Broken Casino or just crazy?

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post, hopefully someone in the community can be of assistance. Currently, I desperately need help trying to understand the exact odds of these blackjack rules, because I think I've come across a casino with broken odds. Is this actually possible? Anyway below is the information needed to evaluate:

The casino plays under these rules:

The only exception is that they add a Joker card to the deck. This joker card pays 2-1. The interesting part about this is they place the joker card in the deck right before your eyes, so you are able to estimate right about when the joker will come by taking a look at the burn cards.

Therefore, the system I was thinking consists of making minimum bet of $10, then betting table max of $300 when I think the jokers are coming out.

Please let me know if this makes any sense at all, or am I just crazy.



Here are my Assumptions Below: (The reason 187.2 is used is because the cut card is 3/5 deep and 3.9 comes from playing 2 hands at once, so 187.2 / 48

Shoes/hr (1 plyr) 3.00
Shoes/hr (7 plyrs) 1.50
Hrs/shift 8.5
Table Min 10
Table max 300 *2 hands crds/shoe crds/hand
Hands/shoe (1 plyr) 24 187.2 3.9
Hands /shoe (7 plyrs) 8
Preemption (1 plyr) 4 hands
Preemption (7 plyrs) 2 hands



House edge (straight up) 0.55% based on 6 decks, late surrender, split after double, 3/2 BJ, immediate loss after dealer bj


1 Player 7 Players

# of straight-up hands 40 # of straight-up hands 12
Amt Wagered 400 Amt Wagered 120
Expected Value $(2.20) Expected Value $(0.66)

# of big bet hands 8 # of big bet hands 4
Amt Wagered 2200 Amt Wagered 1000
Expected Value $(12.10) Expected Value $(5.50)

Jackpot Payout 600 Jackpot Payout 600
Odds of hitting 0.67 Odds of hitting 0.25
Expected Value 400 Expected Value 150

Avg Win (Loss) per shoe $385.70 Avg Win (Loss) per shoe $143.84
Avg Win (Loss) per hr $1,157.10 Avg Win (Loss) per hr $215.76
Avg Win (Loss) per shift $9,835.35 Avg Win (Loss) per shift $1,833.96


All feedback is very helpful, thanks!

I think the promotion would end pretty quickly if people caught on to this and started noticing you going to 30x your bet (and playing two spots) based on where the joker was. I'd be shuffling the six decks without anyone knowing where the joker was. I think you'd get two opportunities at doing this before the pit would force you to flat bet or security would be backing you off. The casino would take a 30x spread fairly seriously and figure out what the heck you were up to.

That said, I think your assumptions on number of hands are wrong. You are playing with 187 cards. The average number of cards / hand is 8.22 with 1 player and 22 cards (2.75 x 8) for a full table. That means 23 deals for you playing two spots (46 opporuntities) and 17 opporunties at a full table.

You would play up to 8 hands at $300/hand and assume that the odds of hitting the JP is 2/3. You would only play it until the joker appeared, which would, on average appear on the 4th or 5th deal of the eighth. Your EV per hand at $300/hand is -300x.0055 + 600*(1/24) = $23.35. Since the joker wouldn't appear on average until the 5th deal, you are only playing the max bet until the joker appears. So, assume you play 12 hands of the 24. Your EV is $280.20 and (4.62) for the other 44 hands in the shoe.

I would alter basic strategy somewhat as you get later in the shoe while you are playing the $300 hands so that you see more cards. For example, I'd be hitting soft totals much more. I'd consider hitting 12s and 13s with bust card showings.

And if you aren't concerned about heat, just leave the shoe once the joker's been dealt. I mean, you'd be really obvious anyway.