Casinos are always looking for new games to offer bored gamblers. Over the last decade or 2, these games are more commonly related to poker than anything else. But games like these—including Scientific Gaming’s Ultimate Texas Holdem—are more akin to blackjack than to poker. In fact, dealing Ultimate Texas Holdem is considered dealing a novelty casino game. The College of Southern Nevada covers how to deal Ultimate Texas Holdem in their blackjack class.

Texas Hold'em is a very complex game, and there is a lot to learn. In this section, we'll reveal the bare-bones of the game. Texas Hold'em is usually played with nine or ten players at a full table with a rotating blind system. A blind system is designed to generate money to put into the pot and stimulate betting. Betting in Texas Hold'em (A variant of Poker) has a definite structure and flow to it. The complexity of the game adds lots of depth and strategy, making it the popular game it is today. As it is a game of probability, poker players usually use mathematics to estimate their chances of success in a hand and place their bets accordingly.

What’s the big difference between Ultimate Texas Holdem (and games like it) and “real” poker games? The main difference is who you’re competing with. In a so-called real poker game, you’re competing with the other players at the table. If you win money, you’re winning it from them. If you lose money, you’re losing it to your competitors at the table.

This isn’t a value judgment. It’s perfectly all right to play house-banked casino games. Gamblers do it every day. I’m pointing out the distinction because it’s important to know what you’re getting into when you play a casino game.

With that as a premise—understanding in detail what you’re getting into when you’re playing a casino game—I offer you this post: “The Definitive Guide to Ultimate Texas Holdem.” The idea is to share everything you would ever need or want to know about Ultimate Texas Holdem. Luckily, it’s not that complicated a game. There’s no need to write an entire book about it, like you would do with blackjack or poker.

Ultimate Texas Holdem is a card game where you play heads-up against a casino dealer. Other players at the table are also playing heads-up against the dealer. It features a progressive jackpot, among other payouts.

You start by making 2 equal-sized bets:

• The Ante Bet
• The Blind Bet

At most casinos, the minimum bet is either $5 or $10. The maximum bet is usually between $50 an $500.

You also have 2 optional bets you can make:

• The Trips Bonus Bet
• The Progressive Bet

You start by getting 2 hole cards from the dealer—these are 2 cards that are dealt to you face-down, just like in regular Texas holdem.

When you get those cards, you can choose from the following actions:

• Check
• Bet 3X the Ante (A “Play” Bet.)
• Bet 4X the Ante (Also a “Play” Bet.)

After you’ve made your decision, the dealer reveals 3 face-up cards—the “flop.” (This is also how regular Texas holdem works.)

If you checked when you got your hole cards, you have the option now to place a bet of 2X the Ante (another example of a “Play Bet.”) After that decision is made, the dealer turns over 2 more face-up cards—the turn and the river, in Texas holdem terms. Note that the action here is different than in traditional Texas holdem. Normally you’d have a turn, followed by a betting round, then the river, followed by another betting round.

Once you’ve made your decision, the dealer reveals her hole cards and announces the final hand. If your hand beats the dealer’s hand (using the standard poker hand rankings), you win even money on your Ante bets and the Play bets. On the other hand, if the dealer’s hand beats yours, you lose your Ante, Blind, and Play Bets. If you tie, then these bets are all treated as a “push.” (A push is when your original bet is returned to you, but without any winnings. You have neither a net win nor a net loss.)

The Blind Bet is handled differently. It pays off if you win AND if you have a straight or better. If you have less than a straight but still beat the dealer, the Blind Bet is treated as a push. The Blind Bet is paid off based on a pay table. The better your hand, the more it pays off. (It’s like video poker in this respect.)

Casinos generally use a shuffling machine called an “i-Deal single deck specialty shuffler.” That’s because this game was created by Shufflemaster, which is now a division of Scientific Games. Shufflemaster’s reason for existence is to sell shuffling machines to casinos, so creating new cards is something they do in service to this goal.

The Blind Bet and the Trips Bonus Bet have 2 different pay tables.

Here’s a common pay table for the Blind Bet:

Keep in mind that the Blind Bet pays off regardless of whether the dealer qualifies. Also, notice that 3 of a kind doesn’t pay off for the Blind Bet, which is an interesting quirk of the game. The pay tables can vary—the casino gets to choose from multiple options. For example, some casinos pay off 40 to 1 instead of 50 to 1 for a straight flush. This changes the house edge for the game, of course.

Here’s a common pay table for the Trips Bonus Bet:

Here are a couple of facts to keep in mind about the Trips Bonus Bet:

• Your hand doesn’t have to win. It pays off regardless of whether you or the dealer wins.
• It wins even if you don’t have to use your hole cards. You can just play the board (the flop, turn, and river.)
• It wins even if you fold.

How the Progressive Bet and Jackpot Works

The progressive bet in Ultimate Texas Holdem is also an optional side bet. At most casinos, this bet is a flat $1 bet. But at some casinos, the Progressive Bet is $5. You can win 1 of 2 progressive jackpots in this game—the smaller jackpot, or the larger jackpot. To win the smaller progressive jackpot, you must use at least 1 of your hole cards. The smaller progressive pays off for hands that are a full house or better.

To win the bigger progressive jackpot—which is 100% of the jackpot—you must use both your hole cards and the flop to form a royal flush. If you hit the royal flush on the turn or the river, you don’t win the bigger progressive. You can also win a percentage of the full big progressive jackpot

Casinos also feature something called an “Envy Bonus.” This is a bonus paid to any player at the table when one of the other players wins the progressive jackpot.

Casino games where you make decisions usually have a house edge that varies based on how well you make those decisions. In other words, your strategy matters. There’s always a mathematically correct play in every situation. In Ultimate Texas Holdem, your strategy is limited to whether you make Play Bets during the various stages of the game. For me, this isn’t an intuitive decision. You can find various websites offering strategies for this, but I have another recommendation:

The house edge is the amount of each bet that the casino projects you’ll lose on average based on the probabilities behind the game. Obviously, the lower the house edge, the better for the player. You should do everything you can to minimize the house edge on any casino game you play.

If you use perfect basic strategy on Ultimate Texas Holdem, the house expects to win a little over 2%. Let’s assume that the house edge is 10% if you don’t know basic strategy. What does that do to the cost of playing the game in the long run?

There’s an interesting post at Two Plus Two from a gambler describing his basic strategy for Ultimate Texas Holdem. I don’t know how close it mirrors a mathematically perfect strategy, but here’s what “nonprofitgambler” says is the correct way to play:

Preflop, he suggests raising with any of the following hands:

• Any ace
• Any k5+, and any king suited
• Q5s+, Q8+
• J8s+, JT+
• 33+ for pocket pairs

That small “s” after the number means that the cards are of the same suit (they’re “suited.”) On the flop, he says most people play the same, and that it’s correct—if you pair anything, you raise. But those obviously aren’t the only hands you should raise with here. You should also bet flush draws, straight draws, and combination draws. This means you have 4 cards to a big hand. On the river, you should bet any kind of made hand, but some boards are scarier than others.

Finally, I’d like to point out that the house edge on Ultimate Texas Holdem isn’t outrageous, but blackjack is still almost always a better deal. With perfect basic strategy, many blackjack games have a house edge of just 0.5%. This means you get the same kind of entertainment for closer to $2/hour instead of $8/hour.

How Does Texas Holdem Betting Work

You can play a nice, free version of Ultimate Texas Holdem at this site. It has a place where you can toggle the sound on and off. You can also toggle the “give advice” button off an on. If you’ve never played Ultimate Texas Holdem before, this page is a great way to practice. It’s refreshingly free of advertising, too, which is rare and unusual in this industry.

Also, if you like Ultimate Texas Holdem, I suggest you give multiplayer Texas holdem in the poker room a try—if you haven’t already. It’s a lot more fun, and you have more of an opportunity to get an edge, since you’re competing against other players.

That’s it for my “Definitive Guide to Ultimate Texas Holdem.” I can’t imagine any information you could want about the game that I’ve left out. But if I did miss something, or if you have questions about Ultimate Texas Holdem that remain unanswered, please put a note in the comments.

Texas Holdem is the most popular variant of poker and the one we recommend beginners start with. Once you have a good understanding of Texas Holdem, other poker variants are quite similar and will be easier to learn.

The object of Texas Hold em poker is to create the best five-card hand using seven available cards. Each player is dealt 2 cards which only they can see and use. There are then 5 cards dealt to the middle of the table which are community cards which everybody can see and use.

Dealer Button

Once the game starts an imaginary dealer is assigned. Obviously with online poker the computer does all the dealing automatically but this nominal dealer is important as it indicates who posts the compulsory bets (known as blinds) before each hand and it also indicates who is first to act in each betting round.

The current dealer is indicated by a disc marked with a “D” known as the dealer button. At the end of each hand the dealer button moves along to the next player to the left of the current dealer and continues to move clockwise after each hand is finished.

The Blinds

In Texas Holdem there are two compulsory bets that are made before the start of each hand. These are known as the “Small blind” and the “Big blind” and ensures that there are chips to be won in every hand.

The player to the immediate left of the dealer places the small blind and the player to the left of the small blind posts the big blind.

In No Limit games the size of the blinds is set by the stakes of the table you are at. So for example at a $1 / $2 table the small blind would be $1 and the big blind would be $2.

Before The Flop – First Betting Round

Once the blinds have been posted, two cards are dealt face down to each player at the table, these are known as “hole cards”. Only the individual player can see these cards.

At this point the first betting round begins and each player must make a decision on how to act based on the strength of their hole cards. They have the following options:

1. Fold – Throw the cards away and not play in this hand
2. Call – Call the size of the big blind or highest bet if another player has raised, and take part in the hand
3. Raise – Make a larger bet than the current bet (or big blind). Any other player who wants to continue would then have to call your increased bet in order to carry on. A raise must be at least an increase the size of the Big Blind so the minimum raise would be 2 times the big blind amount. In No Limit there is no maximum to your raise, It can be your whole stack if you wish.

Action always goes clockwise on a table. On the first betting round, the first person to act is the player to the left of the big blind. Each player acts in turn until all the players have acted at the table, and the amount put into the pot by each player remaining in the hand is equal.

The Flop – Second Betting Round

After the first betting round has finished, the dealer places 3 cards face up in the middle of the table – this is known as the “Flop”. The cards in the middle of the table are called “Community Cards” as they are shared by all the players towards making their final hands.

Players can now see 5 cards (2 hole cards + 3 community cards) out of the 7 cards to come and should have good idea of how their hand is developing. At this point the second betting round begins.

In this and all subsequent betting rounds, the action starts with the first player remaining in the hand to the left of the dealer. This player can either:

How Does All In Work In Texas Holdem

1. Check – not bet anything
2. Bet – place a bet which the other players must at least call to continue in the hand. The minimum bet is the size of the big blind.

If everyone checks then this betting round ends with no-one betting. As soon as someone bets then the other players can either:

1. Fold – drop out the hand
2. Call – call the bet that has been made
3. Raise – increase the bet that has been made which the other players must then call to continue in the hand.

As in the previous betting round, the plays continues clockwise around the table until all players have called, checked or folded and the amount placed in the pot by each player still in the hand is equal.

The Turn

After the second betting round, the dealer places a 4th community card, face up on the table – this is called the “Turn card”, it is sometimes also referred to as “Fourth Street”.

After the Turn there is a third betting round, which operates in exactly the same way as the previous betting round.

How Does Texas Hold Em Work In A Casino

The River

After the third betting round, the dealer places the 5th and final community card face up on the table – this is called the “River card”.

After the River the fourth and final betting round takes place in the same way as the previous round.

How Does Checking Work In Texas Holdem

The Showdown

After the final round of betting, each player still left in the hand can use any combination of the 2 hole cards in their hands and the 5 community cards on the table to produce the best 5 card hand.

The player with the highest ranking hand wins the pot. If two or more players have the same value hand then the pot is split between them equally.

If you have not already learnt which hand is better than another then please look at our Poker Hand Ranking Guide.

Next Hand

Once the hand has finished and the pot has been awarded to the winning player, the game moves onto the next hand.

How Does Kicker Work In Texas Holdem

The dealer button moves to the next player on the left of the current dealer, the cards are shuffled, the blinds are posted by the next two players and the cards are dealt again.

Where to Play Texas Holdem?

How Does Texas Holdem Turns Work

We recommend 888 Poker for a great place to play Texas Holdem. To find out more about them see our 888 Poker Review or to see alternate rooms to play Texas Holdem then see the Professor's reviews in our Poker Reviews section.