Blackjack with promotion rules.

[fluff]

Hi all,

A local casino is having a blackjack promotion once a week where suited blackjack, 6-7-8 and 7-7-7 (any suit) pays 2:1.

The other rules are:

8 decks, hit soft 17, double any 2, double after split, resplit to 4 hands, and late surrender.

Anyone know if this game is +EV, and if not, what the house edge is?

Thanks!

[lunchmeat]

It's hard to say what the house advantage is over basic strategy, because with the rule changes it is difficult to know what basic stretegy is. To find out, you would have to figure out how to do some monte carlo sims.

Without the rule changes, the house edge is about .55% over basic, so I doubt the rule changes are enough to make basic strategy +EV. However, this would probably be a great game to count because the house edge would be much lower than usual. Again, the trick would be to figure out how to run your own monte carlo sims so you would know how to correctly alter your strategy.

[Iceman]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi all,

A local casino is having a blackjack promotion once a week where suited blackjack, 6-7-8 and 7-7-7 (any suit) pays 2:1.

The other rules are:

8 decks, hit soft 17, double any 2, double after split, resplit to 4 hands, and late surrender.

Anyone know if this game is +EV, and if not, what the house edge is?

Thanks!

[/ QUOTE ]

Given those rules it's -.56% not counting the promotions. Assuming an infinite deck, suited blackjack comes up about 1/84.5 hands and pays 2/1 instead of 3/2, so that's a 1/338 difference, about +.3%. The bonuses for 777 and 678 aren't worth that much, since it would often be worth standing on your first two cards anyway (or splitting in the case of the 7s). They would come up about 7/2000 times if you always hit 67/68/77/78, but since you'd stand or split against dealer upcards 2-6, they come up about 8/13 of that time, or 56/26000, about +.2%. So with those promotions the game is probably about only a .06% house edge, and rough card counting would probably make it plus-EV.

[Thythe]

These are the same rules at the Canterbury Card Club in Minnesota (maybe that's what you're talking about). The last time I was there, though, you had to pay a 50 cent premium to the casino on every hand to help "pay" for these bonuses. They also gave out $500 for 3 blackjacks in a row and $1000 for 4 in a row. The 50 cents per hand is ridiculous, though, and I would never play.

[Your Mom]

I've heard about that .50 thing going on in indian casinos. Ridiculous. Makes the game unbeatable.

[Ed Miller]

Ridiculous. Makes the game unbeatable.

Isn't that the point?

[Thythe]

[ QUOTE ]
Isn't that the point?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, but that doesn't mean we have to like it.

[fluff]

Thanks for the input guys.

No this isn't at Canterbury, so they don't have the 50c rule (they also don't have the $500+ payout for hitting 3-4 blackjacks in a row).

So this is a very slight -EV game. Should be pretty good for a card counter though, their penetration is typically 75%+

[Nemesis]

I know the basic books of poker, what are the basic books of blackjack/card counting. I want to be able to vary up my casino gaming and have fun at the tables for an hour or 2 while waiting to get a seat at poker without busting my bankroll. Break even basically is what i'd look for as the entertainment/comp value would be great to me.

[Homer]

I know the basic books of poker, what are the basic books of blackjack/card counting. I want to be able to vary up my casino gaming and have fun at the tables for an hour or 2 while waiting to get a seat at poker without busting my bankroll. Break even basically is what i'd look for as the entertainment/comp value would be great to me.

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