Strange 3-Card Poker Rules
(a) There is no Ante Bonus payout. None.
(b) Pair Plus has the standard pay table, except a Pair pays 2-to-1 instead of 1-to-1 (but you must beat the dealer to win ANY Pair Plus bet).
With no Ante Bonus available, the House must have a higher advantage. But, PairPlus pays double for pairs. So, how much worse off am I playing this versus playing the "standard" Three-Card Poker? Any help appreciated.
I am in the middle of moving, but you (or someone else) should be able to modify the tables in the following thread. https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/questions-and-answers/all-other/21521-three-card-poker-change/ .Quote: LuckyPhowWiz, please tell me the House Advantage on the strange Three-Card Poker rules I recently saw at a Florida poker room. It has all the standard rules, except as follows:
(a) There is no Ante Bonus payout. None.
(b) Pair Plus has the standard pay table, except a Pair pays 2-to-1 instead of 1-to-1 (but you must beat the dealer to win ANY Pair Plus bet).
With no Ante Bonus available, the House must have a higher advantage. But, PairPlus pays double for pairs. So, how much worse off am I playing this versus playing the "standard" Three-Card Poker? Any help appreciated.
Quote: LuckyPhowWiz, please tell me the House Advantage on the strange Three-Card Poker rules I recently saw at a Florida poker room.
Can you tell me the name of the poker room? I'd like to confirm the rules before I spend time on this.
This game is set up where there is a "special player" (rather than the House) who pays wins and collects player losses because Florida poker rooms are forbidden to offer banked table games. Court cases are in progress about whether this violates terms of the Compact Florida has with the Seminole Native American tribe, which has casinos in southern Florida. Just so you are aware, this is probably a sensitive subject for the poker room (but don't let that stop you!) My buddy and I wanted to see how the "special player" system operated, neither of us having visited before. The strange Three-Card Poker rules came as a surprise.
Thanx in advance for any attention you can give. And, thanx for the helpful posts by others. Much appreciated.
Also, what do you consider to be the standard Pairplus pay table? I consider it to be 1-3-6-30-40, but maybe the standard is something else in Florida.
Can players bank the game?Quote: LuckyPhowWiz, my buddy and I went to the Creek Entertainment poker room in Gretna, Florida, a property of the Poarch Creek Native American tribe. Internet: (but no details on the Web site except to confirm it offers Three-Card Poker). Telephone: 850-878-6930.
This game is set up where there is a "special player" (rather than the House) who pays wins and collects player losses because Florida poker rooms are forbidden to offer banked table games. Court cases are in progress about whether this violates terms of the Compact Florida has with the Seminole Native American tribe, which has casinos in southern Florida. Just so you are aware, this is probably a sensitive subject for the poker room (but don't let that stop you!) My buddy and I wanted to see how the "special player" system operated, neither of us having visited before. The strange Three-Card Poker rules came as a surprise.
Thanx in advance for any attention you can give. And, thanx for the helpful posts by others. Much appreciated.
I phoned the CreekEntertainment poker room and asked (not trusting my memory). First, you cannot play PairPlus without an Ante bet. However, my buddy allowed the lady next to him to place bets on his unused PairPlus bet circle, and the casino had no problem. (Small town, VERY laid-back atmosphere, don'cher know?)
Second, they have a modified pay table for PairPlus bets where the player beats the dealer, as follows:
2-to-1 - Pair
3-to-1 - Flush
4-to-1 - Straight
30-to-1 - Trips
40-to-1 - Straight Flush
200-to-1 - Mini Royal
FWIW, phone is answered (usually) by the (one and only) Pit Boss, and he didn't seem too uptight about answering my questions. Again, many thanx.
FWIW, staff in the payout seat were clearly NOT casino staff and were clearly VERY bored. If you could get the concession, it would probably make you money, but someone would have to staff it all the hours the place is open. In this poker room, they had 3-Card and Pai-Gow poker. Seems they had 3 staff, each working 40 minutes and taking 20 minute breaks. Two staff worked while one was on break. It might boost your bankroll, but you might lose your sanity. And, we played early afternoon on a Wednesday after eating a slow lunch in the bar-n-grill along one side of the poker room. We watched, and there was no 3-card play until just before we joined the table. So, there might be a lot of "down" time where you made no money.
I agree that it sounds like the same thing California card rooms are getting around the non-house banked games rules. However, I don't know about the cheating part. Typically, players that bank will end up competing against increasingly larger action from the corporate banker in their effort to shrink your stack. Each seat is only allowed to bank two turns before having the role offered to the next player, and co-banking is allowed if a player who wishes to bank doesn't have enough to cover all the action. However, the corporation gets paid first. While the big corporate stack playing against your table stake isn't very friendly, I don't know where the cheating comes from.Quote: Wizard...However, if you do it on a regular basis you'll me made to feel unwelcome or get cheated.
In the OP's description, the corporate player is paying the commission for each player. In theory, this is how the house makes money on the game. A considerate move, because the other option is for each player to pay the commission themselves.
Note that in California, the corporate banks are usually operated by affiliates of other card rooms. Since each card room's corporation can't bank their own games, they work out reciprocal agreements for coverage.... which is still weird since they should be competing.
Quote: LuckyPhowSeems the "payout guy" (sitting at position 6, dealer's far right, with trays of chips) was having to pay $1 per hand played.
Ummm... Let me be more precise here. The payout guy paid $1 total for each dealer round, not $1 for each hand of all the players. Seemed to me it may have been a way to keep count of total number of hands played, possibly as a datum to affect other cost calculations between the poker room and the payout vendor.
And, as a newbie doing his first Wiz post, I sure appreciate folks' comments. Most educational.
Quote: LuckyPhowUmmm... Let me be more precise here. The payout guy paid $1 total for each dealer round, not $1 for each hand of all the players. Seemed to me it may have been a way to keep count of total number of hands played, possibly as a datum to affect other cost calculations between the poker room and the payout vendor.
And, as a newbie doing his first Wiz post, I sure appreciate folks' comments. Most educational.
Are you sure the house wasn't collecting a dollar from everyone? In theory this rake is where they make their money. If they have an interest in the corporate player's hand, then they are de facto banking the game and probably in violation of the compact.
I applaud all the detailed infatuation you have provided. Welcome to the forum.Quote: LuckyPhow.
Here's how it went down: Dealer checks for minimum Ante bets for players sitting in any of the first 5 seats (and PairPlus bet if made). Payout guy, sitting in seat 6 has the same kind of drop contraption the poker table has for the house rake -- a chip slider that holds one chip at a time. He puts a white $1 chip in the mouth of the slider.
The dealer retrieves hands of 3 cards from the shuffle machine, putting a hand at seat 1 first, and on to the payout guy last. (I was sitting in seat 4 and had a GOOD view.) The dealer placed the payout guy's hand in front of the payout guy and verified the chip was loaded. I'm not sure what triggered the chip being deposited (and I looked). May have been triggered by the remaining cards being removed from the shuffle machine. Or, the dealer may have triggered it at that time (since I probably would have been examining my cards then). But, when the hand was over and it was time for me to post another bet or collect my winnings, the chip slider was empty.
This was my first time at any "payout guy" poker room table game, and I was there not so much to gamble as to see who was doing what. I'm sorta into the gaming business, what with reading the most interesting court depositions involving Florida's various ongoing legal battles with poker rooms, horse tracks, and tribal compacts, among other things. I came, I saw, and I confirmed - $1 for each dealer round.
| Event | Pays | Combinations | Probability | Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player wins with Mini Royal | 200 | 73,684 | 0.000181 | 0.036193 |
| Player wins with straight flush | 40 | 809,556 | 0.001988 | 0.079530 |
| Player wins with three of a kind | 30 | 954,736 | 0.002345 | 0.070344 |
| Player wins with straight | 4 | 12,976,488 | 0.031870 | 0.127480 |
| Player wins with flush | 3 | 18,928,820 | 0.046489 | 0.139466 |
| Player wins with pair | 2 | 57,094,704 | 0.140223 | 0.280446 |
| Player wins with trash | -1 | 112,521,948 | 0.276351 | -0.276351 |
| Tie | 0 | 450,528 | 0.001106 | 0.000000 |
| Dealer wins | -1 | 203,359,936 | 0.499447 | -0.499447 |
| Total | 407,170,400 | 1.000000 | -0.042338 |
This is all because (not sure anybody explained it above )in Florida non-Seminole compact properties, you're not playing against the house. You're playing against a banker representative, and the house is taking a hand rake. Same situation on Florida UTH Trips. So two parties have to make money. Makes for some awful paytables.
Quote: beachbumbabsThanks for the info, Wizard. Yes, if you tie the dealer, you push.
So, if you have trash, there is still hope to tie if you tie the dealer?
Quote:This is all because (not sure anybody explained it above )in Florida non-Seminole compact properties, you're not playing against the house. You're playing against a banker representative, and the house is taking a hand rake. Same situation on Florida UTH Trips. So two parties have to make money. Makes for some awful paytables.
I don't see why they can't offer normal Three Card Poker. Let the casino charge a fee and the advantage players/corporations will enjoy the house advantage. The players will get double-screwed, but 6-5 blackjack has shown us that players are foolish enough to play anything.
Quote: WizardI don't see why they can't offer normal Three Card Poker.
Wiz,
I think Keeperofcards, who works for one of the player-banker firms, (20-May-2016, Interesting-pair-plus-paytable) tried to explain:
"...when compared, one hand must win, lose, or tie completely. This restricts us from paying the pair plus on a hand, when the bank hand is a better hand," according to what Florida requires of poker rooms.
Likewise, I guess that answers the problem with the Ante Bonus being deleted. It's not an actual bet, per se, that can always be resolved (win-loss-tie) at the conclusion of the hand. At least, that's my best understanding of what Keeper said.
Many thanx for your analysis. Seems the Gretna poker room Pair Plus is better than the standard 7.28% HE, right? Even though the base game is pretty sick.
Quote: LuckyPhowWiz, I think Keeperofcards, who works for one of the player-banker firms, (20-May-2016, Interesting-pair-plus-paytable) tried to explain:
"...when compared, one hand must win, lose, or tie completely. This restricts us from paying the pair plus on a hand, when the bank hand is a better hand," according to what Florida requires of poker rooms.
Likewise, I guess that answers the problem with the Ante Bonus being deleted. It's not an actual bet, per se, that can always be resolved (win-loss-tie) at the conclusion of the hand. At least, that's my best understanding of what Keeper said.
Many thanx for your analysis. Seems the Gretna poker room Pair Plus is better than the standard 7.28% HE, right? Even though the base game is pretty sick.
Thanks. That was my understanding too. I'm just trying to reconcile that with BBB's statement about the player banking being the issue.
My understanding of how it,.or Trips, or any of the sidebets work, is that you must have a qualifying hand, AND a better hand than the bank, to win the bet. Only an exact tie with a qualifying bank hand will push. And all non-qualified hands, and hands lower than the bank, lose.
Quote: beachbumbabsI may just be explaining it badly. Since you are not playing against the house, you are not playing against a paytable, you are playing against a person you must beat to win the bet.
My understanding of how it,.or Trips, or any of the sidebets work, is that you must have a qualifying hand, AND a better hand than the bank, to win the bet. Only an exact tie with a qualifying bank hand will push. And all non-qualified hands, and hands lower than the bank, lose.
Yes, we all seem to be in agreement about the rules. Maybe I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I'm having trouble understanding your point for the reasons behind the rule change compared to conventional Three Card Poker.
Quote: LuckyPhowI'm sorta into the gaming business, what with reading the most interesting court depositions involving Florida's various ongoing legal battles with poker rooms, horse tracks, and tribal compacts, among other things.
maybe it should be another thread, but I have been trying to follow the FL situation; it's been difficult. What is your take on it currently?
Assuming you can get a fair game (i.e. no cheating) and the "banker" pays $1 per round it must be in your advantage to play the minimum against the corporation and let them bet as much as they like against you. You might not like the variance but you can always reduce your bank to an amount you are happy with (although it has to overcome the $1 fee).Quote: Ayecarumba...players that bank ... larger action from the corporate banker...
Quote: WizardYes, we all seem to be in agreement about the rules. Maybe I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I'm having trouble understanding your point for the reasons behind the rule change compared to conventional Three Card Poker.
Maybe it's philosophical distaste more than reason. The one time I played UTH in a local card room, I was astounded that the trips bet paid 10:1 on a fh. Didn't notice the asterisk at first. Quads on the board. Dealer outkicked me. No Trips pay, which usually saves you. Lost my fh to a higher pair. Pushed a straight. Crap like that. Finally had to leave, up a little overall, out of really not enjoying having so many hands offered and then taken away. I like knowing a side bet will pay win or lose.
I suppose they can design a paytable that compensates for the losses and ties; the one you calculated here isn't awful, and the UTH one does pay 10 for a fh* instead of 8.
Fwiw, the banker player is some kind of contractual entity. If a 3rd party walks in and wants to bank, it's technically possible, but the fees for banking triple or something, and there's a huge bankroll required too. They weren't all that willing to discuss the details, so sorry this is vague and could be wrong.
Quote: odiousgambitmaybe it should be another thread, but I have been trying to follow the FL situation; it's been difficult. What is your take on it currently?
Sounds like an interesting subject to discuss, but best to discuss it on a separate thread somewhere else. But, I'm game.
I'm mighty new here, so I claim no particular knowledge of where might be best. That said, why don't you start a tread -- maybe in the "Other" subsection of the "Gambling Business" Forum. Something like, "Gaming Legal Battles in Florida," or something similar. No telling what info we might dredge from the folks at this site. I'll help by trying to answer your initial info request, and we'll see where it goes from there.
I also understood from an overheard comment that the $1 drop is a marker, not a dollar value on the rake. It's a hands-dealt counter, and they were plugging in how many players each hand (the house was)before dealing. Again, I could be wrong, or what I learned may only pertain to that card room.
Quote: LuckyPhowWiz, please tell me the House Advantage on the strange Three-Card Poker rules I recently saw at a Florida poker room. It has all the standard rules, except as follows:
(a) There is no Ante Bonus payout. None.
(b) Pair Plus has the standard pay table, except a Pair pays 2-to-1 instead of 1-to-1 (but you must beat the dealer to win ANY Pair Plus bet).
With no Ante Bonus available, the House must have a higher advantage. But, PairPlus pays double for pairs. So, how much worse off am I playing this versus playing the "standard" Three-Card Poker? Any help appreciated.
Am I understanding correctly. You pay $5 as ante and $5 as pair plus. Say you have a pair and win the hand. You will be paid $10 but they take your ante? Or since you win do you keep your ante but you don't get paid on it?
Quote: WizardFor now, I'm going to assume that a tie is a push, no matter what the player has. That said, here is my return table for the Pairplus bet under the Florida rules. The lower right cell shows a house edge of 4.23%.
Event Pays Combinations Probability Return Player wins with Mini Royal 200 73,684 0.000181 0.036193 Player wins with straight flush 40 809,556 0.001988 0.079530 Player wins with three of a kind 30 954,736 0.002345 0.070344 Player wins with straight 4 12,976,488 0.031870 0.127480 Player wins with flush 3 18,928,820 0.046489 0.139466 Player wins with pair 2 57,094,704 0.140223 0.280446 Player wins with trash -1 112,521,948 0.276351 -0.276351 Tie 0 450,528 0.001106 0.000000 Dealer wins -1 203,359,936 0.499447 -0.499447 Total 407,170,400 1.000000 -0.042338
HE is better than vegas games but with the ante not paying anything that has got to make the overall game horrible.
Quote: beachbumbabsSo I still don't understand the reason /excuse for not paying the ante bonus. I do know that Florida law says that only one sidebet per table may be offered on any game. Maybe they're conflating that somehow to mean they can only pay the base game 1:1 on any win, but UTH still offers odds payouts on the Blind bet as well as the Trips bet, so if that's their story, no. I think that's what's paying the double cost of offering 3CP there.
I also understood from an overheard comment that the $1 drop is a marker, not a dollar value on the rake. It's a hands-dealt counter, and they were plugging in how many players each hand (the house was)before dealing. Again, I could be wrong, or what I learned may only pertain to that card room.
Me, too. I don't understand them removing the Ante Bonus feature. That was the only time I played a "carnival" game in a poker room. Pretty sure I won't go back soon. But, I wanted to see for myself how they played the game.
Concerning whether or not the player-banker and the casino were using something other than a $1 chip, I know it looked like a $1 chip, but it might have been some other kind of token. You said they were "plugging in" how many players played each hand at the location you saw. There was no such device at the table I played at in Gretna, Florida. That community is so small that it's population probably doubles on Saturday when the poker room gets busy. Given that the Gretna poker room is a tiny, small-town poker room, they probably use what they have and forsake anything they can avoid buying, such as special "hand-tracking" tokens or electronic table devices.
Quote: GWAEAm I understanding correctly. You pay $5 as ante and $5 as pair plus. Say you have a pair and win the hand. You will be paid $10 but they take your ante? Or since you win do you keep your ante but you don't get paid on it?
Ummm... You may not be understanding correctly.
If you have a pair and win the hand (and the Dealer "qualifies" with at least a Queen-high hand), you win even money on your Ante bet and on your Play bet. And, you get to keep the chips with which you made the original bets. If the Dealer did not qualify, the Ante bet pays and the Play bet pushes (allowing you to keep -- but not win $$ on -- the Play bet).
If I understand your example, the player had a pair and beat the Dealer. In that case, the PairPlus bet pays double the original bet (whereas regular PairPlus would only pay 1-to-1). What is different here is the PairPlus bet only wins if the player beats the Dealer, whereas "standard" would pay 1-to-1 for the pair even if the Dealer had a stronger hand.
In "standard" Three-Card poker there is also an Ante Bonus payout the player receives if her/his hand is at least a straight. That payout is completely missing at the Gretna poker room. It makes for a high House Advantage on the base (Ante-Play) game.
I hope this clarifies anything confusing I wrote previously.
| Event | Pays | Combinations | Probability | Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player wins | 2 | 97,354,684 | 0.239101 | 0.478201 |
| Dealer doesn't qualify | 1 | 85,493,652 | 0.209970 | 0.209970 |
| Push | 0 | 267,648 | 0.000657 | 0.000000 |
| Player folds | -1 | 132,652,800 | 0.325792 | -0.325792 |
| Dealer wins | -2 | 91,401,616 | 0.224480 | -0.448960 |
| Total | 407,170,400 | 1.000000 | -0.086580 |
So, house edge of 8.68% (ouch!)
Quote: LuckyPhowUmmm... You may not be understanding correctly.
If you have a pair and win the hand (and the Dealer "qualifies" with at least a Queen-high hand), you win even money on your Ante bet and on your Play bet. And, you get to keep the chips with which you made the original bets. If the Dealer did not qualify, the Ante bet pays and the Play bet pushes (allowing you to keep -- but not win $$ on -- the Play bet).
If I understand your example, the player had a pair and beat the Dealer. In that case, the PairPlus bet pays double the original bet (whereas regular PairPlus would only pay 1-to-1). What is different here is the PairPlus bet only wins if the player beats the Dealer, whereas "standard" would pay 1-to-1 for the pair even if the Dealer had a stronger hand.
In "standard" Three-Card poker there is also an Ante Bonus payout the player receives if her/his hand is at least a straight. That payout is completely missing at the Gretna poker room. It makes for a high House Advantage on the base (Ante-Play) game.
I hope this clarifies anything confusing I wrote previously.
Ahh i see. I thought you meant there was no payout at all and not just the extra pay.
Quote: mipletMy only question is on the pair plus side bet. Does the player push when he copies with less than a pair? Your table implies it does, but that doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe show it both ways.
I asked about it in this thread and was told that it does.
Quote: WizardI asked about it in this thread and was told that it does.
I'm not sure whose answer you're using, but I clarified up thread that the pp bet must both qualify for pp pay AND beat the dealer to win. Only the exact same qualifying hand pushes. If both conditions are not satisfied, the bet loses.
Quote: WizardOkay, for once and for all, what would happen if both the player and dealer had A-K-J?
Non qualifying pp hands. Ante and play push, pp loses.
Quote: beachbumbabsNon qualifying pp hands. Ante and play push, pp loses.
Thanks, although this would seem to contradict what you wrote earlier, in answer to my question whether a tie with trash is a push:
Quote: beachbumbabsYes, if you tie the dealer, you push.
I decided to just post the math both ways. Bottom line is if all ties push, the house edge is 4.23%. If ties with trash lose, then the house edge is 4.34%.
Quote: WizardThanks, although this would seem to contradict what you wrote earlier, in answer to my question whether a tie with trash is a push:
I decided to just post the math both ways. Bottom line is if all ties push, the house edge is 4.23%. If ties with trash lose, then the house edge is 4.34%.
Sorry to have been the source of confusion. I thought the hand qualifying for the bonus paytable was a prerequisite of any sidebet and didn't think to specify.
Ja, ja, dere I go t'inkin' again...oofdah!
Quote: Noncompete
A few of the racetracks have the 1/4/5 ante bonus however they only pay on winning hands. For example if the dealer's trips beat your straight, you don't receive the 1 unit ante bonus you would on a losing hand in conventional 3CP.
Correct. Same at the Gretna poker room. That's because (in Florida "poker" rooms) you can only get paid on a winning hand. Likewise, your Pair-Plus bet wins if your pair beats the dealer, but not otherwise.
I haven't been to the Gretna poker room recently. With all the courtroom stuff going on, I thought Fla. gov't had shut down the "designated player-banker" games at poker rooms. From your comment, that seems not to be the case.
