Double Down Stud is five-card stud with no opponent. You place one bet and get five cards, four of them face up. Before the fifth card turns over you make a single decision: double your bet or leave it as it is. The final five-card poker hand is paid from a fixed table. That one choice is what separates this from a slot machine, and it carries real weight: playing it correctly returns 97.02% of the money bet over the long run.
How to play
Bet. Choose a chip value (10, 50, 100 or 500), tap the bet spot, and press Deal. Bets run from 10 to 500 credits. Clear removes the chips; Rebet repeats the last bet.
Four cards up. Five cards are dealt from a freshly shuffled 52-card deck. Four are face up and the fifth stays face down.
Decide. Two buttons appear. Double +X adds a second bet equal to the first, and Stand keeps your bet as it is. You need enough credits to match your bet to double.
Fifth card. The last card turns over and the hand is paid on the total amount you have riding, doubled or not.
Pay table
| Final hand | Pays (on the whole bet) |
|---|---|
| Royal flush | 1000 to 1 |
| 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 |
| Pair of jacks, queens, kings or aces | 1 to 1 |
| Pair of 6s through 10s | push (bet returned) |
| Pair of 2s to 5s, or no pair | lose |
The same table is shown on screen during play. Note the push band: a pair of sixes or better gets your money back, and the pair has to be jacks or higher to actually win.
When to double
With 48 unseen cards, the value of every four-card start can be worked out exactly. The rule is simple to state: double when the average result over the 48 possible fifth cards is better than break-even. Done perfectly, you double about one hand in four (24.8%), and the return is 97.02%, a house edge of 2.98%.
Here is how that plays out for common starts (expected result per unit bet, before doubling):
| Four cards showing | Expected result | Double? |
|---|---|---|
| Any pair of jacks or better | at least +1 | yes |
| Pair of 6s to 10s | +0.38 | yes |
| Pair of 2s to 5s | −0.46 | no |
| Four to a flush | +0.88 or better | yes |
| Four to a straight flush (5-6-7-8 suited) | about +9.6 | yes |
| Open-ended straight, 7-8-9-10 | +0.25 | yes |
| Open-ended straight, 10-J-Q-K | +0.44 | yes |
| Open-ended straight, 2-3-4-5 | 0.00 | no |
| J-Q-K-A, mixed suits | 0.00 | no |
| Inside straight, 9-J-Q-K | −0.06 | no |
| Two high cards and two low | about −0.7 | no |
A few patterns behind the numbers:
- Any made pair of 6s or better is a double. You can’t lose the bet, since the pair already pushes, and you might improve.
- Flush draws are strong. Nine outs at 8 to 1 easily outweigh the misses.
- Straight draws depend on the cards in them. Open-ended draws win on 8 outs at 5 to 1, and if the cards are 6 or higher, pairing one of them saves the bet too. With 2-3-4-5, pairing gives nothing, and the draw is exactly break-even.
- High cards alone are not enough. Q-K-A with a small card and no draw comes out at −0.63, and even J-Q-K-A only breaks even, thanks to the four tens that complete a straight.
- Low pairs are a stand. A pair of 2s to 5s already loses unless you improve to two pair or trips.
Break-even hands (0.00) gain nothing from a double, so standing is the sensible play there.
Strategy in short
Double with a pair of 6s or better, four to a flush, or an open-ended straight draw above 2-3-4-5. Stand on everything else. That covers nearly every case. The house edge of 2.98% is fixed by the pay table, and no doubling pattern can make it positive; correct play just keeps it at that minimum.
If you enjoy a short poker decision against a fixed pay table, Three Street Stud gives you more than one decision per hand.
If you enjoy Double Down Stud, try Double Joker Poker or Double or Nothing Reels next.
