How a hand is played
Mississippi Stud is not a game against the dealer. You build a five-card poker hand and it is paid against a pay table, so there is no dealer hand to beat and no other player to outdraw.
The sequence is fixed. You post an ante and receive two cards. Three community cards sit face down in the middle. Then come three decisions, one before each community card turns over.
- Third street. Fold, or bet one, two or three times the ante. The first community card is then revealed.
- Fourth street. Fold, or bet one, two or three times the ante again. The second community card is revealed.
- Fifth street. Fold, or bet one, two or three times the ante a final time.
The last community card is then turned over and your best five-card hand, made from your two cards plus all three community cards, is paid against the table.
Folding forfeits everything you have already put out
This is the rule that defines the game and the one new players get wrong. A fold does not return the ante, and it does not return any raise you have already made. Every chip on the layout is lost the moment you fold.
That changes the question at each street. It is not "do I like this hand" but "is this hand worth one more unit, given that walking away now costs me everything already committed".
It also sets the ceiling on a hand. Raising the maximum on all three streets puts the ante plus nine more units at risk, so a $5 ante game can cost $50 on a single deal.
What gets paid
Winning hands start at a pair of jacks. A middle pair returns your bets rather than paying anything, and anything weaker loses. Above the pair, payouts climb through two pair, three of a kind, straight, flush and on up.
The exact break point and the multipliers are printed on the felt, and they vary between properties. Read them before you sit down, because a changed line moves what the game costs you. Any side bet on the layout has its own separate table and usually costs more per dollar than the base game.
What the 4.91% figure means
Published analyses of the standard game put the house edge at roughly 4.91% of the ante under correct play. That number is quoted here, not derived: our engines cover craps, blackjack, roulette, baccarat and video poker, and Mississippi Stud is not among them. Our methodology page sets out which figures on this site are computed and which are cited.
On a $5 ante, an edge of 4.91% means the house expects to keep about $0.25 per hand played. It says nothing about any single hand or any single session.
The measurement base matters as much as the percentage. This figure is expressed against the ante alone, while correct play puts several more units at risk after the ante. Measured against every dollar that ends up wagered, the same game produces a smaller percentage.
How it compares, read carefully
| Game or bet | House edge | Measured against |
|---|---|---|
| Mississippi Stud | About 4.91%, published | The ante only |
| Craps pass line | 1.41% | Each pass-line bet resolved |
| Craps don't pass | 1.36% | Each don't-pass bet resolved |
| Baccarat banker | Exactly 1.0579% | Each banker bet |
| European roulette | 2.70% | Each spin |
| American roulette | 5.26% | Each spin |
The third column is the whole point. A pass-line percentage applies to each bet as it resolves, while the Mississippi Stud percentage applies to the ante that opened the hand. Stacking them in one column without that caveat would flatter one game and slander another.
Where the money actually goes
- Late folds. A fold on fifth street throws away the ante and both earlier raises. The cost of a fold grows with every street you survive.
- The 3x raise used as optimism. The maximum raise is available on every street, which makes it easy to reach for on hands that do not justify it.
- The side bet. Side bets on games of this family generally carry a higher cost than the base game. It has its own pay table for a reason.
- Speed. Four decisions per hand and a fast dealer mean more money crossing the felt per hour than the table minimum suggests.
The published strategy does not fit in a paragraph
Correct play has been worked out and published as point-count rules, one list for each street. It runs longer than a blackjack basic-strategy card, and compressing it into four memorable lines would cost you money rather than save it.
If you want a table game whose correct play fits on a card, three card poker and ultimate texas hold'em are the usual starting points. If you want the cheapest seat on the floor, blackjack with good rules still wins, and the blackjack rule calculator prices each rule change from the cards.
Where the numbers on this site come from
This article is editorial. The reference sections below derive their figures from the cards, the dice or the pay table rather than quoting them, and each one shows the working:
More in Rules of the Game
- Smart Roulette Inside and Outside Bets for Casino Travelers
- Pro Video Poker Multi-Hand Strategy for Casino Travelers
First published on this site's WordPress blog between September and December 2025; rewritten to this site's current standard in August 2026.