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This game is a variation of poker played on a blackjack sized table. Following is how the game is played:

Play starts with each player making an ante bet in a designated square. Each player then receives five cards face down. Players may examine their own cards but may not share information with each other. The dealer also receives five cards, four face down and one face up. At this point each player has two options: raise or fold. If the player raises he puts twice his ante bet in the raise box. If the player folds he must relinquish his cards to the dealer, who will collect his ante bet. After all players have made their plays the dealer exposes his own cards. If he does not qualify with at least an ace and king then all remaining ante bets pay even money and all raise bets push. If the dealer does qualify then each remaining player hand is individually compared against the dealer's hand, and the best poker hand wins in each case. If the dealer has the higher hand the player loses both ante and raise. In the unlikely event the two hands are equal in value then both ante and raise push. If the player has the higher hand the ante pays even money and the raise pays according to the following pay table.

The player should raise on any pair or better, fold on anything less than ace/king, and should sometimes raise and sometimes fold on ace/king. To play Caribbean stud perfectly would involve memorizing the charts in this appendix on when exactly to raise on ace/king. Of course nobody is going to do that so a more simplified strategy is clearly called for. By studying the appendix you will notice certain paterns of when the odds favor raising and when they don't. These patterns are summarized in the following suggested rules of thumb on when to raise on ace/king:

• Raise if the dealer's card is a 2 through queen and matches one of yours.
• Raise if the dealer's card is an ace or king and you have a queen or jack in your hand.
• Raise if the dealer's rank does not match any of yours and you have a queen in your hand and the dealer's card is less than your fourth highest card.

House edge in Caribbean Stud Poker is about 5.2%.

In Caribbean Stud Poker the player has the choice to make a side bet of $1 which pays for hands of a flush or better. The specific payoff tables vary from place to place but always feature a progressive jackpot, paying 100% of the jackpot meter for a royal flush and 10% for a straight flush. In the very unlikely event that two players had a royal flush in the same hand at most places the first one to the dealer's left would win the jackpot and the second would win whatever the jackpot is reseeded to, usually $10,000 or $20,000. Some places would split the jackpot between the two players. In the event that two players received a straight flush at the same time the first one to the dealer left would get 10% of the meter and the second would get 10% of what was left after the first player was paid. In other words it pays to sit as close as possible to the dealer's left.

While the expected return varies depending on the size of the jackpot it is a sucker bet the vast majority of time. The average house edge is 26.46%.

Microgaming, Bossmedia, Starnet, and Cryptologic online casinos offer Caribbean Stud Poker. They use different names but the rules are almost the sames. Microgaming calls the game Cyberstud Poker and Starnet and Cryptologic call it Caribbean Poker, removing the word Stud. Starnet uses the same paytable as used in real casinos. Cryptologic doubles the royal flush payoff to 200:1. Microgaming changed almost every hand, making a two pair pay only even money but increasing the payoff on everything from a straight to a royal flush. The following is the Microgaming payoff table.

The house edge under the Microgaming rules is 5.01%. Under the Cryptologic rules the house edge is only slightly better at 5.21%.

The Caribbean Stud Appendix shows with a color coded chart when to raise on ace/king for every situation.