Cyclingimpie:
I have played only one side bet on Blackjack and I think I've described it before so won't go into a lot of detail. It is one where you can place money on the possibility of either you, the dealer or both getting "20's" on the first two cards. I don't bet it all the time, but when the count is high, it is not a bad bet.
As for the other table games....I'm not tempted to play them. I've very tunnelvisioned when it comes to my gambling. About the only deviation from Blackjack for me is video poker, and that only seldom.
I took $200 to a casino this past Saturday, bought in for $100 and played for 12 hours with only a 1 hour break for a comp'd meal. I never got ahead during that play. Once I was down to my last red chip and won back up to the original $100 and then lost it all and bought in for another $100. When I colored up, I was mildly surprised to discover that I was only down $40 for the long session. This play was on a 6-deck shoe that was shuffled by Shuffle Master. The rules were H17's, DOA, DAS, RSA and blackjacks were 3:2. Both times I lost big, it was in just over one shoe. Very fast. The wins were much slower in that I had to deal with several "break even" shoes before hitting one where I actually came out ahead and it took a bunch of "ahead" shoes to recover my loses. I will cash in my comps on my next trip to Kansas City and should have enough to get enough fudge from the bakery to constitute part of our Christmas presents <LOL>