Mississippi Stud pay table: what the five-card hands pay, and the cost of betting every street
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Short answer: In Mississippi Stud you win only with a pair of jacks or better in your final five-card hand. Counting every possible five-card hand (our calculation), 63.12% lose, 16.25% push (a pair of sixes to tens) and only 20.63% qualify for a payout. If you bet every street at the same multiple, the average return is about 71 cents per ₱1 risked, which is a house edge of 28.9% for that play style (our calculation). Folding changes the result, and this page does not calculate an optimal fold strategy.
This page is for players who want to read the pay table before they sit down. The pay table is taken from the published rules of two casinos, and every count and percentage below is our own calculation.
The official pay table
The Hard Rock Cincinnati Mississippi Stud rules pay a royal flush at 500 to 1, a straight flush at 100 to 1, four of a kind at 40 to 1, a full house at 10 to 1, a flush at 6 to 1, a straight at 4 to 1, three of a kind at 3 to 1, two pair at 2 to 1 and a pair of jacks or better at 1 to 1. A pair of sixes through tens is a push. The Metropolitan Casinos rules of the game, version 1.4 (July 2026) give the same main pay table and say that a hand below a pair of sixes loses all wagers.
Both documents describe the optional three-card bonus and progressive side bets. Those are not included in any figure on this page.
| Final five-card hand | Hands out of 2,598,960 | Share of hands | Pays on the main wagers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Royal flush | 4 | 0.00% | 500 to 1 |
| Straight flush | 36 | 0.00% | 100 to 1 |
| Four of a kind | 624 | 0.02% | 40 to 1 |
| Full house | 3,744 | 0.14% | 10 to 1 |
| Flush | 5,108 | 0.20% | 6 to 1 |
| Straight | 10,200 | 0.39% | 4 to 1 |
| Three of a kind | 54,912 | 2.11% | 3 to 1 |
| Two pair | 123,552 | 4.75% | 2 to 1 |
| Pair of jacks to aces | 337,920 | 13.00% | 1 to 1 |
| Pair of sixes to tens (push) | 422,400 | 16.25% | Push |
| Pair of twos to fives | 337,920 | 13.00% | Lose |
| High card | 1,302,540 | 50.12% | Lose |
The counts come from enumerating every five-card combination in a 52-card deck (our calculation). The share column is each count divided by 2,598,960.
How the hand is made
Each player receives two cards, and the dealer places three community cards face down in the middle of the layout. The player’s final hand is the best five cards from those five cards, which means all five are used. Because the two player cards and the three community cards together form exactly one five-card hand, counting every five-card combination counts every possible final hand once.
What the return is if you bet every street
Mississippi Stud lets you add a 3rd Street, 4th Street and 5th Street bet of one to three times the ante. For a player who bets all four wagers at the same multiple, every wager pays or loses by the same table. The return per unit is therefore the same whatever multiple you choose, as long as you bet every street at that multiple.
Using the counts above (our calculation), the average return is −28.9% of the total wagered. The house edge for this play style is therefore 28.9%. This number is not a fair-game estimate for every player, because the optional fold decisions change the outcome.
| Your total wager | Average return (our calc) | Average loss (our calc) |
|---|---|---|
| ₱100 ante, 3x on each street (₱1,000 in total) | ₱711 | ₱289 |
The example is an average over a very large number of hands. It does not describe how a single session will go.
Folding is where the decisions are
The Hard Rock rules state that when a player folds, the player forfeits all bets left in action, so the decision to continue after each card matters. Computing an optimal fold strategy would need a separate analysis of what the player knows after each street, and we have not done that here. What this page does show is the baseline: if you play every hand to the end, the average loss is 28.9%, and any fold strategy has to beat that baseline.
Before you play
Pay tables and side bets differ between venues. Check the signage at the table before you bet, and do not assume the Hard Rock or Metropolitan figures apply to your casino. Use only money you can afford to lose, set a limit before you sit down, and only play if you are an adult of legal age.
Verified from published casino rules: the main pay table, and that pairs of sixes through tens push. Our calculations: all hand counts and shares, the 63.12%, 16.25% and 20.63% figures, the 28.9% house edge for the all-streets play style, and the peso example. Not verified: any optimal fold strategy, the three-card bonus and progressive wager, and any venue’s actual pay table.