Let It Ride Poker: Expert Strategies to Master the Game

Welcome to our comprehensive guide to playing Let It Ride online. As well as running you through the basic rules and how to play, we’ll also touch upon the history of the game. Most importantly, we’ll provide you with the best strategies to help you maximize your winnings when you play this fun casino favorite.

• Introduction to Let It Ride
• Quite a Ride: How Let It Ride Became Popular
• Playing Let It Ride
• The Let It Ride Pay Table
• Strategies for Success in Let It Ride Poker
• Top 3 Tips for Playing Let It Ride Poker
• Similar Card Games to Explore

Introduction to Let It Ride

Let It Ride is a simple but fun poker variant whereby you combine three of your own cards with three community cards to make the best five-card hand. What makes the Let It Ride rules unique is that you place three equal bets before the cards are dealt.

You can then pull your first and second bets before and after the first community card is revealed. This alongside the bonus bet option has made it popular in land-based and online casinos.

It is considered to be one of the most accessible forms of poker as you only have to think about your own hand. Unlike other poker games, you are not playing against the dealer or other players.

Quite a Ride: How Let It Ride Became Popular

Before diving into our Let It Ride guide and strategies, let’s first take a look at the history and origins of this game.

Origins

Let It Ride was created in the early 1990s by John Breeding, who first introduced it as a means of promoting his automatic card shuffling machine, the Shuffle Master. The way that you play Let It Ride is similar to poker, in so far as the idea is to form the best five-card hand.

However, unlike when playing poker like the pros, you do not play against the dealer or other players. As a result, it is more accessible and you don’t need complex strategies and skills to increase your chances of winning. You only need to think about yourself and not what the dealer/ other players are doing.

Let It Ride in the casino

Breeding first introduced Let It Ride to land-based casinos in Las Vegas alongside the Shuffle Master. The game and Breeding’s invention quickly became popular in Vegas, and it soon spread to casinos throughout the US and Canada.

Now it is a mainstay in the seven of the world’s largest casinos, and you can play Let It Ride online at most of Canada’s best gambling sites. There are even variants of the game with extra bonuses and side bets, as well as live versions in the online casino sphere.

Playing Let It Ride

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s take a look at exactly how you play Let It Ride. Below, we’ve covered the rules and order of play in some detail to give you an exact idea of how the game works.

Basic Let It Ride rules

The main objective of a game of Let It Ride is to form the best five-card poker hand that you can combine the three cards that you are dealt, and the two community cards. On the table there are betting areas for seven players on one side, and two spots for the community cards on the other.

At the start, all players place three equal but separate bets. You are dealt your cards face down so only you can see them. Once you have looked at your three cards, you can pull your first bet or “Let It Ride.

You can then do the same with your second bet when the first of the two community cards is turned over. Your third bet has to ride no matter what when the second community card is turned over by the dealer.

Steps in a round of Let It Ride

1. The Bets: Before the cards are dealt, you must play three equal bets in the circles in the table marked: “$,” “1,” and “2.”
2. The Deal: The dealer deals three cards face down to each player and puts the two community cards face down in the middle.
3. First Decision: When the players look at their cards, they can decide to pull their first bet or “Let It Ride” based on the strength of their three cards.
4. First Community Card: The dealer reveals the first community card which all players can use to form their five-card hand.
5. Second Decision: Based on the strength of their own card plus the community card, players can now decide to pull their second bet or “Let It Ride”.
6. Final Community Card: The dealer reveals the second community card, all bets are final at this stage and the third bet cannot be pulled.
7. Payouts: Bets are settled and paid out according to traditional poker hand rules, with a pair of 10s or better being the lowest paying hand and a Royal Flush being the highest.
8. New Round: Once all bets have been settled a new round begins and players have the choice to opt in or out.

The Let It Ride Pay Table

When it comes to payouts, the hands are the same as those for traditional poker. In the table below, you can see the exact payouts that you stand to receive when winning at Let It Ride:

The Bonus Bet in Let It Ride

In addition to the basic payouts for traditional poker hands, a popular Let It Ride strategy is to place bonus or side bets. As well as your standard three wagers, you can place a Three Card Bonus bet which is paid out solely based on the three cards in your hand. Essentially, you need a pair of 10s or better in your hand for the bonus bet to pay out.

Strategies for Success in Let It Ride Poker

You now know the rules, the bonus bets and how the pay table works, so the time has come to take a look at the best Let It Ride strategy:

Deciding whether to let bets ride

Above all else, the most important strategy is knowing when to pull bets and when to let them ride. Basically, this is a simple decision that points down to these two factors:

• If you have good cards or the makings of a decent hand “Let It Ride”
• If you have no high cards and cannot form a hand, pull your bet

However, we do have a couple of extra Let It Ride tips for you here:

• If you have nothing in your three card hand, pull your first bet
• Always “Let It Ride” if you have two 10s or higher

The Bonus Bet: to play or not to play

The bonus bet, like your three basic bets, must be placed before the cards are dealt and you can receive a payout up to 40 to 1. However, the odds of a Three Card Bonus winning are naturally much slimmer than making a pair or higher with a five-card hand.

If you choose to play the Let It Ride bonus at first, make it small – $1 is ideal. If your bankroll is down, it’s best to skip it for a few rounds. On the other hand, if your bankroll has gone up, you might want to increase your bonus bet slightly.

Bankroll management in Let it Ride

Not the most exciting, but perhaps the most important Let It Ride strategy is managing your bankroll and funds effectively. First of all, you should set an overall budget that should be no more than you can realistically afford to lose. Secondly, you should set aside small increments of this budget for each round.

Additionally, set yourself maximum win and loss limits and stop playing if you reach either of them. We recommend that you never waver from your bankroll plan, except by increasing and decreasing your bets slightly based on whether your funds are growing, shrinking or maintaining steadily.

Statistical insights

Statistically, the chances of winning at Let It Ride are 1/1, however, the probability of landing a sizable win is much lower. The RTP for let it ride is 96.5%, giving it a medium-to-high house edge of 3.5%.

This means that for every $100 you wager on Let It Ride, you can on average expect to lose $3.50. For the three-card bonus bet, the house edge is much higher at 13.77%.

Top 3 Tips for Playing Let It Ride Poker

Before we finish, here are three essential Let It Ride tips and strategies for you to keep in mind:

• Know Your Hands – First of all, you must understand how traditional poker hands work and the order in which they rank.
• Smart Betting Decisions – You need to know when is best to pull your bets and when to “Let It Ride”. At a more advanced level, deciding when and when not to play the bonus bet is key.
• Wise Bankroll Management – By managing your bankroll effectively, you can ensure that your funds don’t run out quickly. Even if you don’t win, you can at least keep playing for longer without losing too much of your initial funds.

Similar Card Games to Explore

There you have it, we’ve covered everything that you need to know about Let It Ride online, including the best tips and strategies. If you like this game and are looking for others like it, there are plenty to choose from.

Let It Ride is part of a subgenre of poker variants known as “Stud Poker”. Other forms of Stud Poker that you can play online or at land-based casinos include Razz, Mexican Stud and Mississippi.

However, the most similar game to Let It Ride is Caribbean Stud. Like Let It Ride, you need to form the best five-card hand using your own cards and two community cards.

There are two key differences between Let It Ride and Caribbean Stud. The first is that you are dealt five cards face-up instead of three cards face-down. Secondly, the dealer is also dealt cards in Caribbean Stud and you need to better the dealer’s hand to win.

You can play Let It Ride and other forms of stud poker online at the best online casinos in Canada. You can check out these sites and the best casino welcome offers available right here at CasinoBonusCA.