21 Madness
April 17, 2009
Dear Mark: What
do you know about 21 Madness? Is it a decent bet
for the player? Kenny B.
Here’s another one of those side bets in
blackjack, Kenny, that sort of looks good, but
just can’t pass the smell test.
Kenny is referring to a $1 wager the casino
allows you to make, in addition to your regular
blackjack bet, that you will be dealt a two-card
21. Your natural allows you to push a button
that starts a lighted display, governed by a
slot machine-like random number generator, that
stops to reveal a bonus payoff from $5 to
$1,000.
Here’s the skinny, Kenny. Blackjacks occur
roughly once every 21 hands. So, think
break-even bet if the average payoff is $21.
Yet, through personal observation over a period
of time, and sniffing around the internet and
forums, I’m seeing/hearing that the average
payoff is around $16, which gives the house an
edge of 23.8 percent.
Of course, sniff testing doesn’t allow me to
give you a precise figure, and the average
payoff could be lower, could even be higher, and
a card counter sitting on a very high plus count
might want to take a whack at it, but my
guidance for the average player would be to stay
clear of it.
Dear Mark: What is better for the
player, a dealer who hits a soft 17 or one who
doesn’t? Brad N.
The dealer who doesn’t, Brad. The house edge is
lowered by approximately 0.2 percent if the
dealer stands on all 17s.
Dear Mark: I play Three Card Poker, and
stick exclusively with the Pair Plus bet. It
seems I can stay on the table for a longer
period of time playing this way over the Ante
wager. Any merit to my way of playing? Dave S.
For starters, Dave, if you are asking me if it’s
the best casino table game to play in the
casino, the answer is NO. If you are also asking
me if it’s the best bet table game to play at
Three Card poker, the answer is still NO.
But seeing that it seems to be a game you enjoy,
and because the difference in the house edge is
ever so slight, I’ll cut you some slack here.
What Dave’s talking about is that he’s making a
wager that his hand will consist of a pair or
higher (Pair Plus).
Betting on a pair is a simple matter of making a
Pair Plus wager. You know immediately whether
you have won a Pair Plus payoff as soon as you
look at your cards. With a Pair Plus bet there
is no raising or discarding, and the dealer’s
cards are immaterial.
Payoffs on Pair Plus wagers are made according
to the following schedule, regardless of the
dealer’s hand:
Straight flush: 40 to 1
Three of a kind: 30 to 1
Straight: 6 to 1
Flush: 4 to 1
Pair: Even money
Besides Pair Plus being about the simplest wager
to make, of all the new poker-based table games,
this game has the lowest house edge. The wager
Dave mentioned in his question, the Pair Plus
option, has a house edge of about 2.3 percent,
whereas the other option, the Ante wager, is
about 2.1%; as long as your betting strategy,
when making the “Play” wager, is to have at
least a queen, six, and a four in your hand.
The Sine qua non here, Dave, is to have fun and
have at Pair Plus.
Gambling Wisdom of the Week: “Yup,
playing the stock market is gambling. We hope
this doesn’t come as a surprise.” --Lou Krieger
& Arthur Reber, Casino Player magazine
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