Mississippi Stud Odds & Strategy: The Exact Numbers
Last reviewed: July 2026
Mississippi Stud looks expensive: 4.91% of your ante is the highest headline edge among the carnival poker games. It’s also, per dollar actually wagered, one of the cheapest bets in the casino at 1.37%. Both numbers are exact (we derived the entire game, all ~156 million states), and understanding why they’re both true is understanding the game.
How it works
Ante, two hole cards, and then three community cards revealed one at a time. Before each reveal you either raise 1×–3× your ante or fold, forfeiting everything already out. Every bet, the ante and all three street bets, is paid by your final five-card hand: jacks-or-better 1:1 up to 500:1 for a royal. A pair of 6s–10s pushes; anything less loses it all.
The exact numbers
| Figure | Exact value |
|---|---|
| House edge (per ante) | 4.91% |
| Element of risk (per dollar wagered) | 1.37% |
| Average total wagered per hand | 3.59 antes |
| Hands folded under optimal play | 43.6% |
| Final hands that pay nothing | 63.1% (plus 16.3% pushes) |
These come from a full 3-street backward induction: every starting hand, every reveal order, every optimal decision. The same derivation produces the optimal strategy, rather than transcribing it from a book, and what it produced matches the published expert strategy exactly, right down to its strangest rule (raise 6-5 suited, fold 6-5 offsuit).
The strategy in three lines
- 3rd street: raise 3× with any pair (even deuces); raise 1× with a jack-or-better card, two cards 6+, or 6-5 suited; fold everything else.
- 4th and 5th street: stay in while the hand still has live value; made pays and pushes bet 3×, real draws bet 1×, dead hands fold even with money in the pot. (Our simulator computes these calls exactly, live.)
- Never “protect” sunk bets. Money already in the pot is gone; the only question is whether the next bet has positive value. The street-by-street guide works through the logic.
Why 4.91% and 1.37% are both true
The 4.91% measures your average loss against one ante, but optimal play bets an average of 3.59 antes per hand. Divide the same expected loss by all the money you actually put in motion and the price is 1.37%, cheaper per dollar than the Pass line at craps. The catch: the game makes you supply those dollars. Mississippi Stud is a low-margin, high-volume machine, and your bankroll feels the volume. Size your ante like it’s a quarter of your real bet, because it is.
The feel of the game
Two out of three final hands pay nothing; one in six pushes; the paying hands carry big multiples of your ante. That’s a swingy profile (long droughts, big collections) and it’s exactly what the Lab shows over ten thousand hands.
See it yourself: play Mississippi Stud free → with strategy hints on, or compare it with every other game in the house-edge chart.