[IsaacW]

[ QUOTE ]
If you feel that you must earn one by playing $5 BJ, regardless of your strategy the odds of getting dealt a BJ (thus receiving $7.50) are on the order of 20-1. Probably the net expected loss by then, assuming perfect basic strategy (and not counting cards), would be on the order of $5-10, less the cost of your free drink.

[/ QUOTE ]

No way is the expected loss this high if you play perfect basic strategy. The question that jar is asking, I believe, is if it would be "cheaper" to buy a pink chip by playing $5 blackjack than by paying someone $3 for one.

According to the wizard most AC games carry a house edge of 0.43% for playing perfect BS.

In an 8-deck game (guessing here), the probability of getting blackjack (assuming no knowledge of the state of the shoe) is (32*128/2)/(416c2) = 2.37%, or about 41.1:1. So expect to give on average 42.1*$5 = $210.50 in action before receiving a blackjack. The expected loss on this action is $0.905. Of course, the variance in blackjack is pretty severe, and you may lose much more than this (or win a couple hundred [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]) when winning any particular pink chip.

Over a large number of trials, it is far cheaper to earn the chips playing $5 blackjack than to buy the $2.50 tokens for $3 each [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] Who knew?