How Blackjack Can Help Your Poker Bankroll
It sounds counterintuitive — that playing blackjack online can contribute to the health and wealth of your poker bankroll. How can a game in which the house wins in the long run (the house edge in an eight-deck shoe can be about .43 percent) make you money in the long run? The answer is online casino incentive bonuses. Poker players who don’t take advantage of this “free money” are hurting themselves in the long run.
Online casino bonuses work very similarly to how online poker bonuses work: you deposit a set amount (say $100) and you get a bonus from 20 percent of your deposit up to 100 percent or more. (Golden Palace Casino offers a whopping 300 percent bonus up to $300!).
In order to cash out the bonus, you have to play a certain number of bets at the online casino. This is called the Wager Requirement and you can find out how much you must wager in bets in the Terms and Conditions for a particular online casino’s promotion. If you’re playing blackjack, then you have to play a certain number of hands based on your bet.
In the Golden Palace example above, suppose you deposit $100 for the maximum 300 percent bonus of $300. Now you have $400 in your online casino account, but you must fulfill a Wager Requirement (also called a WR) before you can cash out the $300 bonus.
Reading the promotion’s rules, the Wager Requirement is the sum of the deposit and the bonus times 20. So that would be: ($100 + $300) x 20 for a WR of $8,000. So that means you must play $8,000 worth of casino games such as blackjack before you can cash out the bonus. If you played $2 hands of blackjack, you’d have to play about 4,000 hands (the actual amount would be less because every time you split your hand or doubled down, those extra bets you must make would also count toward the WR).
Other good bonuses include InterCasino, which offers a 100 percent monthly bonus up to $100. The WR for this promotion is $2,500 and you can even play poker on their sister site, InterPoker, to help clear the bonus. Online casino 32Red also has a nice 100 percent welcome bonus up to $100. The WR here is 50 times the deposit plus bonus or $10,000.
Don’t know how to play blackjack? That’s ok. You can use existing reference Web sites on the Internet that come complete with a chart of how to play your hand. The one I like to use is Wizard of Odds.
Before you continue, you must always calculate whether the bonus will be profitable, given the game you are playing and the WR. If you decide you want to play blackjack to clear the Golden Palace Casino bonus, you’ll find that this is acceptable under the site’s Disclaimer (only craps, roulette, baccarat or sicbo) are not allowed. You can research your game’s house advantage by using the Wizard of Odds reference site.
If blackjack has a house advantage, say, of .43 percent, you can calculate how much of the bonus you’ll be able to cashout once you finish the WR by doing a little math. Multiply the house edge times the WR to find out how much money the house is expected to keep if you use a basic strategy chart like in the Wizard of Odds. So in this case, .0043 x $8,000=$34.40. Subtract that minus the bonus to find out if it’s profitable: $300- 34.43= $265.60! Just by depositing money and playing blackjack, you can expect to cash out $265.60 in free money! I tried this at Casino Bellini.
In future articles we’ll look closer into other online casino promotions and whether it’s good to play other kinds of casino games. But with careful reading and a little math, you’ll be able to determine if a promotion is a good bet and you’ll watch your poker bankroll swell in no time..
The object of Blackjack is for the total of your cards to be closer to 21 than the dealer’s cards, without exceeding 21. In Blackjack, aces count as either 1 or 11, face cards as 10, and number cards as their face value.
If you receive an ace and a ten-value card as your first two cards, you have Blackjack and win one and a half times your bet (if you bet was $10, you receive $25). If the total value of your cards is closer to 21 than the dealer’s, you win as much as you had wagered (if your bet was $10, you receive $20). If the total of your cards is more than 21, you “bust” and lose your bet. If you and the dealer have the same card total (17 and up) neither of you win and your bet is returned to you in a “push”. Blackjack beats a score of 21.
| ur hand | Dealer’s face-up card | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | A | |
| Hard totals | ||||||||||
| 17-20 | S | S | S | S | S | S | S | S | S | S |
| 16 | S | S | S | S | S | H | H | SU | SU | SU |
| 15 | S | S | S | S | S | H | H | H | SU | H |
| 13-14 | S | S | S | S | S | H | H | H | H | H |
| 12 | H | H | S | S | S | H | H | H | H | H |
| 11 | Dh | Dh | Dh | Dh | Dh | Dh | Dh | Dh | Dh | H |
| 10 | Dh | Dh | Dh | Dh | Dh | Dh | Dh | Dh | H | H |
| 9 | H | Dh | Dh | Dh | Dh | H | H | H | H | H |
| 5-8 | H | H | H | H | H | H | H | H | H | H |
| Soft totals | ||||||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | A | |
| A,8 A,9 | S | S | S | S | S | S | S | S | S | S |
| A,7 | S | Ds | Ds | Ds | Ds | S | S | H | H | H |
| A,6 | H | Dh | Dh | Dh | Dh | H | H | H | H | H |
| A,4 A,5 | H | H | Dh | Dh | Dh | H | H | H | H | H |
| A,2 A,3 | H | H | H | Dh | Dh | H | H | H | H | H |
| Pairs | ||||||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | A | |
| A,A | SP | SP | SP | SP | SP | SP | SP | SP | SP | SP |
| 10,10 | S | S | S | S | S | S | S | S | S | S |
| 9,9 | SP | SP | SP | SP | SP | S | SP | SP | S | S |
| 8,8 | SP | SP | SP | SP | SP | SP | SP | SP | SP | SP |
| 7,7 | SP | SP | SP | SP | SP | SP | H | H | H | H |
| 6,6 | SP | SP | SP | SP | SP | H | H | H | H | H |
| 5,5 | Dh | Dh | Dh | Dh | Dh | Dh | Dh | Dh | H | H |
| 4,4 | H | H | H | SP | SP | H | H | H | H | H |
| 2,2 3,3 | SP | SP | SP | SP | SP | SP | H | H | H | H |
The above is a basic strategy table for 3 or more decks, dealer stands on soft 17, double on any 2 cards, double after split allowed, dealer peeks for blackjack, and blackjack pays 3:2. Key:
- S = Stand
- H = Hit
- Dh = Double (if not allowed then hit)
- Ds = Double (if not allowed then stand)
- SP = Split
- SU = Surrender (if not allowed, then hit)
Our Blackjack follows the standard “Las Vegas Strip” rules, with the following exceptions:
1. After each round, used cards are returned to the deck and the deck is shuffled.
2. The player may not split a split hand.
3. The player may double after splitting.
4. The dealer will not check for Blackjack in any case.
5. If the player doubles and the dealer’s first card is of value 11 (ACE), and the dealer gets blackjack, the player loses both his bets.
Split
If your first two cards have the same point value, you may split them into two separate hands by placing a second bet equal to the original bet. You then proceed to draw cards. You may draw as many cards as you like on each split hand, but if you split two aces, you receive only one additional card for each ace. If you receive an ace and a ten-value card in a split hand, it is counted as 21 and not Blackjack.
Double
After you are dealt two cards, and think that another card will allow you to beat the dealer’s hand, you can increase your bet by an amount up to your original bet or “double” your bet. Your wager is doubled, and you are allowed to receive one more card.
Insurance
Insurance is considered to be a game of its own within Blackjack. If the dealer has an Ace as his up card, you’ll be given a chance to buy insurance. When you buy insurance, you’re betting that the dealer has a blackjack. It allows you to try and protect yourself when you think that the dealer may have Blackjack. When buying insurance, you place half of your initial bet by pressing the Insurance button. If the dealer does have Blackjack, you are paid 2 to 1 on your insurance bet. If the dealer doesn’t have Blackjack, you lose your insurance bet.
10 Card Charlie
It is theoretically possible for the player to draw 10 card without going bust. In this case the player’s hand automatically wins, except when the dealer has Blackjack.
The object of Blackjack Switch is for the total of your cards in either hand to be closer to 21 than the dealer’ s cards, without exceeding 21. Card values are the same as in standard Blackjack – aces count as either 1 or 11, face cards as 10, and number cards as their face value.
The rules are the same as in standard Blackjack (see here). Except you have two hands, which you play in turn – first the right and then the left one, then the dealer plays his hand. You may split, double, take insurance etc. just like in standard Blackjack. An exception from the standard Blackjack is that the dealer always hits soft 17 – meaning he always draws one more card when he has 17 with an ace counted as 11. Also, ‘Blackjacks’ pay 1/1 instead of 3/2 although more ‘Blackjacks’ are created due to the ‘switching’ option. (See below). Another exception is that Blackjack rule no. 5 (“If the player doubles and the dealer’s first card is of value 10, and the dealer gets blackjack, the player loses only the initial bet.”) does not apply in Blackjack Switch.
Switch
Prior to any hits, you may switch the top cards of your two hands.I read this rule at Blackjack Bluebook II - the simplest winning strategies ever published
Push 22
Dealer will “push” on a total of 22 (except ‘Blackjacks’ will still win). This means that whenever the dealer’s total reaches 22 then all bets are ‘pushed’, regardless of their total except if a player has a ‘Blackjack’, which will still win.
Super Match
The small circle between the standard bet areas is the super bet area. The super bet wins if your initial 4 cards contain 2 or more matching cards. For example, if your right hand is a Queen and a Six, and your left hand a Queen and a King, you have a pair and your super bet wins. The win ratios are written on the table.
Summary Of Rules
Dealer Hits Soft 17
‘Blackjacks’ pay 1/1
Switch top cards of the two hands
All doubles and splitting allowed
Dealer pushes on 22 (except Blackjacks will still win)
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