Discount Gambling

By chance, I learned that the Ocean’s 11 cardroom offers a no-bust version of 21. As usual, I got myself worked up on the slim possibility that the game was better than intended, and set off to crack it. You can probably guess how the story ended. On the positive side, I improved my C++ programs to include a general BlackjackAnalyzer class, where you just subclass the Hand and DealerHand classes for any blackjack variation (just a few lines per rule). I also cleaned up some small bugs, and improved performance tremendously by making some small approximations. The analyzer returns the EV for the game in seconds, without simulation. Yay!

The bottom line is the No-Bust Blackjack yields a -0.18% edge for the bank, that is, before 1% house collection. So including collection, it has about twice the house edge as a typical 6-deck shoe game. See my O11 No-Bust BJ page for details and a basic strategy table. The game is characterized by a few different rules:

I spent a few days on the programs, but it was worth it. I’ll post them one day, to save others the effort of re-coding this common tool.