Blazing 7's

I've been asked about a new blackjack side bet called Blazing 7's. It pays based on the number of sevens in the player's first three cards.

Please check out my new Blazing 7's page. As always, I welcome questions, comments, and especially corrections.

The question for the poll is would you play Blazing 7's?

Quote: Wizard

The question for the poll is would you play Blazing 7's?

What, and violate Wizard's Gambling Commandment number 9?

Sam's Town used to have a video Blackjack with a progressive on three 7's. It was a small gold mine while it lasted. Unintentionally it would pay the progressive even if you busted as long as you had three 7's. That really changed the strategy because if you had any two 7's you would continue to hit until you busted.

Quote: DRich

Sam's Town used to have a video Blackjack with a progressive on three 7's. It was a small gold mine while it lasted. Unintentionally it would pay the progressive even if you busted as long as you had three 7's. That really changed the strategy because if you had any two 7's you would continue to hit until you busted.

Fascinating. Who was the manufacturer?

Quote: bobbartop

Fascinating. Who was the manufacturer?

Bally's. Surprised they would make such an error. Or am I mistaken and that 7727 is supposed to count as three sevens.

Quote: bobbartop

Fascinating. Who was the manufacturer?

I would guess it was Bally's but I am not sure. This was back in the late 1990's and my memory is getting faulty. I think the progressive started at $50 but I am not sure what the bet was. Probably $1. This was not a side bet it was in addition to your normal Blackjack play.

Wizard, in the version you have analyzed, the player is capped at two cards if the dealer has blackjack.

However, that was the first version, and very few casinos run it that way. They now run players two cards plus the dealer upcard.

Quote: DRich

Sam's Town used to have a video Blackjack with a progressive on three 7's. It was a small gold mine while it lasted. Unintentionally it would pay the progressive even if you busted as long as you had three 7's. That really changed the strategy because if you had any two 7's you would continue to hit until you busted.

Palace Station had it as well near the poker room.

The version I have seen pays as follows.
3 - 7s diamonds 100%
3- suited 10%
3 same color 500 for 1
3-7s 200 for 1
2-7s players first two cards 25 for 1
1-7 players first two cards 2 for 1

They use the dealers upcard with players first two cards.

My local casino made every BJ table a Blazing 7's table with a $5 side bet. Current JP's are >$15K, <$7K, and <$3K. I'll have to assume all these larger payouts are gonna require tax forms. Table minimums are $25. There might be one $15 BJ game & a $25 Spanish 21 game that aren't involved.

The MS Stud game and associated games have new displays, and the $130K+ JP has been lowered to just under $64K with a $1 ante bet (maybe somebody won?). There's also a $50K max. payout but the table minimum is above $10. They have max bets of $500, or up to $5,000 a hand, so get a 10 to 1 full house on that! They no longer have a 10% payout for the next lower hands, they have 3 separate progressives going, with the lowest under $600 so far. The progressive is paid separately from the hand winnings, and the progressives will draw a tax form as will a table paid Royal. If you hit a Royal, you'll get the $50K max and the progressive in addition to it.

The Blazing 7's pay table is like the Version 2 — Pay Table 2 in Wiz's article:

Pay Table 2

Three sevens in diamonds: Mega JP
Three suited sevens: Major JP
Three colored sevens: Minor JP
Three sevens
Two sevens
One seven

The Wizard's stats warn that I could lose about 85.2% of the side bets. So it's an utter money sucker.
Maybe when the JP's get to $500K, it might be time to start playing it. But a $15K JP is just getting started at $5 bets.

Here's a pamphlet from Caeser's from 9/2018. Seems like getting one 7 to match the dealer doesn't pay extra, you need two 7's.
I'm guessing 2 for 1 means 1:1.

If there's like a 1 in 66.67K chance of winning the Mega Progressive, times $5, that'd be $333.3K worth of $5 chips played if the JP was due on time. Wiz says the JP should be $118.6K for break-even status. I'm gonna try to reverse math that a little bit and I came up with $118.6K (break-even) divided by $2.27K (1% in meter at $5) = 52.25%, plus the 47.77% fixed HA without a progressive equals about 100%. So I should have $333K to blow and win above $118.6K. Maybe I'll win once if I play for 1,333 hours at 50 hands an hour at a full table. I have no idea how long it takes the JP to go from a $10K minimum to $118.6K though, and I won't be playing this side bet then.

Just figuring if I played for 1,000 hands and bet $5 on the Blazing 7's side bet each time, I'd be down $5,000 minus the 142 wins X $10 or $1420, and the 5 wins X $125 or $625, for a total of $2,045 in wins and a net loss of $2,955. Even if I hit the same color triple 7's for $2,500 once, I'd still be down. It's got a 40.9% payback unless I get a bigger hit. I forgot to add 147 X $5 of getting my bet back, or $735. That would change the winnings to $2,780/$5,000 or a 55.6% payback.

If the single 7 only wins 2 for 1, it would drop the total wins down $710, and if the double 7 only pays 25 for 1 it drops the winnings down another $25, so total wins reduced to $1,310 (a loss of $3,690) or a 26.2% payback without a larger win. I'm looking at a pay table from an older SlotLady video at the El Cortez where this is the payout with a $5 bet. I forgot to add 147 X $5 of getting my bet back, or $735. That would change the winnings to $2,045/$5,000 or a 40.9% payback.

Now I ran across an online play for free Blazing 7's game with a $100 regular spot limit last night that paid 5 for 1, or a $20 win for a single 7. That would quadruple the $710 figure to $2,840. The double 7's paid 35 for 1 so that would increase the each of the double 7's wins by $50 from the 25 for 1 payout.
5 X $170 = $850
142 X $20 = $2,840
Total win of $3,690, or a $1,310 loss on a 73.8% payback without a larger win.
I forgot to add 147 X $5 of getting my bet back, or $735. That would change the winnings to $4,425/$5,000 or an 88.5% payback.

I was dividing my usual bets by 3 and playing 3 spots on this game so the $5 Blazing 7's bets added up a bit faster so I had to play fewer deals to get a double 7's.
Dealer hits on soft 17's and can only split once and only one card per split Ace.

https://www.casino.org/us/blackjack/free/

I can bet more than the minimum $5 on the side bet, I can even bet more than my regular bet. I can bet $50 in the hand and $100 on the side bet and try to win $400 with a 7. It's a desperate move that will sink any session buy-in but a 500 for 1 payoff or $50K if it hits with triple colored 7's.

I'm playing more of the online game and hit two 7's for me and one for the dealer and got paid $385 or 77 for 1. Regular payout is 200 for 1 or $1,000, so this is a disappointment. Really need to hit triple 7's at the regular tables though.

I got a couple of triple 7's in the same shoe basically. That'd be a $760 win instead of a couple of $1,000 wins. But when I'm playing 3 spots at $80 a hand, I had a high payout of $800 after a split with a double down for a $385 profit. I was able to play a 25 bet buy-in for over 5 hours betting 3 spots with a $5 side bet on each spot. I have no idea how many $5 chips I lost, but since I didn't win a colored triple 7's I can be sure I'm behind a lot because of this bet. If I played 1,500 hands, that'd be $7,500 on the side bet and how much did I win back? Less than $2,500? It's really hard to count up the $20 wins because I spent $15 on the deal so I'm just getting a $10 bump on a win.
Just because there's a triple 7's at the table, it doesn't mean you won it.