blackjack win streak promo

An online casino is offering players a share of a $50k prize pool if they can win 7 blackjack hands in a row. Hands with no net win or loss are considered pushes and don't end the streak. Can someone please give me a rough idea of how much I can expect to lose playing $1 per hand until I hit such a streak? I want to maximize my chance of winning each hand, so I'm guessing I shouldn't double against a dealer 7+. And definitely never surrendering. The game is S17. It's a weeklong promo and the winners split the prize pool equally. The site is open to residents of PA and NJ.

Quote: Wiggins

An online casino is offering players a share of a $50k prize pool if they can win 7 blackjack hands in a row. Hands with no net win or loss are considered pushes and don't end the streak. Can someone please give me a rough idea of how much I can expect to lose playing $1 per hand until I hit such a streak? I want to maximize my chance of winning each hand, so I'm guessing I shouldn't double against a dealer 7+. And definitely never surrendering. The game is S17. It's a weeklong promo and the winners split the prize pool equally. The site is open to residents of PA and NJ.

With your revised basic strategy, you have to find out the the probability of WIN, LOSS and PUSH.

From there, it is possible to find out no of hands that you have bet continuously before you can win 7 blackjack hands in a row.

Which part of the calculation are you having trouble with?

If you split 8s against a dealer 9, and let’s say you make 21 on the first hand of the split. Then pull a 3 on the second hand for 11. Im thinking you don’t want to double that 11.

Might be a bunch of other situations where you sacrifice Ev for the purpose of not risking losing overall on a hand and ending your streak

Depends how far you are into your streak though. If you're on hand 1 or 2 I'd guess you just play it straight up. Hand 5/6 you're never doubling vs dealer 7-T or surrendering.

Interesting, do you know what the rule is if you split. Does each hand have to win or is it the overall score? It might affect some of the decisions as noted below.


When I ran a simulation (UK 6 decks 10m shoes), it counted each hand including splits, so for every 100 hands played..
45.181 hands won
52.453 hands lost
8.808 hands tied
106.242 hands played
As a tied hand is worth about 46.28%, on close decisions you're better off going for winning more often at the cost of losing even more often, so would tend to stand slightly earlier.

Early on I think it's best to play as normal except for close decisions stand rather than hit. Later on you might prefer to stand on lower totals. For instance with 12 vs 2 if you stand you will either win or lose, whereas hitting some of the EV is made up of tying with the dealer, however it's still best to hit. Whereas against a 3 you should consider standing, although it still looks better to hit.

Also there might be times where you split or don't, I haven't analysed it. For instance it might be better to split 9s vs 7 if it counted as two wins if both hands win, but you'd stay if it was based on the net result. On the other hand splitting 9s vs low cards is a money making opportunity, so sometimes you mght be better off standing if you weren't allowed to lose a hand (i.e. you might get two wins, but a win/lose would end your streak).
NOTE: These figures are infinite decks.

12 vs 2	WIN	TIE	LOSE
Stand 12	35.360 814%	0.000 000%	64.639 186%
Hit 12	34.844 378%	4.972 245%	60.183 377%

12 vs 3	WIN	TIE	LOSE
Stand 12	37.387 489%	0.000 000%	62.612 511%
Hit 12	35.907 281%	4.816 347%	59.276 371%

My progression goes to 10 wins in a row excluding pushes.

If you mean actual "21" Blackjacks, that's a harder set of hands.

Sidenote: if the Coronavirus was an internet virus, the internet would shut down.

Quote: charliepatrick

Interesting, do you know what the rule is if you split. Does each hand have to win or is it the overall score? It might affect some of the decisions as noted below.

The terms say "A win is considered a hand that has a positive net return to the player." Splitting and winning both hands would count as only one win. It did occur to me that I should buy insurance most of the time, since a dealer BJ would result in a neutral return and my streak would be preserved.

The biggest unknown is the number of players, but I think the prize pool is big enough to make it worthwhile.

I'd buy Insurance on 20's or 21's.
I'd also bet in multiples of $2 so I'd get paid in whole dollars. Probably do a buy-in of $50 and try to double or nothing the buy-in over a 100+ hands.

I'd put the o/u at 2,000 players that accomplish this. So enjoy your $25.