Casino's provide a couple of casino variations of the favourite Texas Hold'em Poker. Two of the more popular variations are Hold'em Bonus and Casino Hold'em both of which have a higher house edge (per unit) than most of the Blackjacks and a higher variance (due to the increase wager). Essentially you play poker against the casino competing against their hand. These games can still be useful when blackjack is not allowed or wager requirements for blackjack is too high.

Payouts are based on the rarity of the hand that you have. Wagering happens over a number of turns; an initial 'ante', then to see the flop and 4th and 5th street. As usual the bonus bets all grossly favor the casino and should be avoided.

See the pay out tables in Casino Hold 'em to see how hands are ranked.

Strategy: The house gains edge by having a high wager amount. That said on the first hand you should only fold on 2/3 to 2/7 unsuited and raise on everything else. After this point the strategy is more complex and is based on your chances of winning being >50%. Not losing (there is tieing as well). There are strategy calculators out there for this, however if you are playing this it is more likely it is for fun anyway. Webpages are a bit slow for this so I may design a program later if the demand is there.

Pay table: For win on >straight, bets pay 1:1. For win <straight, bets after ante pay 1:1. Ties push. Otherwise lose.

Odds: Most variations of Hold'em Bonus offer house edge of around 0.5% per unit and offered payouts from a straight or above(Las Vegas rules). Beware of Atlantic city rules which have a house edge of ~1.5% per unit, this is casinos using Vuetec software.

This is essentially the same game as Hold'em Bonus, except the pay table is scaled therefore giving it a higher variance. Another difference is that you, win if the dealer has no hand, therefore you win more often than not, this is offset by the higher wager to return ratio. To complete the wager req, you must bet 3x the ante for 1x ante return. It is relatively new to casinos and is therefore not available on all types of software. As a result there has been a number of unique casino bonuses with wagering required on casino hold'em.

Strategy: Fold on the worst 18% of hands.

Odds:

Hand	Hand Odds	Ante Bet Payout
Royal Flush	0.003333%	100:1
Straight Flush	0.0286%	20:1
4 of a Kind	0.166%	10:1
Full House	2.5%	3:1
Flush	2.86%	2:1
Straight or Less	94.1%	1:1
House Edge/Unit		0.82%