Aside from poker, Caribbean Stud Poker is one of the faster growing casino games. It used to be hard to find a place to play, but most casinos today have it. And you'll always find it at any decent online casino.

I think the game exploded, because it's a snap to learn and it's a fun social game. Playing it alone is fun too, but there's nothing quite like a full and rowdy table of Caribbean Stud Poker players.

Okay, let's jump into the game and go over some of the rules. If you don't know how to play and you want to start at the beginning, we've got another article on this site that does this.

First, you need to Ante up. Let's imagine that you've just put $5 down. After you get your cards, you need to evaluate them and decide if you want to stay in the hand. Here's the big decision of the game. If you want to quit, you fold. If not, you need to double your Ante and push this amount to the Bet area. So, in our example, we had a $5 Ante. The Bet would be $10 and we'd end up with $15 on the table.

How you win money

You're playing against the dealer only. If the dealer has a hand rank of Ace-King or better, it's game on. If not, your Ante bet is paid even money and your Bet wager is pushed back to you.

If the dealer qualifies, and you beat the dealer's hand, your Ante is paid even money, but your Bet wager is paid according to your hand rank. Here's the pay chart:

One Pair or nothing: even money Two Pair: 2:1 Three of a Kind: 3:1 Straight: 4:1 Flush: 5:1 Full House: 7:1 Four of a Kind: 20:1 Straight Flush: 50:1 Royal Flush: 100:1

Remember, the "odds" are paid to your Bet wager only. If you played the $1 progressive, you'll receive even money for a Flush or better.

And don't forget that the dealer must qualify or your beautiful hand gets paid nothing but the even money on the Ante wager. That's why I love to play the progressive always.

Example Hand

Okay, let's run through a quick example. First, you place a $10 wager on the table and $1 in the progressive-it's always just a buck. You get your cards and you have a flush. Obviously, you want to stay in this hand, so you place the $20 Bet wager to stay in.

Let me point out that your Bet wager is always 2x the Ante. You can't bet more or less ever.

The dealer turns the hand over and has two pair-you win. Your Ante wager is paid $10 and your Bet wager is paid $100 (5:1), for a total of $110 won on the hand. But wait! You played the progressive, so you'll be paid that bonus too.

The progressive bonus varies and we'll talk about it in another article.