flushes and smaller payoffs for four of a kind, full houses, flushes and straights.

Your chance at the big jackpot is 1 in 2,598,960.

ULTIMATE TEXAS HOLD'EM: Like poker-room Texas Hold'em. the "Ultimate" game is based on seven-card stud.

To start play, you must make equal ante and blind bets. As the hand progresses, you may make a play bet of up to four times your ante.

Ante and play bets are paid at even money if your hand beats the dealer.

The jackpot is on the blind bet, and you do not have to beat the dealer to win on the blind. It's paid according to a pay table that maxes out at 500-1 for a royal flush.

Just as in Mississippi Stud, Let It Ride and Caribbean Stud, the payoff is on a five-card hand. The difference is that you see seven cards to make your best five-card hand.

That makes a dramatic difference in your chance at a royal. Royals come up an average of once per 30,940 hands, about eight times as often as in five-card games.