At the best Canada online casinos, apart from blackjack variants, most of the card games are based on poker. One of the games that do not have a poker base is Vegas Three Card Rummy. It is a truncated form of the popular 10-card Gin Rummy. The basic structure of the game is being described in this article. The exact rules and payouts may differ from one online casino to another.
Vegas Three Card Rummy is played with a single deck of the standard 52 cards. The game begins with the player making the ante bet. He can also make the optional bonus bet at this stage. The player is then dealt three cards face up and the dealer is dealt three cards face down. The player’s hand value is indicated on the screen. The mechanism of valuation is as follows. The components of rummy count as zero points. These are pair, three of a kind and runs of at least two cards of the same suit. The left over cards are valued individually. Cards from twos to nines have their face values, aces are valued at 1 point and all other cards are valued at 10 points. The discerning player would have realized that a lower hand value is better. Based on his hand the player has to decide whether he wants to raise or fold. If the player folds he loses the ante wager immediately. If the player raises then he must make an additional bet equal to his ante bet.
The dealer’s cards are turned over and his hand value indicated on the screen. The dealer requires 20 points or less to qualify. If the dealer has not qualified, then the ante bet pays out at even money and the raise bet pushes. If the dealer has qualified, then the hand with the lower value wins. If the player wins, the ante bet pays out at even money and the raise bet pays out as follows. A hand value of 0 for the player pays 4 to 1; a hand value from 1 to 5 pays 2 to 1 and a hand value from 6 to 19 pays at even money. If the dealer wins, both the bets lose. In the event of a tie both bets push. The bonus bet pays independently, irrespective of the outcome of the main game. A suited ace, two and three pays 100 to 1, 0 points pays 25 to 1, 1 to 6 points pays 2 to 1, 7 to 10 points pays even money and 11 to 12 points pays 4 to 1. If the player hand value is more than 13 points the bonus bet loses.
There is a simple optimum strategy that needs to be followed while playing Vegas Three Card Rummy in order to maximize the average return. Since the dealer qualifies with 20 points or less and the player should raise with 20 points or less. This minimizes the house edge to 3.2%, which is better than what online slots offer. The bonus bet has a house edge of 3.5%. This is also quite attractive. Normally the bonus bets in table games are sucker bets. Microgaming and Cryptologic are software providers that offer Vegas Three Card Rummy at their online casinos.
