Better blackjack players

7 August 2016

By John Grochowski

QUESTION: You mentioned that casinos are saying players are better and they have a smaller house edge in blackjack than they did years ago. What does that mean to players? Why should I really care about this?

ANSWER: The main effect for players is a tightening of comps as casinos see less value in blackjack players.

A couple of decades ago, I was told in casino-sponsored seminar that the casino assumed a house edge of 2 to 2.5% against an average player. More recently, table games execs have told me they now assume an edge of 1% or less on games with 3-2 payoffs on blackjacks. At wizardofodds.com, Michael Shackleford has reported a figure of 0.75%.

Let’s say I play blackjack at $25 a hand and play long enough to make wagers totaling $10,000. That’s 400 hands, and that will take about seven to eight hours at a full seven-player table or less than two hours playing head-to-head with the dealer.

If the house assumes a 2% edge, then its theoretical win on my play is $200. If it assumes 1%, the theoretical drops to $100, and at 0.75% it’s just $75.

Comp levels have been reduced in post-recession belt-tightening, so let’s assume a casino that returns 10 to 20% of its theoretical win in the form of comps.

At 10%, my comps would be worth $20 at the casino assuming a 2 percent edge, $10 at 1% and $7.5 at 0.75%. At a 20% comp rate, it’d be $40, $20 and $15.

At equivalent rebate levels, the assumption of a lower house edge cut blackjack comps to half or less of former amounts.

There’s some irony in that this comes in a period of higher house edges against basic strategy players. Even most six-deck games have the dealer hit soft 17, which adds two-tenths of a percent to the house edge. Other rules have been tightened, too.

If the house-edge assumption is 2% and you’re playing basic strategy at a table with rules that yield a 0.3% edge a basic strategy player, you can fatten the comp account at low cost. If the assumption is a 1% edge and the rules are set so basic strategy takes you to only 0.7, the opportunity gap narrows in a hurry.


QUESTION: What do you think of playing $1 at a time in a dollar video poker machine instead of $1.25 on a quarter machine? My casino has 9/6 Double Bonus on dollars, but only 9/5 on quarters.

ANSWER: With a full five-coin bet, 9/6 Double Double Bonus brings a 98.98% return with expert play. But with fewer coins wagered, the return drops to 97.83%. That’s because you’re getting only 250-for-1 payoff on royal flushes instead of the 4,000-for-5 with a max-coins bet.
With a full five-coin bet, the drop to 9/5 DDB lowers the return to 97.87% – a hair higher than 9/6 DDB with short-coin wagers.

Per 1,000 bets, one coin at a time on a dollar 9/6 DDB game would risk $1,000 and lose an average of $21.70, while full coins on a quarter 9/5 DDB game would risk $1,250 and lose $26.62. So yes, your average losses would be slightly less money by betting $1 on the 9-6 game than $1.25 on the 9/5 version.

The tradeoff is that the max jackpot with your $1 bet is $250, while the $1.25 bet on the lower-level machine leaves open the 4,000-coin, $1,000 royal. It’s up to you to choose what you want out of the game.