Casino Promotion Question

B

BOND

Active Member
#1
#1
A casino recently had the following blackjack promotion: if the player is dealt two face cards that value ten each and the house is dealt one face card with a ten value, the player can ask to receive his bet plus one-half of his bet to end the hand. No hole card is dealt.

1)Does anyone know what is the approximate off the top advantage for this rule?

2)If the player is using hi-low at what counts should the player accept this promotion offer?
 
B

Blue Efficacy

Well-Known Member
#2
#2
Hmm, there is a similar thing to this called Casino Surrender Automatic Win in certain casinos. However, they check for blackjack first.

Without a hole card dealt, this seems a much better proposition.

The count should still be somewhat high to take it though, I would think.
 
W

WRX

Well-Known Member
#3
#3
In his discussion of Casino Surrender, the Wizard of Odds shows the expected value of TT vs. T, AFTER the dealer has checked for blackjack (and doesn't have it), for 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8 decks, as:

0.585315
0.568553
0.561473
0.560074
0.559145
0.557987

This promotion allows you to claim the "casino surrender" BEFORE the dealer checks for blackjack. A back-of-the envelope calculation would be as follows. Assume that the probability of the dealer getting an ace in the hole is 1/13. (This is not quite accurate, of course.) Then the expected value of TT, if you don't force casino surrender, is (1 - 1/13) times the Wizard's number, minus 1/13. This results in the following expectations:

0.4633677
0.4478951
0.4413597
0.4400683
0.4392108
0.4381418

So for any number of decks, forcing casino surrender, with an expected value of .5, is favorable. Next step is to work out the frequency of the situation arising, and the impact on your overall edge. Did you say that all three cards have to be face cards? Not 10-pips?
 
D

DownUnderWonder

Active Member
#4
#4
I did a combinatorial analysis for a similar option in SP21 in this thread http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?t=14728&page=2

Luckily, i still had the spreadsheet and modified it for your situation.

The only relevant assumptions were that the dealer stands on all 17s and that you stand on 10,10 (no splits).

The EV for 10,10 vs 10 in these conditions was 0.437 for 8 decks and 0.440 for 4 decks (off the top of the shoe), so not a whole lot of variation. Given the option to take a win of 0.5 it is indeed a good bet to take, giving you 6-6.3% of your bet in EV more than standing. Some rough calculations for hi-low showed that at -1 this option is still +EV but at -2 it is a bad option. As the count gets higher the option becomes more and more worthwhile.

If you are interested in the spreadsheet for this I can make up one for you, just let me know.

10,10 vs 10 will occur a little under 3% of the time off the top of an 8 deck shoe, so this promo isnt exactly giving away the house for a BS player, but for a counter that is taking this option during high counts with large bets out, the 6+% EV on the large bets combined with the reduction in variance make it really attractive. If you take it four times per hour on average $100 bets (more likely to occur at higher counts) its worth more than a green chip per hour.
 
C

Cardcounter

Well-Known Member
#5
#5
It is casino surreneder and winning half your bet when you have 20 is a bad deal. Even if the dealer has a ten up and has a 30% chance of beating you!
Time to take it might be true count of plus 10. I might take a casino surrender against an ace when the dealer doesn't have a hole card and could get blackjack. If the dealer checks for blackjack I probably wouldn't take it!
 
D

DownUnderWonder

Active Member
#6
#6
Cardcounter said:
It is casino surreneder and winning half your bet when you have 20 is a bad deal. Even if the dealer has a ten up and has a 30% chance of beating you!
Time to take it might be true count of plus 10. I might take a casino surrender against an ace when the dealer doesn't have a hole card and could get blackjack. If the dealer checks for blackjack I probably wouldn't take it!
Click to expand...
Have any math to back that up? Giving advice on things like this based on your intuition is a really bad idea.
 
T

tripsix

Well-Known Member
#8
#8
Sorry CC. . .

Cardcounter said:
It is casino surreneder and winning half your bet when you have 20 is a bad deal. Even if the dealer has a ten up and has a 30% chance of beating you!
Time to take it might be true count of plus 10. I might take a casino surrender against an ace when the dealer doesn't have a hole card and could get blackjack. If the dealer checks for blackjack I probably wouldn't take it!
Click to expand...
numbers don't lie. As expected WRX's approximations were pretty close. Off the top for 1,2,4,5,6 and 8 deck are

0.455901531
0.444311178
0.439601937
0.438667463
0.438046359
0.4372713

As the count rises the chance of a dealer tie also increases especially with a 10 showing.
These numbers are for T,T vs dealer T as described in the question.

Hope this helps
 
B

BOND

Active Member
#10
#10
Thanks for the input

Since the dealor does not check for blackjack, this "promotion" is in favor of the player, unlike many so-called "promotions" that work against the player.

I derived similar EV numbers and appreciate the confirmations.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top