Live Bet on Poker

Written by: Sadonna Price, OUSC Expert in Online Casinos and Poker

January 25, 2024

Live Bet on Poker is a variant of the popular card game Texas Hold’Em. If you’ve ever watched a televised broadcast of Texas Hold’em poker and found yourself guessing which hands will wind up the winner, live dealer Bet on Poker is right up your alley.

Benefits of playing Live Bet on Poker online:

• You are playing against the dealer and not other players
• The game is easier than playing Texas Hold’Em
• You can win by betting on any hand you want

The goal of this page is to provide players with helpful information about Live Bet on Poker. You will find a detailed rundown of the game’s rules and procedures, including a step-by-step guide on how to play with an example to help present the game more clearly. Last but not least, you will find a basic poker strategy section to help you make only the best bets at all times.

How to Play Live Bet on Poker

Live Bet on Poker is played a bit differently, but the same basic construct has been transported from Texas Hold’em.

As the player, you’ll be connected to a live dealer via live streaming technology, and that dealer will be operating a standard table game layout.

Six “player” positions will be outlined across from the dealer, and each of these positions will be dealt two cards before the five-card community board is dealt out according to the flop/turn/ river structure described above.

What makes Live Dealer Bet on Poker such a unique product is the multifaceted betting system and variable odds used throughout each hand. Below you will find a step-by-step guide on how to play Live Bet on poker.

1. Players Make Their Pre-Deal Bet

   Before the six two-card hands are dealt out, you can wager on which position on the table will wind up the winner. You can bet on which type of hand will wind up being the winner. Before the two-card starting hands are dealt out to each of the six player positions, you’ll have the option to make one of two bets: Position or High Hand.

   Betting on Position: Select one of the six spots on the table and hope they wind up with the winning hand. For the Position bets – which are clearly chance-based wagers akin to guessing game roulette – you’ll be given odds of 5.2 to 1 on your money.

   Betting on High Hand: Choosing one of the 10 poker hand types listed above. Obviously, the likelihood of each poker hand actually appearing, and then winning the game, will vary based on the probabilities, so the odds are adjusted accordingly.

   During this initial betting round (which is known as “pre-deal”), you can also choose to place no bets at all and simply wait for the second betting round to take place.

2. The Pre-Flop Betting Round Takes Place

   The two-card starting hands are dealt out and the second betting round (known as “preflop”) takes place. Take a look at the Texas Hold’em starting hands dealt with each position, a new round of betting takes place in which odds are assigned to each hand based on its relative strength.

   At this point, the game will calculate the odds that each of the six two-card starting hands will wind up as the winner. These odds are based on standard Texas Hold’em odds calculators.

   Based on the posted odds and the relative strength of each two-card starting hand, you can now decide to back one of the positions in the preflop betting round.

3. The Flop and Turn Cards are Revealed

   From here, the game runs through the following process a second time, dealing out the three card community flop and updating the win percentages/payout odds accordingly. After seeing the flop, players can place further wagers or simply stand pat; getting a chance to bet on the winner based on the updated odds.

   The next community card, the turn, follows the same structure. After the turn is dealt, the payout odds will be adjusted once more, and players can place a final wager on which hand will be the winner.

4. The River Card is Revealed and the Winners are Paid

   After the turn card betting round is completed, the dealer will reveal the river card to complete the community board and end the hand. The best five card poker hand out of the six positions is declared the winner. All bets on that position made during the course of the hand are paid out at the odds posted when the bet was made.

   In the case of a tie – when two or more positions form the exact same hand type and rank (ace high flush, two pairs of Js and Qs with a K kicker, etc.) – bets on any of the tied positions will be paid out as winners.

   Additionally, all High Hand bets made on the type of hand that wins the game are also paid out at the appropriate odds.

Best Online Casinos to Play Live Bet on Poker

Bet on Poker has quickly become a popular live dealer game. So much so, that US casinos have been adding this game to their offerings! Here are some of our top-rated casinos that give you the Bet on Poker real dealer experience:

Live Bet on Poker Rules

The gameplay rules found in Live Dealer Bet on Poker come straight from the classic poker variant known as Texas Hold’em. Keep reading to learn how to play this real money game.

In this game, players begin with a two-card starting hand (the “hole” cards), before calling (or raising) a blind Ante bet in order to see the “flop” – or three community cards. A player’s hole cards can then be combined with the community cards to form a five-card poker hand.

Another betting round occurs, followed by the “turn” – or the fourth community card. This process repeats and the “river” is dealt – or the fifth and final community card. Whoever can form the best poker hands out of those seven cards (two hole cards and five community cards) wins the accumulated pot.

Before moving on, readers who haven’t filled a full house or faded a flush draw in a long while can review the traditional poker hand hierarchy below:

The paytable used to settle High Hand bets can be reviewed below, ranked in order of poker hand strength:

As you can see, wagering on the two most powerful hands in Texas Hold’em to win (royal flush and straight flush) offers 100 to 1 odds, as does taking just a high card to emerge as the winner.

Example of Live Bet on Poker Hand

Let’s run through a quick example so that you know exactly how a round of Live Dealer Bet on Poker works.

So, let’s imagine that we’ve wagered $5 on Position #1, and $5 more on a flush to be the eventual High Hand winner.

The dealer has dealt the poker cards and each player position holds these hands, as well as the percent that each hand could win:

Along with these true win percentages, Live Bet on Poker will assign its own payout odds to each position. These payout odds will be slightly worse than true odds, so something like the Ah Kh we’ve made our Position bet on, which holds roughly a one-quarter shot of winning, would be assigned payout odds of 4.8 to 1 (or thereabouts).

At this point in the hand, the choice to bet or not is all up to you (and as you’ll see in the strategy section, you may not be betting the latter rounds very much, if at all). But for the sake of the running example hand, we’ll “hedge” our pending bet on Position #1 by backing the only other hand with a better percentage of winding up the winner: Position #3 and the 10d 9d.

We’ll say this bet has a current payout of odds of 3 to 1 to keep the math clear, and bet $5 more on Position #3.

The flop has come 10h 9h 2h, giving our Ah Kh hand for Position #1 a flush. None of the other positions have seen their hands improve at all, except Position #3, which made top two pairs with the 10d 9d.

The odds would be updated to reflect the flop’s influence, and we could place another wager, but this time we’ll slow down and stand pat.

The turn card is an As to change nothing, and we decline to bet for the second time.

The river card is a 3h and the final board reads 10h 9h 2h As 3h. The final poker hands for each position are as follows:

The best hand out of the six is Position #1 with the flush. Thus, our initial Position bet for $5 is a winner at 5.2 to 1 odds, so we collect a profit of $26.

We also bet on the flush hand type to be the High Hand, and that $5 wager wins at 8.7 to 1 odds, adding $43.50 to our total profits.

Finally, we did bet $5 more on Position #3 as a hedge bet, but despite flopping two pairs, the 10d 9d finished as the second-best hand. Meaning we’ve lost that $5 to the house.

Betgames Bet On Poker

Live Bet on Poker was designed by BetGames.tv, a relatively new company founded in 2012 which describes itself as:

With its Live Bet on Poker concept, BetGames.tv has taken the drama of a Texas Hold’em hand – in which two-card starting hands improve after combining with five community cards to form a final five-card poker hand – and combined it with a baccarat table game dynamic. But rather than betting on one of two hands, as in Baccarat, the Live Bet on Poker construct allows players to wager on one or more of six individual Texas Hold’em hands.

Presented through the popular live dealer format, in which players are connected directly to a real gaming table staffed by a real dealer, Live Bet on Poker offers the best of both worlds: skill-based betting based on your “card sense” (community card information) and a chance-based guessing game.

The concept behind Live Bet on Poker is quite unique, and with millions of online casino fans around the world already familiar with Texas Hold’em, the game has caught on with a wider audience over the last few years. This is just one more example of how popular live dealer casino games are becoming, giving players the experience of enjoying their favorite games with an actual live person.

Betgames Bet on Poker Live Strategy

The result of any single Texas Hold’em hand will be dependent entirely on luck, so even if you spot pocket aces (the best preflop hand in the game) as one of the six starting hands, the “pocket rockets” won’t be anywhere close to a lock. This is because you’ll always have five other hands to “fade,” or beat, and none of the hands will ever fold out.

This multi-handed element, with six starting hands playing all the way through to the river on each deal, makes the usual poker prognostication much more difficult. In Live Bet On Poker, all six hands will remain live for the duration of the deal, so even the strongest holdings will only have a roughly 1 in 6 chance of winding up as the winner.

As a relatively new addition to the online casino gambling landscape, this variant of live dealer poker online has yet to be fully analyzed by crack casino game experts. Thus, a full-fledged optimal strategy for the game doesn’t exist.

However, as would be expected, the best in the business did take a shot at coming up with general guidelines for the game’s strategy. According to Michael Shackleford, the renowned casino game theorist who runs the Wizard of Odds website, the best way to break the Live Bet on Poker strategy is by looking at the house edge rate offered at each of the game’s four betting stages (pre-deal, preflop, flop, turn).

You can parse through all of Shackleford’s calculations for the game, but his advice can be boiled down to a simple set of rules.

After selecting six random Texas Hold’em starting hands and running through a mock hand, Shackleford calculated the average house edge offered at each betting stage. According to the Wizard’s math, the average house edge you’ll be facing during each of the four betting rounds breaks down as follows:

As you can see, these numbers run counter to what one would assume about this game’s internal structure. Generally speaking, in gambling games which reveal information to players one step at a time, you’ll face the most favorable odds with the maximum amount of information to consider.

However, in Live Bet on Poker, the role played by adjustable odds reduces the payouts for the strongest hands, thus leveling the proverbial playing field. As a hand progresses, and you gain access to the information provided by your hole cards, the flop, and the turn, you actually face significantly worse odds – despite having a much better idea of which hand will win.

Clearly then, the best strategy to employ while playing Live Bet on Poker is simply to bet on the pre-deal stage of the game, picking either a position on the table or a specific type of hand to become the winner. By doing so, you’ll face a relatively reasonable house edge of 4.28%, which is on par with many hybrid table games which are widely played today.

When you continue to wager after seeing the hole cards, the flop, or the turn, the house edge against you immediately climbs by more than double – reaching double digits on the flop and turn in fact. House edge rates such as this are typically found only on the “sucker bets” or “carnival” games favored by casino managers, such as keno or the Big Six wheel.

If you do choose to confine your betting to only the pre-deal options, take a look below to review the house edge rates offered by each of the High Hand bets – or bets on which type of poker hand will wind up winning:

We’ve bolded the lowest house edge rate to identify the most player-friendly High Hand bet you can make, which is on the full house. At just under 5 percent house edge, the full house offers reasonable odds – at least when it comes to side bets – along with the flush, straight, three of a kind, and two pair bets, which are all under 6 percent.

Take a look at the house edge you’ll be up against when betting on the royal flush, straight flush, or high card bets. For the royal flush, you’ll be facing a 98.14% house edge, which is, according to Shackleford’s expertise, the very worst casino game bet ever offered. Both the straight flush and high card bets come in similarly obscene rates, at 84.36 and 94.72, respectively.

This means that for every $100 you wager over the long run on one of these three High Hand longshots, you can expect to lose between $84.36 and $98.14.

Combining all of this data leaves us with one conclusion: the optimal strategy for Live Bet on Poker involves only betting on the pre-deal round, and limiting those bets to the full house hand type.

Live Bet on Poker FAQ