by Mark Pilarski

Let It Ride is a variation of five-card stud poker where the player wagers on a poker hand consisting of three cards in the player's hand and two community cards in the dealer’s hand.

Play begins with each player making three bets of equal denomination in spaces labeled (1), (2) and ($). The dealer then gives each player three cards, and two community cards are dealt face down. After seeing his or her first three cards, each player has the option of pulling back their first bet, or, as the game is eponymously named, saying “Let it ride.”

The dealer then exposes one of the two community cards. Each player now has the option to remove the second bet or to "let it ride," regardless of the first decision. Finally the second community card is flipped over. Losing bets not meeting the payout criteria are collected, and the winning wagers are paid, based on the ranking of the player's hand and a payout schedule. Typically a Royal Flush pays 1,000 to 1, a Straight flush: 200 to 1, Four of a kind: 50 to 1, Full house: 11 to 1, Flush: 8 to 1, Straight: 5 to 1, Three of a kind: 3 to 1, Two pair: 2 to 1, and a pair of 10s or better: 1 to 1.

I’ll be the first to agree the game is fun to play, slow enough for the gambling neophyte, and does allow you to pull back two of the three bets, but my problem, Tom, is that even when played flawlessly, the casino's edge on Let-It-Ride is 3.51%, which is almost six times what it is in blackjack when using perfect basic strategy. That’s well above my gambling grade. Recall, Tom, my recommendation: “Never make a wager that has higher than a 2% house edge.”

Worse yet are the Let-It-Ride side bets where for $1 you are offered an additional payoff with certain paying hands; these bets carry a double-digit casino edge making them, “too good to be true," -- Oh,Yeah! -- and they should labeled for what they are; sucker bets.