I'm confused about blackjack bonuses

[DavidC]

A few days ago a guy posted, saying that he was up a bit of cash in BJ, and would like to know if he should reduce bet size in order to cash out a win (he was close to clearing a bonus)...

Now, if a guy asked this in the poker forums, he'd be lauged all the way home. They'd tell him that it's all just one big game.

So... is there any real reason that one would adjust their play in blackjack while clearing a bonus? Is there something that I'm not understanding here?

--Dave.

[Benholio]

Risk of ruin and bankroll size.

If you had a $1000 bankroll, think it would be a good idea to play with $500 bet size to clear a BJ bonus?

Same can be said for poker. Would you put your entire bankroll on 88 vs your opponent's AK? It is +$EV...

[Homer]

[ QUOTE ]
Risk of ruin and bankroll size.

If you had a $1000 bankroll, think it would be a good idea to play with $500 bet size to clear a BJ bonus?

Same can be said for poker. Would you put your entire bankroll on 88 vs your opponent's AK? It is +$EV...

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you're misunderstanding the question.

He's asking if it's silly to reduce your bet size if you find yourself way up on a bonus. For example, say you're clearing a 100/100/4000 with a betsize of $5 and find yourself $200 up halfway through the WR. Should you reduce your bet size to lock in your winnings? No, but a lot of people do it for some reason. If someone suggested dropping down in limits in poker to lock in a win while clearing a bonus, they'd be laughed at. There really is no difference, though. I think that's what the OP was getting at, anyway.

[DavidC]

[ QUOTE ]
Risk of ruin and bankroll size.

If you had a $1000 bankroll, think it would be a good idea to play with $500 bet size to clear a BJ bonus?

Same can be said for poker. Would you put your entire bankroll on 88 vs your opponent's AK? It is +$EV...

[/ QUOTE ]

I totally agree... Even with a much larger edge it wouldn't be a good idea.

If possible, I'd make the following prop bet with someone (who wasn't my friend):

We'll flip a coin and I pay you 2:1 on the flips, you start with $10 I start with $1,000,000, the first flip is for $10 and we play double or nothing every time until one of us is out of cash. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

However, when it actually comes to clearing these blackjack bonuses, I'm pretty confused...

Like, what is the bankroll that you guys are using?

No one asked this guy what his bankroll was, they only gave him advice on what do to to avoid ruin for THIS BONUS, which isn't really connected to anything.

i.e. if you play 10,000 bonuses out, it shouldn't really matter if you bust on this bonus or not, because there's always next bonus, right?

[DavidC]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Risk of ruin and bankroll size.

If you had a $1000 bankroll, think it would be a good idea to play with $500 bet size to clear a BJ bonus?

Same can be said for poker. Would you put your entire bankroll on 88 vs your opponent's AK? It is +$EV...

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you're misunderstanding the question.

He's asking if it's silly to reduce your bet size if you find yourself way up on a bonus. For example, say you're clearing a 100/100/4000 with a betsize of $5 and find yourself $200 up halfway through the WR. Should you reduce your bet size to lock in your winnings? No, but a lot of people do it for some reason. If someone suggested dropping down in limits in poker to lock in a win while clearing a bonus, they'd be laughed at. There really is no difference, though. I think that's what the OP was getting at, anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks, bud.

That IS what I'm getting at, and I've outlined the reason I think it's silly in my response to the first guy.

However, is what I'm saying right? Like, it looks really weird to me to reduce the wager, but I could be wrong (I don't know a ton about BJ and the bonus agreement structures).

[Homer]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Risk of ruin and bankroll size.

If you had a $1000 bankroll, think it would be a good idea to play with $500 bet size to clear a BJ bonus?

Same can be said for poker. Would you put your entire bankroll on 88 vs your opponent's AK? It is +$EV...

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you're misunderstanding the question.

He's asking if it's silly to reduce your bet size if you find yourself way up on a bonus. For example, say you're clearing a 100/100/4000 with a betsize of $5 and find yourself $200 up halfway through the WR. Should you reduce your bet size to lock in your winnings? No, but a lot of people do it for some reason. If someone suggested dropping down in limits in poker to lock in a win while clearing a bonus, they'd be laughed at. There really is no difference, though. I think that's what the OP was getting at, anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks, bud.

That IS what I'm getting at, and I've outlined the reason I think it's silly in my response to the first guy.

However, is what I'm saying right? Like, it looks really weird to me to reduce the wager, but I could be wrong (I don't know a ton about BJ and the bonus agreement structures).

[/ QUOTE ]

No, you're right. There's no reason to reduce your betsize to lock in a profit.

[DavidC]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Risk of ruin and bankroll size.

If you had a $1000 bankroll, think it would be a good idea to play with $500 bet size to clear a BJ bonus?

Same can be said for poker. Would you put your entire bankroll on 88 vs your opponent's AK? It is +$EV...

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you're misunderstanding the question.

He's asking if it's silly to reduce your bet size if you find yourself way up on a bonus. For example, say you're clearing a 100/100/4000 with a betsize of $5 and find yourself $200 up halfway through the WR. Should you reduce your bet size to lock in your winnings? No, but a lot of people do it for some reason. If someone suggested dropping down in limits in poker to lock in a win while clearing a bonus, they'd be laughed at. There really is no difference, though. I think that's what the OP was getting at, anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks, bud.

That IS what I'm getting at, and I've outlined the reason I think it's silly in my response to the first guy.

However, is what I'm saying right? Like, it looks really weird to me to reduce the wager, but I could be wrong (I don't know a ton about BJ and the bonus agreement structures).

[/ QUOTE ]

No, you're right. There's no reason to reduce your betsize to lock in a profit.

[/ QUOTE ]

Specifically, what I was thinking was that it didn't make a difference to your EV over the course of the bonus but that it significantly impacted your hourly EV (negatively).

[MadMat]

LOL

yes I'm a fish when it comes to blackjack whoring ;-)

I'm very interested in bankroll reccomndations for BJ whoring, having done 5 casinos now, I suspect I'm running good, and don't want a downswing to bite me on the backside

So far -

PlanetLuck Deposit $100,Bonus $100 cashout $200
StarLuck Deposit $100,Bonus $100 cashout $73
Casino on net Deposit $200 Bonus $200 Cashout $278
Interpoker Monthly Deposit $100 Bonus $100 cashout $249
Sporting bet Deposit $50 Bonus $100 Cashout $314

I've also learnt that I don't like Video poker!
The rule I've decided to adopt is to never risk more than 10% of my bankroll on a single BJ bonus, or 5% on a higher variance game such as VP or Pontoon, Interested in comments on this plan, especially my ROR, as I'm using the same roll thatI use to play poker with!

Mat

[MentalNomad]

DavidC, I don't know how much you know about BJ. . . your reasoning is pretty much on target, but you're missing a piece of the picture.

Playing BJ line, you're playing to a disadvantage. The bonus dollars, however, are bigger than the disadvantage. The game, therefore, is to wager only enough dollars to clear the bonus.

If it takes $1000 of action to clear a bonus, and the game rules results in a 1% disadvantage, you expect to lose $10 while clearing the bonus (on average.)

If you wagered $0.10 a hand enough times to make $1000 in action, you are likely to lose somewhere around $10 when all is said and done.

If you wagered $100 per hand 100 times, you still have the same expectged $10 loss. . . but the variance will be so huge that you could tap out a $1000 very, very easily.

When you bust out and cannot complete the bonus, not only do you bust out, but you also don't get the bonus. Busting out is a travesty because you still have time played at a disadvantage.

All that having been said, in terms of time efficiency, the best way to clear bonus is to play the highest bets you can afford. If you had an enormous bankroll, you could just bet $1000 once and be done with it. Your expectation will be the same in the long term, because you'll do it every month, and the time invested will be small. But you would need a CRAZY bankroll to do that.

If you are forced to work within a bankroll limit, you need to size your bets to avoid busting out. Remember, playing is not profitable, and busting out kills all profit potential.

The smaller the bet increment, the more certain your loss rate, and therefore the more likely you are to survive to clear bonus. But, as you say, the smaller the increment, the lower your effective hourly earnings. That's the balancing act.

To maximize growth rate of a bankroll while minimizing the risk of busting out, you might try to use Kelly Criterion betting -- when you play to an advantage of, say, 1%, KC states that it is ideal to bet 1% of your bankroll on each wager. If you have losses, your bet shrinks, avoiding the bustout. If you have wins, your bet increases, taking advantage of the bigger bankroll immediately. The KC maximizes your growth rate.

The trouble is, the BJ online plays to a DISADVANTAGE. The proper amount to bet is not to bet.

The KC calculation doesn't apply well to the bonus, because the bonus is not a wager. It's a guaranteed payout. But you might still try to use the mathematical experience we gain from Kelly Criterion analysis and apply it here.

Say you choose an initial bet size which offers a good balance of $$/hour for your personal preference. . . and make sure you have the bankroll to support it. Say you need to clear the $1000 of action, you have a $200 bankroll. You might start with a $10 bet size, or 5% of bankroll. If you get lucky and get ahead to $300, you then bet $15 per hand. This will speed up your play-through for the bonus, and increases your effective hourly profit. If you are unlucky and the bankroll drops to $100, you will be betting $5. By cutting the bet, you prevent yourself from losing the remainder to an unlucky streak. Of course, you'll have to play a lot more hands at the smaller bet size to clear the bonus, but again, that's a guaranteed payout -- time is the only issue.

Ideally, you would scale the bet in smaller increments. So if you went from $200 to $220, you would move your bet from $10 to $11, or if you dropped to $180, you would bet $9.

The results would be that some sessions would be very short, because you went on a tear, increased your bets, and cleared the bonus quickly. Other sessions would be very long, because you had a crappy start, cut your bet size to a tiny amount, and had to grind it out.

The irony: in the long term, the shorter sessions will balance the longer sessions, and I suspect (no mathematical proof here, but assume a 50/50 game here) that the average amount of time needed will be the same as if you had just kept betting $10!

So why not just bet $10 always? Because you would need a bankroll much bigger than $200 to guarantee you clear the bonus.

The catch here is that the times may not balance. . . because your actual blackjack game plays to a DISADVANTAGE, you will tend to be on the losing (small bet) side, therefore investing more time.

The fastest way to play it through might be to scale your bets such that the max one-hand investment is half the bankroll. . . assume your game allows splitting and doubling after splits. So a single bet can become 4 bets. . . to bet a max of half stake, your stake must be 8 bets. So if you have a $200 stake, you would bet 1/8 of that, or $25. . . very aggressive! You would need to scale your bets carefully.

Also, there may be a minimum below which you cannot scale your bet. If you drop to $8 -- not that unlikely if you're betting that aggressively, can you still scale to $1 bets? If you drop to $4, can you bet $.50? etc. Also, such aggressive bet scaling will lead to a few very quick session (with enormous bets) and some very long ones (grinding out $100 in bets at $1 a pop is no fun.)

Mind you, scaling the bets is, itself, a time sink. . . calcualting the bet and then entering it by clicking little chip stacks takes a while.

So, where was I? I seem to have wandered. Oh, yeah. . . should you decrease your bet size to lock in the win?

No.

[ QUOTE ]
If possible, I'd make the following prop bet with someone (who wasn't my friend):

We'll flip a coin and I pay you 2:1 on the flips, you start with $10 I start with $1,000,000, the first flip is for $10 and we play double or nothing every time until one of us is out of cash.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'll take that. Or, at least, I would take that if you really had a million dollars you'd pay me. I'd only need to win 10 flips in a row to win $600,000, or 11 to win $1,800,000. That's only 1 in 1024 or 2048. In other words, my $10 investment has an EV of +$870.

As a side note, this is why the Martingale system doesn't work. It really doesn't take that long of a streak to get to a huge number.

[theghost]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Risk of ruin and bankroll size.

If you had a $1000 bankroll, think it would be a good idea to play with $500 bet size to clear a BJ bonus?

Same can be said for poker. Would you put your entire bankroll on 88 vs your opponent's AK? It is +$EV...

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you're misunderstanding the question.

He's asking if it's silly to reduce your bet size if you find yourself way up on a bonus. For example, say you're clearing a 100/100/4000 with a betsize of $5 and find yourself $200 up halfway through the WR. Should you reduce your bet size to lock in your winnings? No, but a lot of people do it for some reason. If someone suggested dropping down in limits in poker to lock in a win while clearing a bonus, they'd be laughed at. There really is no difference, though. I think that's what the OP was getting at, anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

My impression was that a smaller bet size will decrease variance, so you have a better chance at staying close to the number you're at (so if you're up you have a better shot at staying up). You've swung up, now you reduce the chance that you will swing down. Wrong?

I wouldn't do this in poker if I considered the level I was at to be beatble by me (+ev); on the other hand, bj is -ev.

[Reef]

it's all one game, don't change your bet size, but don't overwager also.

it's a given that bigger bet size = bigger swings

[MentalNomad]

[ QUOTE ]

My impression was that a smaller bet size will decrease variance, so you have a better chance at staying close to the number you're at (so if you're up you have a better shot at staying up). You've swung up, now you reduce the chance that you will swing down. Wrong?


[/ QUOTE ]

Correct, but irrelevant. If you have to make $500 more in bets to clear the bonus, then you have to make $500 more in bets. Your -EV on those $500 in bets is the same whether you bet $1 or $10 at a time.

It's time that matters. A smaller bet takes more time to clear bonus, and your hourly rate is bonus divided by hours. As long as there is little risk of bankrupting, you should not reduce your profit rate!

Your variance down is reduced with smaller bets, and so is your variance up -- but the combination of them does not affect your profit, so long as you are not at risk of losing the bankroll. The profit is the bonus. The variance will balance out; the bonus does not.

Think of this: let's say you go in betting $10 against a bankroll of $200. You're wildly ahead, say $400; bankroll is now $600. Should you reduce the bet size to $5 to protect your win? If you're so concerned about protectin $400 extra dollars, why were you not concerned about protecting the first $200? After all, the risk of that first $200 getting crushed by the $10 bet was FAR greater.

But let's say you clear the bonus, and have $700 now. You deposit at the next site, and have another $100 of bonus to clear, but your total bankroll is now $700. Are you still going to bet $5? By your logic, you can not move up to $10. After all, you still have all those winnings to "protect."

In fact, by the "protect the win" logic, you can never, ever increase your bets. The logic is correct within context of the game itself, which is a loser -- you SHOULD reduce your bets to $0.00. The profit is in the bonus. You must apply your logic to the bonus.

If you are very averse to the risk, you can figure out the minimum hourly rate you will accept to play for the bonus. Pick a dollar bet size that will clear your bonus fast enough to make that rate, and no more than that. If you come up with a small enough bet size, you can make more money per hour with less risk by working at McDonald's, and you'll get free fries, to boot.

[DavidC]

[ QUOTE ]

Playing BJ line, you're playing to a disadvantage. The bonus dollars, however, are bigger than the disadvantage. The game, therefore, is to wager only enough dollars to clear the bonus.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[ QUOTE ]

If you wagered $0.10 a hand enough times to make $1000 in action, you are likely to lose somewhere around $10 when all is said and done.

If you wagered $100 per hand 100 times, you still have the same expectged $10 loss. . . but the variance will be so huge that you could tap out a $1000 very, very easily.

When you bust out and cannot complete the bonus, not only do you bust out, but you also don't get the bonus. Busting out is a travesty because you still have time played at a disadvantage.

All that having been said, in terms of time efficiency, the best way to clear bonus is to play the highest bets you can afford. If you had an enormous bankroll, you could just bet $1000 once and be done with it. Your expectation will be the same in the long term, because you'll do it every month, and the time invested will be small. But you would need a CRAZY bankroll to do that.


[/ QUOTE ]

Cool...

I'd even expand that a bit to say that you would also need infinite bonus clearing opportunities, because if there were only one bonus opportunity out there, then an infinite bankroll would not assure profit while making $1000 bets. In that case, you would be best to focus your variance goal on ensuring that you acheived profit in the solitary bonus. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

(I'd like to point out that while this thread has been a little confrontational and even maybe "uppity", I appreciate the help, because I hadn't considered this aspect of blackjack bonus strategy.)

[ QUOTE ]

To maximize growth rate of a bankroll while minimizing the risk of busting out, you might try to use Kelly Criterion betting -- when you play to an advantage of, say, 1%, KC states that it is ideal to bet 1% of your bankroll on each wager. If you have losses, your bet shrinks, avoiding the bustout. If you have wins, your bet increases, taking advantage of the bigger bankroll immediately.


[/ QUOTE ]

Excellent point! You can use variance in blackjack to affect your hourly rate as opposed to your actual EV in the hands.

I'm going to take a peek at the Kelly Criterion thing on google. I read a little about it on the 2+2 magazine, and I think it said something about reducing your variance (and sacrificing some EV), to adjust for bankroll size during bonus clearing / playing for a comp over a short-term.

[ QUOTE ]

The trouble is, the BJ online plays to a DISADVANTAGE. The proper amount to bet is not to bet.


[/ QUOTE ]

As you've pointed out, this just means that you should never wager more than the bonus clearing amount.

(i.e. clear the bonus, but don't gamble afterwards as it's a losing proposition.)

[ QUOTE ]

Say you choose an initial bet size which offers a good balance of $$/hour for your personal preference. . . and make sure you have the bankroll to support it.


[/ QUOTE ]

Here's a third factor (bankroll, number of bonus opportunities, and...): cashout time!

If there's 100 bonuses to clear, but the cashout time is a month, then your roll best be over 100x big enough to cover a bonus, so that you can be guaranteed to be able to go through the 100 bonuses.

In this case, it's wise to reduce your bet sizes to some extent, just so that you don't have to redeposit, which would cut into further opportunities for the month, right?

Sweet... I don't know if we've had this discussion on this board, but there does seem to be some very good reasons to reduce bet sizes so far...

(small bankroll, few bonus opportunities, long cashout periods)


[ QUOTE ]

The irony: in the long term, the shorter sessions will balance the longer sessions, and I suspect (no mathematical proof here, but assume a 50/50 game here) that the average amount of time needed will be the same as if you had just kept betting $10!


[/ QUOTE ]

Hehehe! Awesome. I like it. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[ QUOTE ]

So, where was I? I seem to have wandered. Oh, yeah. . . should you decrease your bet size to lock in the win?

No.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for your help, man.

/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Take care,
Dave.

[DavidC]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If possible, I'd make the following prop bet with someone (who wasn't my friend):

We'll flip a coin and I pay you 2:1 on the flips, you start with $10 I start with $1,000,000, the first flip is for $10 and we play double or nothing every time until one of us is out of cash.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'll take that. Or, at least, I would take that if you really had a million dollars you'd pay me. I'd only need to win 10 flips in a row to win $600,000, or 11 to win $1,800,000. That's only 1 in 1024 or 2048. In other words, my $10 investment has an EV of +$870.

As a side note, this is why the Martingale system doesn't work. It really doesn't take that long of a streak to get to a huge number.

[/ QUOTE ]

Crap! Thanks for that info.

[DavidC]

[ QUOTE ]
If you are very averse to the risk, you can figure out the minimum hourly rate you will accept to play for the bonus. Pick a dollar bet size that will clear your bonus fast enough to make that rate, and no more than that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is pretty much the way to go, then you can see if your roll supports that, given the expected risk of ruin, and see if you want to play.

If the risk of ruin is super-low, and you're willing to accept more risk, then you can run the calculation again at a higher hourly rate. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[ QUOTE ]
If you come up with a small enough bet size, you can make more money per hour with less risk by working at McDonald's, and you'll get free fries, to boot.

[/ QUOTE ]

Been there, done that (Wendy's).

Not going to do it again. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

--Dave.

[MexKrax]

I agree with pretty much everything in your post MentalNomad except this part...

[ QUOTE ]
When you bust out and cannot complete the bonus, not only do you bust out, but you also don't get the bonus. Busting out is a travesty because you still have time played at a disadvantage.

[/ QUOTE ]

If the casino gives you the bonus up front then busting out is not a big deal (assuming you are properly bankrolled). In fact, it can sometimes work to your advantage. This is mainly because you don't have to do any more of the wagering requirement once you've busted out. Bascially, busting out means you'll have less time played at a disadvantage, assuming that you have other bonuses that you can move on to. Also, when you bust out you increase your chances of getting juicy reload offers. Taken to an extreme you could cut the wagering requirement for every bonus in half by betting all your money on the first hand. Half the time you'll bust out and won't have to play through the WR. The other half you'll double your money and play through the WR. Of course, this would greatly increase your variance so it isn't for everyone.

[DavidC]

Homer:
[ QUOTE ]

No, you're right. There's no reason to reduce your betsize to lock in a profit.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm... how about stopping playing a bonus before completing the WR because your balance is at exactly your deposit?

I.E. You lose your bonus but get your deposit back?

This seems to me to have two flaws:

1) You get labelled a whore
2) You wouldn't be realistically able to increase your bet size much. I mean, let's say that you wanted to clear a $100 bonus with $25 bets at a 20x WR... your chances would be pretty high of busting before hitting the 80 hands, right?

I guess the counter to this is that if you kept hopping from bonus to bonus, it would effectively be just one big bonus, but I still don't understand all the hopping. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

--Dave.

[pokerpro2000]

[ QUOTE ]
Homer:
[ QUOTE ]

No, you're right. There's no reason to reduce your betsize to lock in a profit.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm... how about stopping playing a bonus before completing the WR because your balance is at exactly your deposit?

I.E. You lose your bonus but get your deposit back?

This seems to me to have two flaws:

1) You get labelled a whore
2) You wouldn't be realistically able to increase your bet size much. I mean, let's say that you wanted to clear a $100 bonus with $25 bets at a 20x WR... your chances would be pretty high of busting before hitting the 80 hands, right?

I guess the counter to this is that if you kept hopping from bonus to bonus, it would effectively be just one big bonus, but I still don't understand all the hopping. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

--Dave.

[/ QUOTE ]

You really need to do more homework. Each casino is different and have different withdrawl requirements. Many do not let you withdraw at all, if you have not met the wagering requirement. You deposit $100 get $100 bonus. You play with $200, make big bets. End up with like $1000. You want to lock in your profits and give up the bonus, but most places you can't withdraw any of it.