Guide to How to Play Mississippi Stud Poker with Top Strategies and More

Mississippi Stud Poker is a relatively new addition to the casino floors. Like its cousins, Caribbean Stud Poker, Let It Ride, Pai Gow Poker, and Three Card Poker, it’s a house-banked game inspired by traditional poker games. House-banked games are those where the casino has a dealer overlooking a table.

This discerns Mississippi Stud strategy and rules from other games like Texas hold ‘em, where no dealer and a non-typical house edge are factors of consideration. Some of the best online casinos offer Mississippi Stud so if you want to know how to play, I’ll be breaking down the rules, top strategies, and more below.

• Despite being invented in 2005, Mississippi Stud Poker is a popular card game around the world.
• Mississippi Stud rules make it easier to learn than other similar table games.
• One of the biggest selling points is that it has a lower house edge than traditional blackjack.

Where to Play Mississippi Stud Poker

Before we dive into how to play Mississippi Stud Poker, you’ll probably want to know where you can play it first. Since Mississippi Stud Poker is a ShuffleMaster creation, it’s a trademarked casino game. You can’t copyright or trademark specific game rules, but you can copyright and trademark a new game by name.

That’s why blackjack can be found everywhere, but “Adam’s Crazy Ninja Poker” would be limited to who pays for it. As a result, most online casinos don’t offer Mississippi Stud Poker—at least not by that name. That makes it tough to play for real money. Unsurprisingly, the holders of trademarks aren’t going to allow their creations to be used without payment.

If you search around for a Mississippi Stud poker guide, you’ll find people talking about the game. But no condensed list of every site that has it. It’s a rare game, so it requires some digging. Lucky for you, you’ve come across my Mississippi Stud poker guide. Not only will I be providing you with Mississippi Stud basic strategy but also a site that you can play it on. The site is… BetUS!

BetUS is simply one of the best online gambling sites. It has tons of great games to play at their casino, and it also has a full sportsbook as well. You can take advantage of their generous 200% welcome bonus (up to $5,000) and find Mississippi Stud Poker on their “table games” page. You can check out this in-depth review of BetUS for more information about their gambling site.

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How to Play Mississippi Stud Poker

Now that you know where to find the game, let’s figure out how to play. You might have heard a thing or two about Mississippi Stud odds. To be more precise, how they are pretty favorable to the player. Well, that’s true. But only if you are familiar with the rules and a few other important tangibles. If you’ve played blackjack or similar games, many aspects of Mississippi Stud Poker rules will be easy to pick up. Essentially, you sit at a table with other players. On one side of the table is the dealer. On the other side are the players. The players make bets, and the dealer covers those bets. But you don’t have to beat the other players, remember. Everyone at the table, less the dealer, is playing against the house. Let’s get into some Mississippi Stud Poker rules.

Learning how to play Mississippi Stud Poker is, as you can see, not that difficult. However, it is important to understand that you don’t have to beat another player’s hand to win. You also don’t have to beat a dealer’s hand. Instead, you get paid on the final value of your hand. In this respect, Mississippi Stud Poker kind of resembles video poker. Only it’s played with live dealers and real cards. If you’re just getting started, I recommend this complete guide to online poker should help you out greatly.

Mississippi Stud Payouts

There is no doubt that a Mississippi Stud poker strategy will help you improve your chances of winning when playing this game. But before you dive deep into that, it is essential to learn about the Mississippi Stud odds and payouts. The following table illustrates what you need to know.

I must point out a few things related to the Mississippi Stud Poker pay table above that will help. First, this game pays off at 500 to 1, 100 to 1, 40 to 1, etc. In video poker, bets pay off at 500 for 1, 100 for 1, or 40 for 1. The discernible difference here is that, unlike video poker machines, the payout is X for 1. In other words, you are exchanging your bet for the return. In other words, you don’t receive winnings and your initial bet.

On table games, you get paid off at X to 1. If you win, you get to keep your original bet and get your winnings on top of it.

It’s an important distinction to understand mathematically as well as practically. If a bet pays at 1 for 1, you’re essentially breaking even. That original stake comes back to you, but no profit on top of it. If a bet pays off at 1 to 1, you get your original wager back and a profit of one unit, chip, or coin.

Also, you’ll notice that standard hand rankings apply. But any pair of 5s or lower doesn’t pay off. Finally, with a pair of 6s through 10s, you get a “push.” That means you get your original bet back but no winnings. Another word for push is a tie.

Mississippi Stud Poker Strategy

How do you play Mississippi Stud while intoxicated to the point where you can’t see? Well, you don’t. Anyone with knowledge of playing games for real money knows that you don’t get hammered beforehand. But there is more to strategy than abstaining from the devil’s dishwater. Many casino games have no strategic element, while others do. You can easily distinguish these by asking yourself if a game involves making decisions in-game.

In Mississippi Stud, you must decide whether to fold or play.

You also must decide how much to bet.You base these decisions on what you know about the hand as it plays out and what the payouts are. The math for this kind of thing is beyond most folks, but according to Michael Shackleford, a mathematician named Joseph Kisenwether devised a mathematically optimal strategy for Mississippi Stud Poker.

The first step to understanding this strategy is assigning values to the cards. Any face card (jack, queen, or king) or any ace is worth 2 points. Any card ranked between 6 and 10 is worth 1 point. Cards lower than 6 are worth 0 points. The following information could be vital if you want to learn how to play Mississippi Stud Poker. Just like there are things to learn before you buy a house, preparation is key.

For the 3rd Street Bet

• If you have a pair, you’ll raise the max (3X the ante).
• If you have a hand worth 2 points, you’ll bet the ante.
• If you have a 5 and a 6 of the same suit, you’ll also bet the ante.

You’ll fold anything else, per this Mississippi Stud strategy chart. Notice that under no circumstances at this point do you bet 2X the ante. It’s either a 3-unit bet (if you have a pair) or a 1-unit bet (if you have a couple of mid-ranked cards or 5/6 suited.)

For the 4th Street Bet

Always bet 3X the ante if you have any of the following hands:

• Any pat hand. (This means a hand that’s guaranteed to pay out—for example, a middle pair or higher).
• Any royal flush draw.
• And straight flush draw that meets the following criteria: no gaps with the lowest card a 5, one gap and a high card, two gaps and two high cards.

You’ll bet one unit the size of the ante if you have any of the following:

• A flush draw (3 cards of the same suit)
• A small pair
• Any 3-point hand
• A straight draw with no gaps if the lowest card is a 4
• A straight draw with one gap and 2 mid-ranked cards

Otherwise, fold.

For the 5th Street Bet

You’ll bet 3X the ante with any pat hand, still. You’ll also raise if you have any of the following:

• A flush draw (4 cards that have the same suit)
• Any outside straight draw (a hand with four of the five needed cards in sequence and could be completed on either end that might make a straight)

Only place a single unit bet in the following situations:

• An inside straight draw
• A low pair
• A hand worth 4 points
• Any 3 mid-ranked cards if you raised on an earlier street

More Crucial Mississippi Stud Betting Strategy

As essential as it is to learn how to play the game, you also need to remember that things won’t always go according to plan. And no, I’m not talking about cheating. You might recall that trio that got busted in Las Vegas bending cards on games like Mississippi Stud.

Don’t do that! Let’s keep things civil and talk about strategy. The overall house edge for the game if you play with the optimal strategy is 4.91%. According to Michael Shackleford, if you use this strategy, you’ll bet an average of 3.59 units per hand. Here are some additional pointers that will help.

• You’ll only do one of 3 things: fold, raise 3X the ante, or raise the ante. Raising 2X the ante is allowed, but it’s never the optimal strategy.
• Mid-ranked cards are 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10.
• An inside straight draw is one where only 4 cards can fill the straight. For example, 5689 is an inside straight draw because you need a 7 to fill the hand. (That 7 is a “gap.”)
• An outside straight draw is one where any of 8 cards can fill the straight. For example, 5678 is an outside straight draw. A 4 will fill the straight, and so will a 9.
• The points are only a heuristic construct used to determine the right decision. The dealers and other players won’t know what the points mean.

I would be doing you a great disservice if I didn’t point out that casinos might offer different pay tables. In this event, the strategy should remain the same, but the house edge will likely change depending on the variance of those odds. You might have also noticed that this looks like a high house edge.

Compared to the house edge in blackjack or video poker, it is. However, it’s reasonable when placed against some of the worst bets at the craps table or any of the bets at keno or roulette. The rate of play is relatively slow, too. This means the amount you’ll lose on average per hour is minimal.

Is Mississippi Stud Better than Other Games?

You should know how to play Mississippi Stud Poker at this point. Or, at the very least, have a better handle on the fundamentals. Honestly, whether you find it better than any other game will depend on you. There are many reasons why a casino is stocked to the hilt with roulette tables, slots, and tons of other games. The main one, naturally, is that different people have different tastes.

Sometimes, it can also come down to practical factors. For instance, the house edge in blackjack makes it a very popular game. But others looking to play slots online will choose ones with high return-to-player (RTP) percentages. As a cool game that has an element of strategy, Mississippi Stud ticks many boxes.

But you’ll need to try it for yourself before you can tell if it’s right for you. Who knows? Maybe after reading my Mississippi Stud basic strategy you consider it to be one of the best games in the casino. If you’re new to the online gambling scene and want to learn more before playing Mississippi Stud Poker, I suggest reading this online casino tutorial.