Royal Match 21 machines in Vegas casinos

[Caesar]

I've just returned from a trip to Vegas. I went to a lot of casinos and noticed a blackjack game with a dealer on a screen-usually a comely woman. These Royal Match machines have the following characteristics:

BJ pays 6 to 5
Surrender
Dealer stands on s17
Dbl any two
No resplitting
Split aces get one card each
Single deck shuffled each round

The machine offers various bonuses. Due to the 6/5 payout on blackjacks, I assume the casino has an edge over a skilled player. But I wonder what that edge is? Is it small enough that a promotion could turn it into a positive EV game?

[Blue Efficacy]

DAS, yes/no? The casino will have a decent edge regardless, though, the 6:5 kills it.

[shadroch]

Where did you see these?
Most RM machines pay 3/2, and deal 2/3rds of a six deck shoe.What are the various bonuses?

[FLASH1296]

Even with the best of rules the 6:5 BJ payoff kills all BJ games.

If all rules are identical the one with the 6:5 BJ payoff will have a
House Advantage accelerated by an absurd 2.35% !

In other words, if the game with the proper BJ payoff of 3:2 has a
H.A. of let us say .15% the change to the larcenous BJ premium
raises the house advantage from .15% to 2.50%

So ... it accelerates the player's handicap by a factor of almost 17 !

Besides, if the deck is always being shuffled, it is impossible to gain an advantage of any kind.

Tourists know no better. You do (now).

[Caesar]

They were at Sahara's and some other properties. They often had players using them. I did not play a single hand. But I met a guy who claimed they were beatable, so I jotted down some numbers before leaving. I don't know exactly what the bonuses are but I think there's one for a suited blackjack and some others. The various bonuses, surrender, and the single deck are good for the player, but the 6/5 payouts are just too much to overcome. Still, assuming perfect play, I wonder what the casino edge is? I checked the Wizard of Odds but could not find anything on his site.
By the way, Sahara's is advertising its dollar blackjack(regular tables, not Match 21), dollar hotdogs, dollar beers, and dollar shots. The hotdogs, beer, and shots were great, but I avoided the blackjack. Its dollar games have very poor rules. This dollar promotion was mentioned in the last issue of The Player's Edge in the Las-Vegas Review Journal.

[Caesar]

Flash, you said that the dreadful 6/5 payout for BJ gives the house an edge of 2.35%. On the Wizard of Odd's site, he gives a figure of 1.39% as the house edge for this rule. As a poker player, maybe I'm missing something somewhere! I mean I avoid 6/5 games like the plague, but there is a one percent difference between our figures.

[callipygian]

Originally Posted by Caesar

Flash, you said that the dreadful 6/5 payout for BJ gives the house an edge of 2.35%. On the Wizard of Odd's site, he gives a figure of 1.39% as the house edge for this rule.

Wizard of Odds is correct.

For an infinite deck,

BJ(3/2) = 0.5*(2*4/13*1/13)*(1-2*4/13*1/13)
BJ(6/5) = 0.2*(2*4/13*1/13)*(1-2*4/13*1/13)

The difference between the two is 1.35%.

Flash1296 may be thinking of blackjack paying out 1:1.

BJ(1/1) = 0
BJ(3/2) - BJ(1/1) = 2.25%

[callipygian]

Originally Posted by Caesar

I avoid 6/5 games like the plague

Keep in mind that, while the baseline EV dropping has a big part to do with this, card counters have a second reason to avoid 6:5 games - the effect of card counting is reduced.

That is, for every true count increment on a 3:2 game, your EV goes up by about 0.6%. If you start off with a game around -0.6%, you're even by TC+1 and can build up a 2.5% advantage by TC+5.

In contrast, in a 6:5 game, each true count increment only count for about 0.5%. So you start off with a game at -2.0%, but even if you didn't (for example, 6:5 with 5-card charlies which offset each other in terms of EV), you wouldn't be able to build up the same advantage as the count goes high - the same TC+5 count gives you less than a 2.0% advantage. (5-card charlies actually decrease the effect of card counting even more because small cards are more likely to trigger the 5-card charlie)

[Beazle]

Been reading the board of awhile now and was just in Vegas. Unless they changed it in the last week the BJ machine in the Sahara and Luxor both pay 3:2 for BJ. The Sahara machine is a $3 min machine and the Luxor is a $5 min. For killing time with friends it beats playing CSM tables.

The $1 min tables are the Sahara are 6:5 games

[FLASH1296]

Ooops My (big) error.

Sorry.