Blazing Bullseye

The first Nevada field trial since the start of the pandemic is something called Blazing Bullseye. Has anyone heard of this? It's at the Venetian and was evidently developed in house.

Unfortunately, I can't find out anything about it online: no rules, no videos etc. The fact that the words "blazing" and "bullseye" are so commonly used in game titles doesn't help. I'm guessing it's just a side bet, but what do I know from 250 miles away?

So, if any of you locals happen to be near the Venetian, could you please stop in, grab a rack card and report back?

Quote: Gialmere

The first Nevada field trial since the start of the pandemic is something called Blazing Bullseye. Has anyone heard of this? It's at the Venetian and was evidently developed in house.

Unfortunately, I can't find out anything about it online: no rules, no videos etc. The fact that the words "blazing" and "bullseye" are so commonly used in game titles doesn't help. I'm guessing it's just a side bet, but what do I know from 250 miles away?

So, if any of you locals happen to be near the Venetian, could you please stop in, grab a rack card and report back?

i found something...

https://gaming.nv.gov/index.aspx?page=84

but its not very informative just that its definitely there

https://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=17254

I just noticed this. I'll try to check it out soon.

Still can't find anything about this except for a brief mention in this twitter thread...

Quote: John Mehaffey on Twitter

There are two new games at Venetian. One is Super Baccarat (baccarat with prop bets). The other is Blazing Bullseye (combines points and poker). Sands owns those two and Prosperity 3 Pictures. It is nice to see a casino trying new games now. Each had a $10 minimum bet.

Quote: Gialmere

Still can't find anything about this except for a brief mention in this twitter thread...

I still haven't had a chance to check it out.

If any Vegas local or visitor can provide the full rules, by all means, please do.

I finally found a rack card photo off a Jeff Hwang twitter feed...

Quote: Gialmere

I finally found a rack card photo off a Jeff Hwang twitter feed...

Thank you.

I read the rack card about five times and still don't get it. However, I know Jeff and will see what he can tell me.

Heh. Hwang doesn't seem to care for it at all. In his tweet with the photos he says...

Quote: Jeff Hwang

So they have this stupid, stupid new game at the Venetian called Blazing Bullseye. I lost the only six hands I’ve ever played, while the dealer and floor guy tried their damndest to sell me on the side bets, pointing out every hand how I would have won every hand

Still, although it has a lot of (probably too many) moving parts, on paper at least, it appears interesting.

The way I read it is it seems to be a wonky card version of Pai Gow tiles.

You get five cards and need to use two of them in a showdown against the dealer. To qualify for the showdown, however, you need to use three of your cards to make a hand worth 0 points using pai gow / baccarat scoring. If you can't make such a hand with three of your five cards, you immediately lose your main wager.

To help you qualify, 3's and 6's (like Gee joon tiles) are semi wild and worth either 3 or 6 as needed. (Thus a J-6-7 could be scored as 0+3+7=0 to qualify.)

If you qualify, your remaining two cards are compared to the dealer's (assuming the dealer qualifies) in pai gow fashion...

An Ace of spades with any picture card (J, Q, K) is top hand a la Gee joon.

The next level is pairs with aces highest followed by 10's, 9's ... 2's. (Note that picture cards do not form pairs.)

Next is any two picture cards. They all have the same value. (Think of this as the Wong level.)

At the bottom, you have the standard 0 to 9 scoring.

[Note that 3's and 6's cannot be mixed to form a pair but are still semi wild at the bottom tier, 0-9 scoring area.]

Quote: Gialmere

Heh. Hwang doesn't seem to care for it at all. In his tweet with the photos he says...


Still, although it has a lot of (probably too many) moving parts, on paper at least, it appears interesting.

The way I read it is it seems to be a wonky card version of Pai Gow tiles.

You get five cards and need to use two of them in a showdown against the dealer. To qualify for the showdown, however, you need to use three of your cards to make a hand worth 0 points using pai gow / baccarat scoring. If you can't make such a hand with three of your five cards, you immediately lose your main wager.

To help you qualify, 3's and 6's (like Gee joon tiles) are semi wild and worth either 3 or 6 as needed. (Thus a J-6-7 could be scored as 0+3+7=0 to qualify.)

If you qualify, your remaining two cards are compared to the dealer's (assuming the dealer qualifies) in pai gow fashion...

An Ace of spades with any picture card (J, Q, K) is top hand a la Gee joon.

The next level is pairs with aces highest followed by 10's, 9's ... 2's. (Note that picture cards do not form pairs.)

Next is any two picture cards. They all have the same value. (Think of this as the Wong level.)

At the bottom, you have the standard 0 to 9 scoring.

[Note that 3's and 6's cannot be mixed to form a pair but are still semi wild at the bottom tier, 0-9 scoring area.]

Excellent summary. One additional point "if player qualifies and dealer does not qualify the hand is a push!" That is a huge advantage for dealer and should really hurt Return to Player. Does player have any advantage against dealer to help off-set this?

I've been messing with this at home and yeah, it's kind of fun. Unlike PGP which takes Pai Gow and uses poker hand values, BB makes you contemplate cards in an unusual PGT way.

For example an 8-8-8-J-J, would be great as a poker hand, but here it's useless. It doesn't even qualify. On the other hand, a seemingly mundane 2-3-5-10-10 not only qualifies, but is the third best hand you can get. Kind of cool, or at least an interesting change of pace.

The game does have flaws. Since there's only one hand to compare with the dealer's, there is only one correct way to play every hand. You miss out on the occasional hemming and hawing over whether you should boost the high hand, the low hand or strike a balance.

Also, you're pretty much at the mercy of the deal. There's very few hands where you can make a zero more than one way. Usually you just qualify how you can and the last two cards are what they are. And even if you do get a choice, as mentioned above, there's only one correct way to play them.

Still, being stuck with the cards that you're dealt is common in a lot of table games. So, as recreational (and hobbyist) gamer, I would throw a few C-Notes at it just to "collect" the experience of playing an unusual game (the way some here collect poker chips), although I'd avoid the side bets.


[edit]
I wanted to add another potential problem that might occur at a live game: the math. Have you ever painfully watched players trying to add up the value of their blackjack hands as the dealer tosses down hit cards? Now imagine giving these same players five cards and telling to make 0 with three of them. You might actually have time for a restroom break between the deal and the showdown.

Does anyone know the side bet rules?

Somebody mentioned many similarities to the game Saigon 5 Card. There is discussion of it here.

I see the field trial for Blazing Bullseye was only 45 days, which ended Dec 11.

Does anyone know if it's still at the Venetian?

Here is another picture of the rack card.



Here is pay table 1



Here is pay table 2

Here are the odds for the two side bets.

Bullseye

Face Cards	Pays	Combinations	Probability	Return
5	200	792	0.000305	0.060947
4	20	19,800	0.007618	0.152369
3	10	171,600	0.066026	0.660264
Other	-1	2,406,768	0.926050	-0.926050
Total		2,598,960	1.000000	-0.052470

Suits

Suits	Pays	Combinations	Probability	Return
5	20	5,148	0.001981	0.039616
4	5	111,540	0.042917	0.214586
3	1	847,704	0.326170	0.326170
Other	-1	1,634,568	0.628932	-0.628932
Total		2,598,960	1.000000	-0.048559

This game is too confusing for the average player.
I don’t think it will survive.

Has anyone figured the house edge on this game yet?

Hm. Rereading the rack card, I see that face card pairs are indeed part of the pair hierarchy. Only mixed pairs form the "gong/wong" mid-level.

I am happy to say I finally have some numbers for the Blazing Bullseye main game and Tie side bet. Here they are.

Main Game

Event	Pays	Combinations	Probability	Return
Player wins with ace of spades and face card	5	30,967,776,863	0.007768	0.038839
Player wins with pair	3	230,918,860,918	0.057923	0.173769
Player wins with mixed pictures	2	80,583,856,128	0.020213	0.040427
Player wins with 1 to 9 points	1	746,964,402,358	0.187367	0.187367
Tie	0	192,669,676,842	0.048329	0.000000
Dealer doesn't qualify, player does	0	703,762,795,384	0.176530	0.000000
Player doesn't qualify, dealer does	-1	703,762,795,384	0.176530	-0.176530
Neither qualify	-1	207,581,043,296	0.052069	-0.052069
Dealer wins	-1	1,089,434,896,267	0.273271	-0.273271
Total		3,986,646,103,440	1.000000	-0.061468

Tie Side Bet

Event	Pays	Combinations	Probability	Return
Tie	8	192,669,676,842	0.048329	0.386630
Neither side qualifies	8	207,581,043,296	0.052069	0.416553
No tie	-1	3,586,395,383,302	0.899602	-0.899602
Total		3,986,646,103,440	1.000000	-0.096419

I have no other source to compare these figures to, so take them with a grain of salt. I think the player return figures in the lower right corners are in line with what the Venetian would like to see.

I welcome all comments.

I just wrote up my page on Blazing Bullseye at Wizard of Odds. I welcome all comments.

It is unusual in that 2 of the 3 side bets have a lower house edge than the base game. As a reminder, I have absolutely nothing to check my work against so may have made an error somewhere. My analysis was 464 lines of code. As always, if you make a mistake in just one of them, it can and probably will ruin the whole thing.