How to play Mississippi Stud — and the real odds
Mississippi Stud takes the carnival-game formula and adds something rare: escalation. You don't make one decision — you make three, each with more money already at stake. Knowing when to bail and when to push is the entire game.
The setup
You ante and get two hole cards. Three community cards will complete your five-card hand, revealed one at a time — but before each reveal you must either raise 1× to 3× your ante or fold, forfeiting everything you've bet so far. There's no dealer hand: your final five cards are paid against the table below.
The three-tier paytable
Every wager — ante and all raises — pays the same odds: jacks-or-better 1:1 up to a 500:1 royal. The signature rule sits in the middle: a pair of 6s through 10s pushes — everything comes back, no win, no loss. Anything below that loses every bet you have out.
Why the two edge numbers are so different
Mississippi Stud's headline edge is 4.91% per ante — sounds steep. But optimal play piles an average of 3.59 antes onto a played hand, and measured against everything you actually bet, the cost is just 1.37% — among the cheapest wagers on the floor. Translation: the game charges fairly per dollar, but insists you bet a lot of dollars. Your ante should be sized accordingly — think of your real unit as ~4 antes.
The exact odds
Nothing below is simulated or borrowed — with no dealer, the whole game is computable, and we computed it (~156 million states):
Mississippi Stud is the highest-stakes carnival game on the site: you make three separate raise-or-fold calls, and by the river an average hand has 3.59 antes in the pot — all of it paying (or losing) at the same odds. There's no dealer, so the whole game is solvable: every figure below is exact, from a full 3-street backward induction over ~156 million states.
(per ante, exact)
(per dollar actually bet)
under optimal play
The paytable and the exact final-hand odds
Every wager — the ante and all three street bets — pays these odds on the final 5-card hand. The middle tier is the game's signature: a pair of 6s through 10s pushes (you get everything back but win nothing).
| Final hand | Pays (every bet) | Probability |
|---|---|---|
| Royal flush | 500 to 1 | 0.0002% |
| Straight flush | 100 to 1 | 0.0014% |
| Four of a kind | 40 to 1 | 0.0240% |
| Full house | 10 to 1 | 0.1441% |
| Flush | 6 to 1 | 0.1965% |
| Straight | 4 to 1 | 0.3925% |
| Three of a kind | 3 to 1 | 2.11% |
| Two pair | 2 to 1 | 4.75% |
| Pair, jacks or better | 1 to 1 | 13.00% |
| Pair, 6s–10s | PUSH | 16.25% |
| Everything else | all bets lose | 63.12% |
The exact 3rd-street strategy (derived, not memorized)
- Raise 3× with any pair — even a pair of deuces (it can only improve, and trips pay 3:1 on an ever-growing pot).
- Raise 1× with any jack or better, or two cards 6+ (two chances at a paying or pushing pair).
- Raise 1× with 6-5 suited — the famous exception; the straight-flush potential just barely clears the bar. 6-5 offsuit folds.
- Fold everything else — that's a full 44% of hands, gone for one ante. Chasing with a low hand feeds three streets of bad bets.
Our derivation computes the optimal call at every state from scratch — and it lands exactly on the published expert strategy, 6-5-suited quirk included. On 4th and 5th street the simulator computes the exact EV live rather than using rules at all.
Why two very different edge numbers
The 4.91% headline is your expected loss measured against one ante — the highest of our carnival games. But Mississippi Stud escalates: with 3.59 antes wagered on an average hand, the cost per dollar actually bet is just 1.37% — one of the lowest on the floor. Both are true. What they mean together: the game is fairly priced per dollar, but it makes you put a lot of dollars in — expect big swings relative to your ante.
Bankroll reality
This is the swingiest carnival game we've built. Nearly half your hands end in a quick one-ante fold; the hands you do play carry 4–10 antes; and 63% of all final hands pay nothing. When it hits, it hits everything at once — a full house pays 10:1 on the entire pot. Play with a bankroll that expects the drought between those moments.
Ready? Play Mississippi Stud free → · or compare it with every other game in the house-edge chart →.