Let It Ride: 3-card Side Bet

By John Grochowski on Wednesday February 15, 2012

3-card, games, gaming, side-bet, tourism, tunica, video-poker

Table games manufacturers love to spice up their products with side bets, something to add a little extra action, a little extra interest to play. And if there’s one thing casino table games manufacturers love to see, it’s more action, with more money on the table.

One wrinkle at Let It Ride is the 3-Card Bonus Bet. It’s a proposition that mirrors the Pair Plus wager at Three Card Poker. You’re betting that the three cards you’re dealt will be winners on a pay table that starts at a pair and goes up through a three-card straight flush. The two community cards that are used to complete the five-card Let It Ride hands are not include for 3-Card Bonus purposes.

On the get an even money pay for a pair, 3-1 on a flush, 6-1 on a straight, 30-1 on three of a kind, 40-1 on a straight flush and 50-1 on a mini-royal consisting of Ace-King-Queen of the same suit. With that pay table, the house edge is 7.1 percent — a little steep for my taste.

But as it does on many of its games, Let It Ride manufacturer Shuffle Master offers several pay tables on the game. The best changes only one pay, raising flushes from 3-1 to 4-1. That reduces the house edge to 2.14 percent, making it one of the better bets on newer table games. You can do better if you know your stuff in blackjack or craps, but a 2.14 percent house edge gives players a fighting chance.

As in other three-card games, there’s one pay table quirk: Straights pay more than flushes. That’s because three-card flushes are more common than straights. In the main, five-card Let It Ride game, flushes outrank straights.