| One thing the "6-5" rule does in blackjack is to change our basic strategy for insurance. Oh, we still skip insurance in most situations, but we do take even money on our blackjacks when the dealer shows an Ace--provided the house allows it. For some operators, short-changing customers on blackjack payoffs isn't enough of a squeeze. They ban the even-money play, too. Let's say we're betting $10 a hand, and have 1,000 hands in which we have blackjack and the dealer's up card is an Ace. If we take even money, we win $10 per hand for a total of $10,000, regardless of what the payoff is on blackjacks. If we take our chances and skip the insurance, on the average we'll win 692 hands and push on the 308 that the dealer matches our blackjack. If blackjack pays 3-2, we'll get $15 on each of our 692 wins, for a total of $10,380. That's $380 more profit than we'd show if we took even money, and it's why basic strategy says that non-card counters should just play out the hand instead of playing it safe. When blackjacks pay 6-5, we get just $12 on each of those wins for a total of $8,304. Now we're far better off taking even money. No wonder some casinos don't allow it. Of course, we're even better off not to get involved in this wretched game at all. If you're going to play blackjack, make sure you're getting the full 3-2 payoff on two-card 21s. Then you can relax and ignore insurance--even money and all--as usual. How many full houses, flushes and straights did she think she'd hit? "Quite a few. Those are the hands that kept me going, short payoffs or not." On the average, players hit about five or six full houses in 500 hands, five or six flushes and five or six straights. Playing 8-5-4 Double Bonus means that with five coins wagered, we're paid 10 coins less for each full house, five less for each flush and five less for each straight than if we were playing full-pay 10-7-5 Double Bonus. If we go conservative on the estimate and figure five of each of these hands in the hour, it means returns of 50 fewer coins per hour on full houses, 25 fewer on flushes and 25 fewer on straights. "What are you getting at?" Well, in an average hour--a bit below average, actually, since we used a low end estimate--she'd given away 100 coins, or $25, by playing the short-pay game. With similar luck on a full-pay machine, profits would have more than doubled. |
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