Let It Ride Strategy: How to Play Smart and Increase Your Chances of Winning
Let It Ride Poker Strategy
There’s one main part to a good Let It Ride strategy. You must know when a hand is a winner. You already know the minimum winning hand is a pair of tens. The rest comes from knowing when to leave your first two wagers on the table. A player can accumulate large sums of money very quickly in Let It Ride. However, in order to win a lot of money, you have to be lucky to get very good hands. The table below shows you the odds of each hand being dealt on five cards, with no draw (rounded to the nearest fifty):
| ODDS OF POKER HANDS AFTER FIVE CARDS AND NO DRAW | |
|---|---|
| High Card | 1 to 1 |
| One Pair | 1 1/2 to 1 |
| Two Pair | 20 to 1 |
| Three of a Kind | 46 to 1 |
| Straight | 250 to 1 |
| Flush | 500 to 1 |
| Full House | 700 to 1 |
| Four of a Kind | 4,150 to 1 |
| Straight Flush | 65,000 to 1 |
| Royal Flush | 649,750 to 1 |
As you can see, the chances of getting a four of a kind or better hand are pretty slim. Now take a look at the Let It Ride payout table. See how the true odds of obtaining a certain poker hand are much greater than the odds in the payout table.
For example, let’s say you got a four of a kind. The true odds of getting this hand are 4,150 to 1. So for every 4,150 hands dealt, you’re going to get, on average, only one four of a kind. If you were paid true odds on this four of a kind, you’d get $4,150 for every dollar wagered. The casino, however, will pay you only fifty to one. Paying less than true odds is how the casino makes its money. That is their house advantage in this game. So if you had a $5 wager remaining on the Let It Ride table and hit four of a kind, your payoff would be only $250-far less than a true-odds payoff of $20,750.
Here’s a note worth remembering if you’re ever lucky enough to get a royal flush in Let It Ride. Most casinos have a maximum payout of $25,000. This means if you have three wagers of $100 each and you get a royal flush, the casino is only going to pay you $25,000, not the $300,000 ($100,000 for each $100 bet) that you’d expect according to the payout table. So if you’re going to bet those amounts, make sure you ask the dealer what the casino maximum payout is for a royal flush-just in case.
Keeping in mind all of the above, here’s a short table to guide you on when to let your first and second wagers ride:
| After 3 Cards / Decision # 1 Stay if you have: |
After 4 Cards / Decision #2 Stay if you have: |
|---|---|
| A winning hand (pair of tens or better). | A winning hand (pair of tens or better). |
| Three consecutive cards to a straight of the same suit. Don’t stay with A-2-3 suited or 2-3-4. | Four cards of the same suit, regardless of rank. A possible flush. |
| Three almost consecutive cards in the same suit and one being a high card (10 or higher). For example 8-10-J of the same suit. | Four consecutive cards with at least one high card (10 or higher). Don’t stay if you have four cards to a straight with no high card. |
| Three almost consecutive cards of the same suit with two holes and two high cards. For example, 9-Q-K suited. |
Many players believe you can’t remove your second wager if you left your first wager. This is wrong. You may remove either wager. They’re independent of each other. One wager has no effect on the other wager.
A popular feature that’s being added to Let It Ride games in Las Vegas casinos is the chance to enter a quarterly tournament. For a dollar per hand, you can hope to catch at least a straight flush and maybe even a royal flush to qualify to participate in a quarterly $3 million tournament. To have a chance to qualify for the quarterly tournament, you must bet one dollar on the large circle (the tournament betting circle) in front of your three small betting circles before you’re dealt your three cards. Each tournament is composed of the top qualifiers from each qualifying quarter of the year, usually around fifty players. The top player in the tournament walks away with the grand prize.
Even if you get lucky and qualify for the tournament, that one dollar bet is still a sucker’s bet. Remember that the chances of being dealt a royal flush are almost six hundred fifty thousand to one. So on average you’ll spend $650,000 just for a chance to be in the tournament. Not a good bet.
If you follow these basic strategy tips and play smart, you can enjoy Let It Ride. Maybe you’ll get lucky, catch a royal flush, and take home $25,000.