BeatingThe House Edge In Casino 3 Card Brag

As well as being able to play 3 Card Brag against the house online, a number of live casinos have also introduced 3 Card Brag into their portfolio of table games. Whereas most online 3 Card Brag games have a standard payout structure with a house edge of just over 2%, some live casinos modify their payout structure to improve the edge in their favour.
To ensure that you get the best possible return to your 3 Card Brag stakes, you should only use an online or live casino which is offering the following ante odds (or better!) –

Prial (or Three of a Kind) 5/1
Running (Straight) Flush 4/1
Run (Straight) 1/1 – or “Evens”

Mathematically, these odds equate to a house edge of 2.02% based on all possible combinations of cards being dealt to the player and dealer, and the total payback the player receives (frequency of winning hands x odds of return) divided by the total number of possible hands.

3 Card Brag Expected Value
Confused? You don’t have to be. All you need to know to beat the house edge in casino 3 Card Brag is what hands offer an expected value where, on level stakes, you will be profitable overall.

To get to this figure, you start by working out that after your three cards have been dealt, there a are possible 18,424 hands which can be dealt to the dealer {(49*48*47)/(3*2*1)}. So, in order to be profitable, you have to determine which hands will return more than 18,424 times your basic stake if played 18,424 hands or - in other words - which have an expected value of 0.50 and above.

Rather than going through all 18,424 combinations, we have done the homework for you, and have found the bottom line at Q-6-4 (unsuited). The maths is as follows-

Queen – Six – Four are the Magic Numbers
If you are playing Q-6-4, there are 305 combinations of cards that the dealer can have which will enable him to qualify and still lose to you – giving you a return of