Question of the Day — 4 Aug 2024

What is the impact to a casino offering 6-5 vs. 3-2 blackjack? How much money is made with 6-5? How much action is lost by gamblers such as myself who refuse to play in a casino that offers it? I'm assuming the benefit outweighs the risk, because that's why they do it, but from reading all of your stories about casino management, they seem to get a lot of stuff wrong, since things come and go so often. I'm sure that knowledgeable gamblers such as LVA subscribers are the vast minority, but if casinos still offer it, there must be a reason why.

Right. Casinos "still" offer 6-5 blackjack, because there's a major benefit to doing so. 

We doubt that they even bother trying to quantify how much business is lost by dealing 6-5 compared to 3-2. Why should they, when all their 6-5 blackjack tables are full and, in fact, they don't want people who know the difference to play? They don't have to worry about card counters sitting down at a 6-5 table; it's an almost foolproof countermeasure.

Meanwhile, here's the math.

Let’s assume an average blackjack table, rules-wise: double on any two cards, double after split, no re-splitting aces, and late surrender. When natural blackjacks pay 3-2, the house edge is 0.55%, or a little more than a half-percentage point. Not bad. Changing only the payoff for blackjacks to 6-5, the house edge climbs to 1.9%, 3.5 times worse than 3-2.

No one won’t recognize that paying nearly four times more for the same product is way more expensive than it should be. Which would you rather pay for your Advisor membership, $50 or $175? No brainer, of course. But that's the choice players make when they sit down at a 6-5 table. We can only imagine all the money people have thrown away on 6-5 blackjack tables, when they could’ve simply gone to the casino next door or up the street to pay 3.5 times less.

So yes, there's a very good reason that casinos still offer 6-5 blackjack: This one little difference in the payout for natural blackjacks is extremely lucrative for them.  

 

 


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