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

3 Responses

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Rialb Anivar said, on November 21, 2013 at 10:13 am

Sir Stephen, how did you compute for the frequency of achieving 22 points (suited dealer 22, same color 22, other 22, total possible outcomes) ? We are using 5 decks for Free Bet Blackjack here in the Philippines so I assumed that it will slightly affect the probability. Thank you in advance.

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Francisco Lopez said, on February 27, 2014 at 4:54 pm

Is Free bet BJ beatable with the Hi/Lo counting system?

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sky said, on April 8, 2015 at 9:33 pm

Thank you for all your time and work Stephen. One of the best and most complete site on casino gaming. You must be quite busy lately since we have not seen any updates. I know it has been asked few times before but I’m really interested into knowing the EOR of freebet blackjack, if it happens you have time to post, may you let us know at the same time with which counting system will it be most suitable. Thanks again for everything

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