August | 2013 | Discount Gambling

Free Bet Blackjack @ Viejas Casino

Posted in free bet blackjack by stephenhow on August 23, 2013

For now, Viejas is offering a liberal interpretation of the Free Bet Blackjack rules, where they’ll now let you free double on two card soft 19, 20, and 21. The rules printed on the felt say free doubles only on hard 9, 10, and 11, but they’ve interpreted A-8 to mean hard 9, A-9 to mean hard 10, and A-Ten/Face to mean hard 11. This is only slightly helpful to the player.

The Viejas rules are:

Free double on two card hard 9, 10, 11
Free double on two card soft-19, soft-20, and Blackjack
No re-split of Aces
No surrender
Free double after free split

The house edge is 0.88%, which isn’t too bad. Without the free doubles on the soft totals, the house edge would be 1.10%. I guess the free doubles on the soft totals make up for the lack of surrender. The basic strategy for the non-free-split hand is listed below. Refer to the original post for the basic strategy for free-split hands.

Hand	Dealer Upcard
Hand	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	A
Soft Totals
soft 21	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S
soft 20	S	FD	FD	FD	FD	S	S	S	S	S
soft 19	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	S	FD	FD	FD
soft 18	S	S	S	D	D	S	S	H	H	H
soft 17	H	H	H	D	D	H	H	H	H	H
soft 16	H	H	H	H	D	H	H	H	H	H
soft 15	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H
soft 14	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H
soft 13	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H
Hard Totals
hard 20	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S
hard 19	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S
hard 18	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S
hard 17	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S
hard 16	S	S	S	S	S	H	H	H	H	H
hard 15	S	S	S	S	S	H	H	H	H	H
hard 14	S	S	S	S	S	H	H	H	H	H
hard 13	H	S	S	S	S	H	H	H	H	H
hard 12	H	H	H	H	S	H	H	H	H	H
hard 11	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD
hard 10	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD
hard 9	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD
hard 8	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H
hard 7	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H
hard 6	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H
hard 5	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H
Pairs
A-A	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP
10-10	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S
9-9	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP
8-8	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP
7-7	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP
6-6	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP
5-5	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD	FD
4-4	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP
3-3	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP
2-2	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP	FP

3 comments

Push 22 Side Bet @ Viejas Casino

Posted in +EV, blackjack sidebets, free bet blackjack by stephenhow on August 22, 2013

My local Viejas Casino just installed Free Bet Blackjack, a game I worked on for Geoff Hall and ShuffleMaster. There’s a side bet on the game called “Push 22”, that I did not work on (until I got back from Viejas last night). I figured I’d check if it was you-know-what.

The bet has some nice payouts, and is a natural match for a game where the dealer pushes all bets on a 22 bust. For a 6-deck shoe, the game has a 5.85% house edge. Not too bad, considering the odds it pays.

Push-22 Side Bet (6 Decks)
Outcome	Frequency	Payout	Return
Suited Dealer 22	0.003327	50-to-1	0.166345
Same Colour Dealer 22	0.011659	20-to-1	0.233174
Other Dealer 22	0.058551	8-to-1	0.468405
Dealer Not 22	0.926464	lose	-0.926464
Total	1.000000		-0.058540