Stos
Stos is a modern casino adaptation of one of the oldest card games in the world. The game is known by several names around the world, including pharaoh, faro and shtoss.
BetVoyager features our conventional version of Stos and a version with no house edge.
Main Features
The game uses six 52-card decks, which are shuffled and placed in a shoe.
The game table features 13 cards without a suit, ranging from 2 to Ace. The player makes a bet on which cards will be dealt from the shoe on an even interval. Bets on different cards can be of different values.
There are also four suited cards on the table. These are used to determine the suit of the cards that are bet on. To do this, the player can select one of the suits and make a bet on a suit. Only one suit can be bet on and it will be applied to all the cards selected by the player. This bet is optional.
The minimum and maximum bets for the table are clearly stated. The spread applies to both bets on cards and a bet on a suit. However, a bet on a suit may not exceed any bet on a card by more than four times.
In our No House Edge version, all bets may be in any ratio.
When all bets have been placed, the cards are dealt from the shoe in pairs: the first card and all other cards dealt on an odd interval are placed on the Odd field, while all cards dealt on an even interval are placed on the Even field. Pairs of cards are dealt until a card with a rank that the player has bet upon is dealt. At this point, dealing stops and the results are calculated.
Calculating the result of a bet on a card is done in the following manner:
- if a card that the player bet upon is dealt on an odd interval, the player losses the bet on this card
- if a card that the player bet upon is dealt from the shoe on an even interval, this bet wins pays out 1:1
- if a pair of cards has the same value and were bet upon, this is known as a Plie. In this case, the odd card was dealt first and therefore the player’s bet on the card losses
In our No House Edge version, in case of a Plie, the bet on the card is a draw and the bet is returned to the player. There is no house edge on all bets in this game.
Calculating the result of a bet on a card in which the bet on a suit is used is described here. As a result of this calculation, this bet can grow or shrink. If it is not lost in full, the bet on a suit remains on the table and continues to be part of the game. But if the bet on a suit becomes less than the table’s minimum bet, the money is returned to the player.
The player cannot change bets that have already been placed on the table. He can only remove his winnings from the suited cards or receive chips that would bring the bet above the table’s maximum limit.
If there are bets on cards that remain in play after a calculation, the dealer continues to deal pairs of cards on the table, as described earlier. If there are no bets on cards remaining, the bet on a suit is returned to the player. After this, the player can place new bets on the cards and on a suit, and the game will continue.
After each pair is dealt, the player can use the intermission to place new bets on cards. The player can also select a new suit if there is currently no bet on a suit on the table.
After all the cards have been dealt from the shoe, the game stops. Any bets that are still in play are returned to the player.
The method of calculating the results of bets on cards when a suit has been selected
If the last pair dealt by the dealer has only one card that was selected by the player, the results for the bet on a suit is determined by the following table:
Result of a game with a bet on a suit
| Suit of the player's card and the suit of the card dealt | Card dealt from the shoe | |
|---|---|---|
| Dealt at an odd interval | Dealt at an even interval | |
| Same | Bet is lost | Bet wins and pays out 1:1 |
| Same color | Half the bet is lost | Bet wins and pays out 1:2 |
| Different color | Push | Push |
If the cards from the last pair have the same rank (a Plie), or are the same as the player’s two different cards, the results are calculated in the following manner:
The player’s card that was dealt on the even interval is paid out according to the above table and the player’s losses from the card that was dealt on the odd interval is taken from that sum. Depending on the result, the bet on a suit can increase, decrease or remain the same.
Example. The player has bet on the Seven and King and on Spades. The first card is a King of Clubs and the second is a Seven of Spades. The player loses the bet on the King and wins the bet on the Seven. His bet on the suit first doubles because of the Seven of Spades (same suit) and then he loses half of the total because of the King of Clubs (same color).
Additional Features
To make a bet, it is first necessary to choose a chip with the desired face-value. At the beginning of the game, this chip is chosen by default, and the chip with the minimum face-value fixes itself onto the cursor. If the player wants a chip with a different face-value, he can select it by clicking on that chip with the cursor. The player can also use the scroll wheel on his mouse to change the chip’s value. After the chip is selected, the player can place a bet by clicking the mouse on the desired part of the game table and his bet will appear there. Each subsequent click adds another chip of the selected face-value to the bet. If the player wants to remove the last chip from his bet, he can remove the chip fixed onto the cursor by clicking the cursor on any empty part of the game window and then clicking on this bet.
If the player wishes to repeat his previous bets, he can press the "Rebet" button. The bets that are repeated are the bets that were placed the last time there were no remaining bets on the table.
In order to remove all new bets from the table, the player can press the "Clear" button.
In order to start play after bets have been made, press the "Deal" button.
After each pair of cards has been dealt, the "Pause" button becomes active. By pressing this button, the game is paused and the player can make new bets. He can restart the game by pressing the "Go on" button. If the player doesn’t use the "Pause", the game will continue automatically and a new pair of cards will be dealt. The player can regulate the time that the "Pause" button is active in the game’s settings. If the player doesn’t want to use the pause button, he can simply ignore it.
If there are no remaining bets on the table, the player can end the deal before all cards have been dealt by pressing the "New deal" button. After pressing this button, the cards are reshuffled and a new deal begins.
All outcomes are rounded down to the nearest cent.