Learn Caribbean Stud

The game of poker has a significant history.  Popular belief is that the game developed officially sometime in the nineteenth Century.  However, some believe that the dawning of the popular game dates back much further, to a time of simpler disciplines.  Today’s poker has numerous variations, each with its own individual formats and rules.  So many different versions of the game now exist that it would probably be impossible to name all of them. For additional info, take a look at the gambling history.

Caribbean Stud is a relatively new version of poker that has gained much popularity recently.  The game is believed to have its origins in the Caribbean island of Aruba, beginning sometime during the 1980s.  According to some tales of the game’s origin, it was discovered as it was being played aboard a cruise ship bound for Aruba.  In other stories, the game began in one of Aruba’s resort hotels.  Although accounts of the game’s actual origin conflict somewhat, they seem to agree that its popularity spread to many resort hotels throughout the Caribbean, including Aruba’s “The King International”, a Dutch hotel that is known as the “Excelsior Casino” today.  Although it is unclear which of these versions is the real story, it is clearly evident that the Caribbean region and Aruba in particular played a major role in the discovery and development of Caribbean Stud.  Once it had firmly taken root in the islands of the Caribbean, the popular game quickly spread to other areas.  Its first introduction into the United States was in bricks and mortar type casinos during the early 1990s.

The actual individual who was responsible for developing the game has not yet been found, in spite of claims made by several people that they were responsible for the game’s invention.  The most notorious of these individuals is David Sklansky, a gambling expert and renowned author.  Sklansky claims that he was the inventor of the game, which he called “Casino Poker”, in 1982.  Sklansky’s Casino Poker had slightly different rules, such as requiring the dealer to expose two cards instead of one and having no progressive jackpot as featured in Caribbean Stud.  Aside from those two small variations, the two games were identical.  Patent laws at that time prevented him from patenting the game, so instead he trademarked it, and then took the game to Vegas World for a trial run.  Around that time, he experienced some unfortunate family-related circumstances, which prevented him from following up on it.  According to Sklansky’s account of events, a particluar poker player, who happened to know the owner of a casino in Aruba approached him several years later.  This player introduced Sklansky’s game in Aruba, where they altered the rules slightly adding  the game’s popular progressive jackpot and reducing the number of exposed hole cards from two to one.  The casino owner patented the new game as Caribbean Stud Poker and eventually sold the patent to a company named Mikohn for more than $30 million.  To this day there remains ongoing controversy regarding this patent and Sklansky himself even made a deposition on the topic early in the ‘00 decade.

Another claim regarding the invention of the game was made by entertainment tycoon Dennis King, who previously owned a hotel on the island of Aruba.

Unfortunately, hard evidence has failed to verify either of these claims; thereby Caribbean Stud’s true history remains shrouded in mystery.

The rapid growth experienced by Caribbean Stud since its introduction has made it one of today’s most popular casino card games.  Shortly after the game’s introduction in land-based casinos, it was improved with the addition of a progressive jackpot.  By betting an extra dollar, players had the opportunity to win an additional jackpot.  Hands with a Royal Flush paid the jackpot in its entirety, and a straight flush paid out a percentage, often 10% of the jackpot.  This added feature, along with the game’s easy rules, made Caribbean Stud more appealing to players, thus contributing to its huge surge in popularity.  Most players seem to find this particular poker game much less stressful than other versions of the game, which is another reason why so many players are eager to play Caribbean Poker.

The advance of Internet technology has led to increasing popularity of online casinos, and Caribbean Stud remains as much a favorite with online players as it was in traditional casinos, and perhaps even more so.  Fast hands and large numbers of online players mean larger progressive jackpots and more of them in a short amount of time, which means better value for online players. Before starting to play, read our Caribbean Stud tips article to get some good suggestions on how to play better and win.