Lucky Ladies almost strikes me again!

#1
I was playing blackjack tonight and got 2 Queens of Hearts. The count was negative so I wasn't betting the Lucky Ladies. The dealer showed an ace and one of the ploppies took insurance because he "knew the dealer had blackjack" and he was adamant that I should have bet the Lucky Ladies. The dealer turned over a king!

Just last week I was playing blackjack in Vegas and got 2 Queens of Hearts in a monster count, but no dealer blackjack, but I still won $2000 and a backoff from that casino for hitting the Lucky Ladies.

But it's ploppy logic to say that I should have been betting the Lucky Ladies at that time after the fact. The matter of fact is, I got a 20 and dealer had blackjack and I lost a minimum bet.
 

prankster

Well-Known Member
#2
I've never made a Lucky Ladies bet. Twice I've gotten two queen of hearts when the dealer got blackjack and once I witnessed it happen to a player to my left. In all three instances no bet was on the Lucky Ladies bet. I've read that the odds of you getting the two queen of hearts as the dealer gets a blackjack are almost 70,000 to 1 in a shoe game.:joker::laugh::eek:
 

prankster

Well-Known Member
#4
Some years back I'm walking past this table and everyone erupts loudly. Turns out this elderly lady just got two Queen of Hearts for the second time in just a few minutes. She was happy!:laugh::laugh::laugh: She was betting.
 
#5
As a counter, you have to bet the Lucky Ladies at the right time. It's +EV over +7, and just one big hit can potentially increase your bankroll to raise your stakes, such as from a red chipper to a green chipper or green to black. At very high counts, just the "Any 20" payout is enough to make it +EV. Lucky Ladies is more profitable than insurance in monster counts.
 

Southpaw

Well-Known Member
#7
Does anyone have a link to a chart displaying the adv. AND var. associated with the LL bet at each particular TC?

Thanks,

Spaw
 
#9
alwayssplitaces said:
Just last week I was playing blackjack in Vegas and got 2 Queens of Hearts in a monster count, but no dealer blackjack, but I still won $2000 and a backoff from that casino for hitting the Lucky Ladies.
Monster count - I missed your previous response - why only $10 LL bet in a "monster count?" zg
 

Southpaw

Well-Known Member
#10
Holy blackjack, the advantage grows quickly on this bet after the break even point!

Does anyone know why the standard deviation is reported as being so low (i.e., 0.0X)? Intuitively I would think the S.d. would be higher than a normal blackjack hand (~1.1) because despite being +EV at times, you will still lose the LL bet most times, but the times you win, you win more than 1:1, thus equating to higher variance and S.d. So why is it being reported as so low here?

Spaw
 
#11
Southpaw said:
Holy blackjack, the advantage grows quickly on this bet after the break even point!

Does anyone know why the standard deviation is reported as being so low (i.e., 0.0X)? Intuitively I would think the S.d. would be higher than a normal blackjack hand (~1.1) because despite being +EV at times, you will still lose the LL bet most times, but the times you win, you win more than 1:1, thus equating to higher variance and S.d. So why is it being reported as so low here?

Spaw
Panama Ricks scheme is for 125 version. Here is the 200 version -
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showpost.php?p=8134&postcount=14
 
#13
zengrifter said:
Monster count - I missed your previous response - why only $10 LL bet in a "monster count?" zg
Because the maximum payoff was $10000.

At this casino where I got 2Qh and dealer blackjack, the max payoff was $25000 so I would have bet $25 in a high count. But since the count was low, I was doing the right thing and betting $0.
 
#14
alwayssplitaces said:
Because the maximum payoff was $10000.
Irrellevant. What I think we are dealing with is that you lacked confidence with LLs, so even though the LL bet at monster count had a higher +EV than you main bet, you were afraid to to place $25 at the appropriate time. yes? zg
 

mikeyd

Active Member
#15
Lucky Ladies

Arnold Snyder in The Big Book of Blackjack says to never place a Lucky Ladies bet in the first 4 decks of a 6 deck shoe no matter how high the count, but doesn't explain the reason for this. Does anyone have any stats supporting this?

He also says he thinks LL is a bad bet in a 6 deck shoe game primarily because the fluctuations can be high compared to the win potential.
Apparently this is because the +EV comes from the long shot payoffs of 200:1 or 1000:1 which are pretty infrequent.

After reading this post & an earlier post from Automatic Monkey with the strike points for different counts, I started playing LL10 (4-10-25-200-1000) at High-Low of +5. I was betting 1 unit on LL when my regular bet is 10 units. Seems to me that flux can't be too bad when LL bet is small compared to regular bet. I expect to have alot of days with a small loss from this bet, but the 200:1 or 1000:1 payoff can make up for alot of small losses.
 
#16
mikeyd said:
Arnold Snyder in The Big Book of Blackjack says to never place a Lucky Ladies bet in the first 4 decks of a 6 deck shoe no matter how high the count, but doesn't explain the reason for this. Does anyone have any stats supporting this?

He also says he thinks LL is a bad bet in a 6 deck shoe game primarily because the fluctuations can be high compared to the win potential.
Apparently this is because the +EV comes from the long shot payoffs of 200:1 or 1000:1 which are pretty infrequent.

After reading this post & an earlier post from Automatic Monkey with the strike points for different counts, I started playing LL10 (4-10-25-200-1000) at High-Low of +5. I was betting 1 unit on LL when my regular bet is 10 units. Seems to me that flux can't be too bad when LL bet is small compared to regular bet. I expect to have alot of days with a small loss from this bet, but the 200:1 or 1000:1 payoff can make up for alot of small losses.
I don't know what Arnold means by that. It is certainly a high variance bet- anything that pays much more than even money is- but if it's only a quarter you're going to have to be really unlucky for it to hurt your BR.

If the variance bothers you, just take the bet at a slightly higher count. It goes up a few percent per TC. Also not all of the value comes from the high payouts, especially on the LL10 version. You make enough on the 4:1 through 25:1 to pay the rent once you're a little bit about the strike point.
 
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