Casino Hold'em

1. The player places an ante. The player and the dealer each receive two cards, and three community cards (the flop) are dealt face up.
2. The player either folds, losing the ante, or calls by placing a bet of twice the ante.
3. The turn and river are dealt, and both hands make their best five-card poker hand from their two cards and the five community cards.

The dealer qualifies with a pair of fours or better. If the dealer does not qualify, the ante is paid from the ante paytable and the call bet is returned. If the dealer qualifies and the player wins, the ante is paid from the paytable and the call bet pays 1:1. If the dealer wins, the player loses both bets; a tie returns both.

A common ante paytable pays 1:1 for a straight or less, 2:1 for a flush, 3:1 for a full house, 10:1 for four of a kind, 20:1 for a straight flush and 100:1 for a royal flush. With that table and good play, the house edge is about 2.2% of the ante, or under 1% of the total amount bet once call bets are included. Most versions add an optional AA bonus side bet that pays if the player's two cards and the flop make a pair of aces or better, at a considerably higher margin.

Casino Hold'em gives poker players a casino product that needs no opponents, liquidity or tournament schedule, which makes it a useful cross-sell for operators with a poker audience. Live studios and RNG developers typically offer it alongside other poker-based house games, and the side bet is where much of the margin comes from.

A player antes 10 and calls with 20 after the flop. The final hand is a flush; the dealer qualifies with two pair. The ante pays 2:1 (20) and the call pays 1:1 (20), a win of 40 on 30 staked.

• Caribbean Stud Poker and Three Card Poker — other poker games played against the dealer.
• The poker boom — how Texas Hold'em became the dominant poker game.
• House edge — what the paytable is worth to the operator.

Compare the studios that offer Casino Hold'em in the live casino provider directory, or RNG versions from game developers.