Between the sheets
Red Dog is an exciting game from the old West played with three cards offering a theoretical return to player of 97.34%. Red Dog does not really resemble any other form of poker as it is simply three cards dealt, two of them faced up and the middle card faced down, betting on the spread. This is the exact reason why Red Dog is also known as Between the Sheets, because Red Dog is built around the concept of the spread between two cards. Players are dealt two cards and place bets on whether they think the third card’s value will fall between the original two, very similar to Red Dog.
Betting options
With just one version available of this Red Dog game, you have no other choice than to play with bets between 1.00 and 100.00. In between you have a lot of options to choose from and considering the opportunity to bet progressive, the actual maximum bet is 200.00, while the progressive betting allows you to bet maximum €2,000 in total within one single session.
Progressive betting
When a round is finished, you can either choose to collect your winnings or you click the DEAL button. When you decide to collect your winnings, your accumulated chip stack is collected and you are able to either place a new bet or to rebet. When you click deal, your chip stacks with winnings, original bet, and the optional raise are left on the table and a new hand is dealt. this feature looks really attractive, but don’t forget that when the progressive bet is lost, you lose the winnings from the first round too.
How to play Red Dog
Red Dog is very easy to learn, and does not really resemble any other form of poker; it is simply three cards dealt with you betting on the spread between the two cards dealt face up and the odds of the third card drawn falling between the two cards. The spread is the number of cards that fit between the original two, for example: if the first two cards are a 2 and a 6 the spread is 3. You make an initial bet after which the cards are dealt. Two cards are dealt face-up on the table and if the cards are consecutive, the hand is considered a push and your ant will be returned. If the cards are the same, the dealer is automatically drawing a third card. If the third card is the same as the first two, and equal to Two of a Kind, your bet will pay out 11:1.
Otherwise the hand is considered a push, and money is returned. The chance of a third card of the same value being drawn is 2 out of 50 or 4%. If the cards are neither consecutive nor the equal to each other, you can either choose to raise or call. Raise when the chance is big the third card falls in between the two cards shown, if not call. Once you’ve made your choice, the dealer deals the third card and if the spread fits perfectly in between, you win. If the third card is higher than the higher card or lower than the lower card, you’ll lose. If the third card is equal to one of the initial cards, you’ll lose.
Card counting
Red Dog is a card game which uses a standard deck of 52 cards and the dealer shuffles the cards after every round. Although this not apply for the version played in a Netent Casino, this part of the game is very important to the offline version, simply to avoid the possibility of card counting. Also players in land-based casinos are not allowed to touch the cards, so cards cannot be tampered with. Also decks are renewed frequently and some casinos will even punch a hole through a deck to show that it has been used and sometimes casinos allow dealers to give you these used decks after use, since they cannot be used for cheating.
Even though bent cards aren’t an issue when playing Red Dog at one of the many Netent Casinos, it’s still important to note that each hand is drawn from a full deck, and with unrelated to the previous hand, making card counting impossible.