Set your bet and deal, three equal bets go up.
Select a chip, then click a betting spot to add it.
Each chip adds the same amount to all three bets. Bets 1 and 2 may be pulled back during play.
Free game, fun credits only, no real money. You can pull back bets 1 and 2; bet 3 always rides. A pair of tens or better pays; the hints show the exact EV of riding each bet.
The dashed gold line is the exact house edge, 3.51% per base bet, derived from all ~52M hand states: the sim only validates it. Convergence is slower here than most games: the 1000:1 royal and 200:1 straight flush are huge, rare spikes, so short runs regularly sit above the line (no royal yet) or dive below it (just hit one). Every decision the sim makes uses the same exact EVs the Play tab shows.
Let It Ride has no dealer: you're playing your five cards against a paytable, and your only skill is knowing when to pull two of your three bets back. That makes it fully solvable: every figure below is exact, derived by working through all ~52 million possible hand states. Optimal play means each bet rides only when its exact expected value is positive.
(per one base bet, exact)
(per unit actually ridden)
(of 3)
The paytable and the exact final-hand odds
Your final hand is your 3 cards plus the 2 community cards, and its probabilities are plain 5-card poker frequencies. The gotcha: a pair below tens pays nothing. About three hands in four finish with no pay at all.
| Final hand | Pays (each riding bet) | Probability | Roughly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Royal flush | 1000 to 1 | 0.0002% | 1 in 649,740 |
| Straight flush | 200 to 1 | 0.0014% | 1 in 72,193 |
| Four of a kind | 50 to 1 | 0.0240% | 1 in 4,165 |
| Full house | 11 to 1 | 0.1441% | 1 in 694 |
| Flush | 8 to 1 | 0.1965% | 1 in 509 |
| Straight | 5 to 1 | 0.3925% | 1 in 255 |
| Three of a kind | 3 to 1 | 2.11% | 1 in 47 |
| Two pair | 2 to 1 | 4.75% | 1 in 21 |
| Pair, tens or better | 1 to 1 | 16.25% | 1 in 6.2 |
| Everything else | riding bets lose | 76.12% | 3 in 4 |
The real strategy: you'll pull back most bets
- Bet 1 rides on only 7.3% of hands; a made paying hand, three to a royal, or a strong three-to-a-straight-flush. Everything else: pull it back.
- Bet 2 rides on 15.1%; a made pay, four to a flush, or a good four-to-a-straight.
- Bet 3 always rides: that's the rule, not a choice. On average you'll have 1.22 bets riding at the end.
- The name sells the fantasy of pressing your luck; the math says the opposite: the skill in Let It Ride is taking bets OFF the table. Riding everything blindly roughly triples your exposure to the same losing hands.
How the edge is measured (both numbers are honest)
The headline 3.51% is your expected loss per hand measured against one base bet (the standard convention). But you start each hand with three bets up and pull back most of them: on average only 1.22 units stay in action, so your loss per dollar that actually stays on the felt is 2.86%. Comparable to Three Card Poker, cheaper than most side bets, but remember the ride: ~76% of hands pay nothing.
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