Every pay table on one card — Pair Plus, Ante Bonus and the 6-Card Bonus — plus the three-card hand ranking, which is not the ranking you know from five-card poker.
| Rank | Hand | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Straight flush | J♠ 10♠ 9♠ |
| 2 | Three of a kind | 7♥ 7♦ 7♣ |
| 3 | Straight | 9♣ 8♥ 7♠ |
| 4 | Flush | K♦ 8♦ 4♦ |
| 5 | Pair | Q♠ Q♥ 5♣ |
| 6 | High card | A♣ 9♦ 4♥ |
| Hand | Typical | Alternate |
|---|---|---|
| Straight flush | 40 to 1 | 40 to 1 |
| Three of a kind | 30 to 1 | 25 to 1 |
| Straight | 6 to 1 | 6 to 1 |
| Flush | 3 to 1 | 4 to 1 |
| Pair | 1 to 1 | 1 to 1 |
| Hand | Pays |
|---|---|
| Straight flush | 5 to 1 |
| Three of a kind | 4 to 1 |
| Straight | 1 to 1 |
Three Card Poker is really two games at one table. The ante and play wager is you against the dealer. Pair Plus is a separate bet on your own three cards that ignores the dealer entirely. You can place either or both.
The single most important line on this card: a straight beats a flush. With only three cards, straights are harder to make than flushes, so the order is inverted from the game you already know. Players who bring five-card instincts to the table misread their hand and fold winners.
The dealer only qualifies with queen high or better. If the dealer does not qualify, your ante pays 1 to 1 and your play bet is returned — you cannot win the play bet, no matter how strong your hand. That is why an enormous hand against a non-qualifying dealer feels so flat.
The optimal rule is short enough to memorise: raise with Q-6-4 or better, fold everything else. That is, if your highest card is a queen, look at the second card — if it is a 7 or higher, raise; if it is a 6, raise only when your third card is a 4 or higher. Anything king-high or better is an automatic raise. Following it costs the house edge roughly 3.4% of the ante; deviating costs more.
Pay tables differ between casinos, and the Pair Plus flush and three-of-a-kind rows are the ones that move. The chart shows the two most common versions — check the felt before you sit down, because the difference between 3-to-1 and 4-to-1 on a flush is a meaningful swing in the house edge.
This chart is a reference for the game as it is dealt. The version on this site is play-money only.
Three Card Poker® is a registered trademark of its respective owner. This reference card is an independent work created by Limestone Games and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the trademark owner. Pay tables are reported for reference only and vary between casinos — the name is used only to identify the game the chart refers to.