Any BlackJack Whizzes Out There???

[cincyfred]

Just curious:

I helped run a Blackjack Tent for a local Charity Festival this weekend and the rules were as follows:

1. 2 Decks

2. Blackjack Pays 3:2

3. House Wins Ties

4. Player can only double down on 10 or 11.

5. No insurance offered

6. All other conventional rules apply.

Anybody care to compute our house edge for this particular Blackjack game?? My guess is that it was over 60:40 in the House's favor.

 

[sickgambler]

i don't even want to figure out the hold for the house right now because it will be scary.. But why in the world would you want to know for? Why even consider going to play there for? Ties you lose? Do you have any idea how often a push occurs in BJ? I can estimate roughly 1 in 6 hands. So that means you would win roughly 41% of your hands, and lose 59% of them. In 100 hands, you'd win 41, push on 17 of them (which is a loss), and lose roughly 42 of them.. So the casino hold would be roughly 18-19%..

That's not good when it usually is about 1% in Basic Strategy Blackjack..

 

[RobFunk]

House wins ties that is tough with no insurance that is really really tough. especially when you both have BJ. nothing like pulling a natural and losing your bet.

 

[CedarCreaker]

CHARITY!!!! WHY DIDN'T THE PEOPLE JUST GIVE YOU THEIR MONEY....TIES WINNING FOR THE HOUSE IS BIG....NO INSURANCE IS NO BIG DEAL AS THAT IS A HOUSE ADVANTAGE BET ANWAY AND SHOULD BE AVOIDED BY PLAYERS!!! WHAT WAS THE CHARITY..."THE RIGHT HIP POCKET"

 

[sickgambler]

Playing BJ with pushes being losses is equivalent to playing sports and laying -150 on every game, rather than laying -105 or -110..

Imagine having to lay -150 on every game.. Well, it's the exact same thing as playing BJ with pushes being losses.

It's hard enough to beat sports laying -105 or -110.. Imagine if you had to lay -150???

 

[JJF]

These are typical blackjack rules in events used to raise money for charity, especially the one on the house winning ties. Even with that one rule, you have no chance to come out ahead. Not only does it increase the house edge significantly, but it makes basic strategy almost useless. For example, you would have to hit hard 17's, etc.

Players are not supposed to win money at events like this. The only plus side is that usually the minimum bets are very low. I was at one once in NY where the minimum bet was 50 cents and the maximum was $2. So even with the low minimums, they end up making a lot of money because of the bad rules.

 

[RobFunk]

it is a house advantage bet cedar, however if you have BJ and ties lose it would help the cause when he shows A. . .its a double whammy. no pay on BJ/BJ and you also lose the bet

 

[cincyfred]

Sick Gambler;

I wasn't playing there, I was helping run the Blackjack tent for the CHARITY.

The minimum bet was $2 and the MAX bet was $20.00.

One thing I failed to mention was that if both the player and the dealer had a Blackjack, then it was a PUSH. It was the ONLY time that the House would push with the player.

 

[RobFunk]

2 to 20 is also a terrible bet spread. no reason to even take that game serious. it is all for fun and charity anyways, tough to walk away with any signifigant $$ and not feel a little guilty.

 

[RIOSHILL]

Sounds like my first bookie in college. All Pk ems were minus 1.5 on each side. I was dumb enough to accept the anal intrusion.

 

[monicus]

A one deck game with DD on 9,10 & 11, early surrender, yields a -.51% advantage.
1 2 decks, add -.35
2 standard
3 house wins ties add -9.00%!
4 DD on 10 or 11 add -.14
5 no ins. no change
Total = -10.00% player advantage.

 

[sickgambler]

rio baby, don't feel so bad, your bookie was a dream compared to mine back in the 80's.. hockey lines were all split lines (0.5/1)and pushes you lost, believe it or not, even where ties occur 1 in 5 games in hockey..

NFL.. all his lines were flat numbers like 3,4,6,7,10,14 and if any game landed on a number, you'd lose. No buying half pts allowed. If you had a 4 team parlay and won 3 and tied 1 game, you LOST the parlay..

NBA... Any tie, you lose the bet

MLB.. 40 cent line, NO JOKE.. -160/+120..

_________

Today, this guy is living in a mansion and is playing golf 6 days a week... Not only that, the kid had about 300 customers every season..

 

[DarrylParsons]

What Monicus said looks right. The way to interpret that -10% is that if the player makes, say 100 bets of $10 each, the house can expect to make 10%x$10x100, or $100 in profit from this player, assuming he plays perfect basic strategy. For a typical player (who makes a lot of mistakes) you can add about 3 or 4 more % to that to make the edge 13-14% which makes the profit in this case $130-$140.