Perfect Charlie @ Fort McDowell, AZ
There’s a blackjack bonus sidebet at Fort McDowell Casino near Phoenix, AZ that offers huge payouts for a $.25 bet (you can only bet a quarter). I remember seeing this strange bet a while back, and was always curious about it. I called across state lines to find out the details, and got out the paper and pencil to calculate the house edge for a six-deck shoe.
It’s called “Perfect Charlie”, and pays jackpots for 5-card 21’s (2-3-4-5-7), with different payouts for suited and/or ordered hands. The bet also pays off hands that start off as Perfect Charlies, but don’t make it (like 2-3-4, 2-3-4-5, etc.).
I wrote up an OpenOffice spreadsheet to calculate the odds. I wanted to include the spreadsheet source in this post, but WordPress.com won’t let me upload the .ods document 😦 Fortunately, OpenOffice exports spreadsheets to html.
This is a pretty obscure sidebet, which is probably only found at Fort McDowell. Nothing popped up immediately on Google for this, so I’m having a millionth-monkey moment here (i.e., when you realise you’re the millionth-monkey pounding at the keyboard, and all-of-a-sudden Shakespeare is on the screen).
The bet is pretty horrible in terms of house edge, but want do you want for a quarter? Or actually, ($.25)(1-.6478) = 8.8¢. You get the chance to win up to $70,000, while the house has an equally small chance of getting rich off this sidebet.
| Fort McDowell Blackjack Bonus | |||||
| Bet | Hand | Conditions | Payout | Probability | Return |
| $0.25 | 2,3,4 | offsuit, any order | $10.00 | 1.98E-03 | 8.11% |
| $0.25 | 2,3,4 | offsuit, in order | $37.50 | 3.96E-04 | 5.98% |
| $0.25 | 2,3,4 | suited, any order | $75.00 | 1.41E-04 | 4.24% |
| $0.25 | 2,3,4 | suited, in order | $500.00 | 2.82E-05 | 5.64% |
| $0.25 | 2,3,4,5 | offsuit, any order | $25.00 | 7.44E-04 | 7.52% |
| $0.25 | 2,3,4,5 | offsuit, in order | $250.00 | 3.24E-05 | 3.24% |
| $0.25 | 2,3,4,5 | suited, any order | $1,000.00 | 1.26E-05 | 5.03% |
| $0.25 | 2,3,4,5 | suited, in order | $10,000.00 | 5.47E-07 | 2.19% |
| $0.25 | 2,3,4,5,7 | offsuit, any order | $50.00 | 3.30E-04 | 6.63% |
| $0.25 | 2,3,4,5,7 | offsuit, in order | $5,000.00 | 2.77E-06 | 5.54% |
| $0.25 | 2,3,4,5,7 | suited, any order | $20,000.00 | 1.29E-06 | 10.34% |
| $0.25 | 2,3,4,5,7 | suited, in order | $75,000.00 | 1.09E-08 | 0.33% |
| total | 64.78% | ||||
| decks | 6 |
Millionth monkey indeed! This blog is the only information I’ve been able to find about Perfect Charlie outside of the establishment itself. I just visited a few days ago and stupidly didn’t take their flyer home that explains the rules and payouts. I couldn’t mentally process the rules while keeping track of the table, so I dismissed the side bet as an automatic 8% house edge on the $3 table.
When you called, did you ask what the specifics were regarding what qualifies for the bonus? I remember reading something about having the Charlie start with specific cards on the deal- what were they?
There was a second rule about only being awarded for sequential cards, I believe- I watched a player get dealt 2d 3d 4h 4d and only get paid for the 2-3-4 offsuit in-order.
Keep up the good work!
Would tell me how to receive my win loss statement, Please
You should be able to get your win-loss statement from either the cage, or from the player rewards desk. If you ask for your “win-loss statement”, they’ll know what you want, and they’ll tell you where to get it.
played one day there
hit a 234 diamonds in order had a chance for 20 grand if the 5d came in
had about a 1 in 52 of getting paid 80,000 to 1 ! didn’t happen
got the $500 instead
I won $1000,00 the last time I was there.