How to Play: Live Casino Hold’em Tutorial

Basic Rules and How to Play

Casino Hold Em is very similar to classic Texas Hold Em in terms of the core rules. However, it’s played against the casino instead of other players. This fact has advantages and disadvantages, which we’ll cover further down. For now, let’s focus on the rules of Casino Hold’em.

The game is played with a single standard deck of 52 cards.

The best way to explain how Casino Hold’em works is by going through a round step by step.

Step 1 – Placing Ante Bets and the Initial Deal

The first thing you need to do is place a blind bet called the Ante. You have to start with this wager if you want to take part in the upcoming round. Use the chips on the game’s interface to determine the size of your stake.

Once the betting period is over, the dealer will deal two cards to the player, face up. Two cards are also dealt to the dealer, but they are face down.

Additionally, three community cards are placed in the middle of the table, facing up. Both dealer and player hands can use these community cards to make their poker hands. These first three community cards are called the Flop.

Step 2 – Decide whether you want to make a Call bet

At this point, the player has to make a decision after checking the cards. If you think your hand is worth playing, you need to place a second bet called the Call bet. The stake of the Call bet in Casino Hold’em is always double the Ante stake. Also, it’s sometimes referred to as the Play bet.

Alternatively, you can choose to Fold. This means that you lose the money you used for the Ante, and the round is over for you. Choosing to Fold is a good option if you think the cards you currently see are not worth investing in. You lose the Ante, true, but you save yourself from having to triple the stake by making a Call bet.

Step 3 – Turn, River, and Qualification

If you have decided to Call, the dealer will place two more community cards at the center of the table. These are often called the Turn and River.

At this point, the dealer’s cards are also revealed. Before proceeding to the next step, the dealer first has to qualify. This means that their hand (when combined with the community cards) has to have at least a pair of 4s. If the qualification is successful, the round proceeds to the next step. If not, player Ante bets win while Call bets Push (the full stake is returned to the player.)

Step 4 – Comparing hands and round results

Finally, both the player’s and dealer’s hands combine with community cards in order to make the strongest possible hand. The stronger hand of the two wins.

If you’re not familiar with how poker hands work, check out our beginner’s guide to poker hands. We’ll also cover Casino Hold’em hand rankings further down.

If your hand is stronger than the dealer’s, both your Ante bet and your Call bet win. Call bets always pay 1:1, while Ante bets can have different payouts depending on how strong your hand is. Check the Casino Hold’em paytable below for more info.

In the unlikely event that the player and dealer’s hands are of exactly the same strength, both the Ante and Call bet push.

This gives us a range of possible Casino Hold’em outcomes, as described on the table below.