Red Dog Strategy
The player only enjoys an edge when the spread is 7 or greater. At Spread 7, 7 cards will give you a winning hand. And since there are 13 cards from Deuce to Ace (2 ,3 ,4 ,5 ,6 ,7 ,8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, A), only 6 cards will cause you to lose.
Spread 7 gives the player about a 54% chance of winning and it gets better from there on up to around 85% at Spread 11. So the strategy is to only Double on the Spreads that give you an edge, namely 7 through 11. Spreads below 7 give the house an increasingly stiff edge and should be avoided.
The following table shows the net return per unit bet on various spreads, assuming a six deck game.
| Expected Gain by Raising | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Spread | Pays | Probability of winning | Player's edge |
| 1 | 5 | 0.077419 | -0.535484 |
| 2 | 4 | 0.154839 | -0.225806 |
| 3 | 2 | 0.232258 | -0.303226 |
| 4 | 1 | 0.309677 | -0.380645 |
| 5 | 1 | 0.387097 | -0.225806 |
| 6 | 1 | 0.464516 | -0.070968 |
| 7 | 1 | 0.541935 | 0.083871 |
| 8 | 1 | 0.619355 | 0.238710 |
| 9 | 1 | 0.696774 | 0.393548 |
| 10 | 1 | 0.774194 | 0.548387 |
| 11 | 1 | 0.851613 | 0.703226 |
House Edge
The following table displays the house edge and element of risk according to the number of decks used:
| House Edge in Red Dog | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of Decks | House Edge | Element of Risk | |
| 1 | 3.155% | 2.672% | |
| 2 | 3.077% | 2.609% | |
| 4 | 2.884% | 2.447% | |
| 6 | 2.798% | 2.375% | |
| 8 | 2.751% | 2.335% | |
