I just went to a Casino/Cardroom which had a side bet I was not familiar with called Busters. It is a bet on whether the house will bust. You win if they bust with payout as follows if they bust with 3 or 4 cards you are paid 2:1, with 5 cards 4:1, with 6 cards 18:1 and with 7 cards 50:1. It seems like this should be countable but that one would have to use a count where aces count as small cards or a side ace count (I usually use hi/lo so I would have to do something different) One is alowed to bet only on the Bust and this is good because the game is otherwise quite unfavorable (blackjack 6:5(unless you have a suited AK BJ when it pays 2:1), 8 deck shoe, hit soft 17, DAS, DAC) It has one other twist which might be interesting which is that one can play as the bank for a $1.25 a hand on a 5-500 table but can only do this a max of half the time sometimes less depending on how many other people at the table want to do it. The amount one pays may go up on that if people are betting toward the higher end of the limit. When I was there people were not betting more than 20$ a hand and no one was playing as the bank.

I am wondering how to figure out the EV of the buster for different counts and what count to use. Also I think the EV of the blackjack game would be about (-) 2.5% using basic strategy and 1.5% if one was counting so playing as the bank might be profitable? I appreciate the help.