House edge

The house edge is calculated in detail in the appendix. However, to summarize, there are 311,875,200 ways to choose 5 cards out of 52, with regard to the order chosen. The total amount the player would lose, assuming perfect strategy, over all possible combinations is 10,933,344. The house edge is defined as the average player loss to the minimum bet, or 10,933,344/311,875,200 = 3.5056792%.

The total amount bet over all combinations is 384,256,512. The "element of risk" is defined as the average loss to the average bet or 10,933,344/384,256,512 = 2.8453243%.

Video Let it Ride

Some multi-game terminals offer Let it Ride. As with machine games all wins are on a "for one" basis, in other words the player never gets his original bet back. Under the regular pay table this would be a terrible bet so they added one to all payoffs of a full house or less. So the equivalent "to one" pay table pays 1 less on a four of a kind and higher.

Seeing Extra Cards

Although players are not supposed to share information you can often accidentally see other player cards, or this rule is ignored and players voluntarily show each other their cards. Seeing other cards can make the difference in borderline plays, namely the zero house edge straights listed under the 4-card strategy above. In his book Mastering the Game of Let it Ride author Stanley Ko offers a strategy just this situation. He doesn't state how much it lowers the house edge, but I tend to think it is not very much.

The Side Bet

Some, but not all, casinos allow a side bet of $1 for which you will receive an additional payoff with certain paying hands. This is a sucker bet that should be avoided. Based on a small sampling of casinos in Las Vegas and Laughlin the house edge varies from 13.77% (Lady Luck) to 36.52% (New York, New York).