When did 6:5 blackjack start?

I know that 6:5 debuted at the Flamingo, but I don't know when. I know that 6:5 existed in Vegas as early as 2008, but it could have started earlier than that. This forum started in 2009 so there's no historical record here.

I've searched Google extensively but couldn't find the goods.

I'm going to guesstimate around 2003. At first it was limited to single deck and I think they called it 21 as BJ games paid 3-2.

Quote: MichaelBluejay

I know that 6:5 debuted at the Flamingo, but I don't know when. I know that 6:5 existed in Vegas as early as 2008, but it could have started earlier than that. This forum started in 2009 so there's no historical record here.

I've searched Google extensively but couldn't find the goods.

link to original post

I don't know if you ran across this link: https://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/question/6-5-blackjack-history/

Quote: DRich

Quote: MichaelBluejay

I know that 6:5 debuted at the Flamingo, but I don't know when. I know that 6:5 existed in Vegas as early as 2008, but it could have started earlier than that. This forum started in 2009 so there's no historical record here.

I've searched Google extensively but couldn't find the goods.

link to original post

I don't know if you ran across this link: https://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/question/6-5-blackjack-history/

link to original post

I was going to link that. Here are the highlights.

Howard Grossman, an ex-card counter and one-time teammate of Ken Uston's, created and patented a blackjack variation called "Super Fun 21" in 1999. In this version of blackjack, most blackjacks paid even money, but a whole raft of player options and bonuses were added to make the game more appealing to the public. All of the bonuses combined didn’t add up to the cost of most blackjacks paying even money, so Grossman marketed Super Fun 21 as a blackjack game that card counters couldn’t beat.

A number of casinos started offering the game and found that it was popular with enough recreational players to pay Grossman his licensing fee for using the Super Fun 21 table layout and rules.

Very shortly after Super Fun 21 was introduced, two Vegas casino execs, Bill Bert and Bill Zimmer, came up with the idea of paying out blackjacks at 6-5, but not changing any of the other rules or adding any other bonuses. This simple rule change adds 1.4% to the house edge, very neatly negating the card counter’s ability to get any significant edge on the game and without having to pay a licensing fee for a new variation of the game.

The Flamingo was the first casino on the Strip to offer 6-5 payouts on single-deck games. They started with one table, but soon expanded to more tables as they found that many recreational players didn’t even notice the difference. Other casinos took note and because they didn't have to sign a contract or pay a fee to anyone to offer the game, 6-5 blackjack continued to take over the single-deck games. It has since expanded to multi-deck games and is now vastly more popular than Super Fun 21.

Super Fun 21, introduced in 1999, did indeed offer 6-5 payout on blackjacks for the first time. However, it offered 2-1 on blackjacks when both cards were diamonds, and given a player BJ versus a dealer BJ the player won (did not push). So the damage to player EV for the altered BJ payout was not quite -1.4%; I calculate that it was more like -1.11% .

Super Fun 21 also offered:

Resplit Aces up to 4 times
Hit and Double After Split on aces
Double on any number of cards
Late Surrender
Surrender any doubled hand for 50% of money wagered (similar to Spanish 21)
5+ card 21 paid 2-1
6+ card hand (20 or lower, except for doubled hand) was automatic winner, paying 1:1

WOO Article on Super-Fun 21

So, this was a 'somewhat' reasonable alternative to 3-2 BJ. The villains of this 6-5 saga were apparently the management of the Flamingo casino, not the inventor of Super Fun 21.

I'd seen the LVA article, but it didn't answer the question. I don't count Super Fun 21 as blackjack. (And as noted below, it didn't pay 6:5 anyway.)

Quote: MichaelBluejay

I'd seen the LVA article, but it didn't answer the question. I don't count Super Fun 21 as blackjack.

link to original post

I first read about it in the companion magazine of Strictly Slots
I think it was called Casino Player. They might have an online index you could search. It was sometime after the Fall of 2001.

Quote: gordonm888

Super Fun Blackjack, introduced in 1999, did indeed offer 6-5 payout on blackjacks for the first time. However, it offered 2-1 on blackjacks when both cards were diamonds, and given a player BJ versus a dealer BJ the player won (did not push). So the damage to player EV for the altered BJ payout was not quite -1.4%; I calculate that it was more like -1.11% .

Super Fun Blackjack also offered:

Resplit Aces up to 4 times
Hit and Double After Split on aces
Double on any number of cards
Late Surrender
Surrender any doubled hand for 50% of money wagered (similar to Spanish 21)
5+ card 21 paid 2-1
6+ card hand (20 or lower, except for doubled hand) was automatic winner, paying 1:1

WOO Article on Super-Fun BJ

So, this was a 'somewhat' reasonable alternative to 3-2 BJ. The villains of this 6-5 saga were apparently the management of the Flamingo casino, not the inventor of Super Fun Blackjack.

link to original post

75% of BJs paid even money, 25% paid 2-1.
There was no 6-5.

The first time I saw 6:5 was on my first trip to Vegas. Mind you I live in NJ and had been to AC many times before this. This trip was, I believe, in 2005.

It was at the Rio. They had a night club called Bikini. Next to the entrance in the casino, there was a pit of about 5 BJ tables with hot girls in bikinis dealing. They were $25 tables - which I figured was the price of watching the hot girls deal.

When I got blackjack and was paid $30, I objected. The dealer pointed to the 6:5 sign and said, "That's the titty tax." Yup. That's EXACTLY what she said.

Quote: billryan

Quote: gordonm888

Super Fun Blackjack, introduced in 1999, did indeed offer 6-5 payout on blackjacks for the first time. However, it offered 2-1 on blackjacks when both cards were diamonds, and given a player BJ versus a dealer BJ the player won (did not push). So the damage to player EV for the altered BJ payout was not quite -1.4%; I calculate that it was more like -1.11% .

Super Fun Blackjack also offered:

Resplit Aces up to 4 times
Hit and Double After Split on aces
Double on any number of cards
Late Surrender
Surrender any doubled hand for 50% of money wagered (similar to Spanish 21)
5+ card 21 paid 2-1
6+ card hand (20 or lower, except for doubled hand) was automatic winner, paying 1:1

WOO Article on Super-Fun BJ

So, this was a 'somewhat' reasonable alternative to 3-2 BJ. The villains of this 6-5 saga were apparently the management of the Flamingo casino, not the inventor of Super Fun Blackjack.

link to original post

75% of BJs paid even money, 25% paid 2-1.
There was no 6-5.

link to original post

You are correct that the payout for most BJs was 1:1, not 6:5, that was my error. But it was 6% of BJs that paid 2-1 (approximately 1 in 16), not 25%.

I was thinking suited BJs paid 2-1. That was what the Worlds Most Liberal BJ paid at the old Las Vegas Club. I played SF21 a few times and it was a fun game with various bonuses.

Over at bj21, references to 6:5 BJ go back to at least 2003.

Hope this helps!

Dog Hand

Thanks for the tip, DogHand. I couldn't find those references on bj21, but what I *did* find was a reference to this 2003 article from the Las Vegas Sun (which quotes everyone's favorite Wizard, by the way). The article doesn't say explicitly that 6:5 debuted that year, but the article was published in November of that year and suggests that 6:5 was a recent development, so 2003 is a reasonable assumption. A bj21 article did say that 6:5 didn't exist in 2000, so we've certainly narrowed it down to 2001-03.