T3, do promo offerings still occur in BJ? I have never played one or more likely never recognized the opportunity. As I increase the variety of my destinations, I see different side bet games but cannot figure out when to bet on them.
They do occur but unless you are networking with people you are not likely to hear of any good ones. The intention of the casino is to draw the regulars in during slow times of the year not get AP's to come from across the country to burn it. Within a year a juicy promo ran at some CET properties. If played at the optimal bet you had a nice off the top edge. If played with larger bets it cut into the house edge or added to your edge.Originally Posted by ZeeBabar
My local casino and the many others where I play rated never seem to offer BJ related promos other than a BJ tournament. It's everything else from scratch off cards that you bring to the casino and scratch off to win $5 or $25 gas card or $500, days when they offer 3X or such for slot players or car giveaways on week day or something. Sometimes they offer midweek free room comp and then there are the bus trips or plane flights.
I find out about them by networking. That means you must have people that want to share info with you that could cost them for sharing. Usually that means they believe you would offer something of value at some random time in the future and that they like you. I had to drive 6 hours each way to get to the promo in snowy rural roads for 6 hours of promo play plus whatever non-promo play I gave them. It was well worth it. The system I used at the time was tailor made to take advantage of a BJ pays 2:1 promo.
All the time and all over the place. If you're looking specifically for places that are more likely to offer promos for BJ, target your casino audience towards more "Rural" destinations near major interstates/highways etc. On top of this, your old school locations like Biloxi/Tunica might have some great promotions going on since their very pass/fail for the year hinges on bringing in the locals during major downtimes. Also, consider the notion that "all" things, even the weather itself, can be a driving force in good promotions coming out. Early November in Tunica/Biloxi was pretty good time this year. Tons of daily promotions for free food, free slotplay, free everything. Biloxi is pretty good in November at getting people into their seats and staying there. The weather holds for quite a while down there. Usually until Thanksgiving at the least, so they have a bunch of phenomenal offerings right around that time. The truly valuable ones, targeted at increased payouts in Blackjack are rare, but when you find them, they tend to be fairly significant. I mentioned the $21 slotplay earlier this year on a dealt blackjack that my guys milked as hard as we could, having just learned of it at the tail end of the promotion. There's places that offer power "hours" where certain rules are changed, or payouts are higher. I think my all-time favorite one was 2 years ago at a smaller casino in a big casino density area that ran a St. Paddy's promotion for a week where a player could attain point/rewards multipliers by playing certain games in a day, and then they just forgot to turn off their regular multiplier day in the week, and the two ended up multiplying off of one another.
This is very much true, its hard to keep tabs on hundreds of casinos across the country and what promotions they run, so keeping a network of people always able to be reached is important. I've probably got 90-100 names down in my phone with the last name "hustler", "Casino", or "AP" depending on their perceived level of intellect and abilities, just for this purpose.
Yeah. I help people all the time. Often they offer to pay me. I don't accept any payment but tell them I am sure they will be in a position to give me information that costs them nothing that would be worth more to me than anything they could afford to pay. Not many share anything later but the ones that do make up for the ones that don't. After the exchange of information a network is formed where I am helping him with info and he/she is helping me.
Because I had a small BR and to get the most out of it I ramped my bets according to the advantage shifts. It's not like I had to worry about heat. All surveillance was busy with the high limit pit were many well funded AP's were playing. I was betting a small 2 spot 6 to 1 spread in green chips. It worked out great.
If RoR isn't an issue with you, i.e. you have a big enough bankroll, the most EV you can extract from such a short opportunity would probably be from flat max betting. You could count to inform playing decisions but generally people don't vary their bet sizes because you're already getting such a juicy advantage off the top of the deck. The stories I have heard of 2:1 promos, APs generally just jam the table for as much as they can. Sure, you can get a higher edge with a bet spread, but you'll have a lower average bet that works on opposed to always max betting.
With that said, I'm sure with a small enough range from the table max to min, you might get more overall EV counting but someone would have to do the math. You could consider two cases. First, just applying your regular betting scheme that you would use if it wasn't 2:1. Second, a betting scheme derived from sims of the 2:1 game.
Two observations:
1) For most players they need to spend too much time *thinking* about what they are doing. They become mentally exhausted. In reality, as much as possible should be absolutely automatic....done without thinking. This includes things like counting, index deviations, bet size, etc. In short...practice-practice-practice so you don't need to think about what needs to be done.
2) There are individuals who know *how* to play great. But, they fall victim to a fear of putting out the big bet when required. Many people just *hate* the variance that comes with the territory. This is independent of bankroll considerations. Some people have the bankroll----but hate the variance.
You could squeeze out a bit of value by counting and down-sizing your bet if the count dropped far enough....or generate a bet ramp (if you're not over-bankrolled for table max). If you are properly rolled to flat bet max, one reason to count might be just for index plays or essentially wonging out when it goes negative. I'd probably rather just flat bet and use BS....probably.
If someone is NOT properly bankrolled to take the most EV possible, then he should seek investors who are interested. Remember, a 2:1 BJ promo (although great) is far from a guarantee. Every 100 rounds, he'll lose 1/2 bet due to the normal house edge (0.5%), but make an additional (almost) 2.5 units from the BJs occurring every 21 rounds, profiting 2 units per 100 rounds.
"Everyone wants to be rich, but nobody wants to work for it." -Ryan Howard [The Office]
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