5 Card Swap Stud

How to Play

5 Card Swap Stud is like 5 Card Stud with one powerful extra move: before you decide to raise or fold, you can swap out up to five of your cards. Each swap costs you one Ante bet per card, but it means you can improve a bad hand or strengthen a good one. It adds a whole extra layer of decisions that most poker games don't have.

1. Place your starting bet (Ante) and any side bets you want before cards are dealt.
2. You get five cards face up; the dealer gets five cards with one showing.
3. If you want to improve your hand, swap 1-5 cards - each swap costs one extra Ante.
4. Decide to raise (double your Ante) or fold.
5. The dealer reveals their hand. They need at least Ace-King to play.
6. If the dealer doesn't have Ace-King, your Ante wins and your Raise gets returned. If they do qualify, the better hand wins the pot.

Millionaire Mode, Win $1,000,000

Millionaire Mode is a $1 side bet added on top of your regular 5 Card Swap Stud bet. Your main payouts are unaffected.

Each round, the dealt cards are checked for the six top spades - 9, 10, J, Q, K and A of spades. Land all six and you win $1,000,000. Fewer still pay: 5 = $5,000, 4 = $325, 3 = $20, 2 = $2; 0 or 1, the dollar is lost.

The jackpot is always ready. Every $1 ticket is a full attempt at the headline figure.

Turn it on, play your main bet (at least $1), and the Royal Spades check runs alongside every round.

Tips & Tricks

The card exchange is what makes 5 Card Swap Stud unique, and knowing when to use it is the most important skill in the game. A simple rule: only swap cards if you're one card away from a flush or straight. Swapping for anything less than that usually isn't worth the extra cost.

When you're not thinking about exchanges, the raise/fold decision works just like 5 Card Stud. Pair or better? Always raise. Nothing useful? Fold. Ace-King with a matching dealer up card? Lean toward raising. These basics won't give you perfect play, but they'll keep you in good shape most of the time.

Watch your Ante spending carefully. Every card you swap costs an extra Ante, and those costs add up fast. A hand where you swap three cards and then fold has cost you four Antes with nothing to show for it. Be selective - exchange when the improvement is clear and the cost is justified.

It's a good habit to play 5 Card Swap Stud at a slightly lower Ante than you'd normally use for 5 Card Stud. The exchange option increases your total risk per hand, so giving yourself a bit more budget flexibility keeps sessions comfortable even when the exchanges don't pay off.

Is It Fair?

5 Card Swap Stud on WickedBet is fully provably fair. The cards in your initial deal and any cards you exchange are all determined by the same cryptographic seed combination locked in before the hand begins. Even the replacement cards from an exchange are part of the original mathematically determined sequence - nothing is generated on the fly to disadvantage you.

After your session you can verify every hand including every exchange by checking the revealed server seed against the committed hash. The full card sequence - your cards, the dealer's cards, and all exchange draws - can be reconstructed and confirmed. It's complete transparency on every deal and every swap.

Your client seed influences every hand and exchange in the session. You can change it at any time via the fairness panel, which simultaneously ends the current server seed session and triggers its reveal. It's a clean, auditable hand-off that keeps the verification chain intact and under your control.