Help me out: what tweaks would you make to rules/paytables to create a 0% house edge game?

I'm a dealer and have some friends who enjoy when I deal them various casino games. No substantial money is involved, and since they're my friends, I want to offer games that are as zero sum as possible. No player or house advantage. What rule changes would you guys make for existing table games to eliminate the house edge? This INCLUDES side bets like Royal Match, Dragon Bonus, Pair Plus, etc. Some games, such as Roulette, most bets in craps, and Casino War are obvious, but how about Three Card Poker, Pai Gow Poker, Baccarat, etc? I understand that players make mistakes, thus giving the house an edge again. I'm looking for something neutral with optimal play, preferably between -0.02% to 0.02% for the player. I would like for payouts to br as close to even integers as possible.

Help me out!

My friends and I play blackjack with a dealer button.

in craps you could bring the edge down to zero on the field bet: pay triple the field for 2 AND 12,
or you could offer tru odds on place bets and have zero edge on those bets.

in blackjack you could bring the edge to near zero (about .1%) offering:
stand on soft 17, double any two cards, resplit to four or more hands, resplit aces, hit split aces, late surrender.

in roulette, you could push the zeros and have zero house edge.

in baccarat you could reduce the commission on banker to 3% giving it house edge of -.14%.

there are plenty of ways you can eliminate the house edge by altering the paytables of various carnival games.
example:if you wanted to eliminate most of the edge in three card poker, you could pay 2 to 1 ante bonus for a straight.
(this might actually be positive EV)

If you are banking this game you ought to give yourself a small edge. The reason for this is that you have the liability of paying out when the other players win, the compensation for that is the small edge

We're playing for miniscule stakes, often in a tournament format.

Also, I simply want to know what a theoretically perfectly even set of games would look like, independent of all of this.

With that blackjack game, I assume that's six-deck and that 2-1 on suited blackjacks would drop it perfectly to 0.0%, right?

In Pai Gow (Poker and Tiles), I assume the game would be fair if there were no commission and everyone banked half of the time, but assuming no banking is allowed (three or more players ruins it), how can I even out the edge?

Craps is pretty easy to figure out on your own for most bets (I knew about the field, and I assume changing things in the middle to 5-1, 17-1, and 35-1 would solve those), but how about the pass/don't pass? Making 12 win on the don't pass should fix that one, right? How could you tweak the pass line?

What about pay tables for all of the poker carnival games?

you can look at a paytable on the wizardofodds site.
then find a hand probability that is close to the house edge.
then increase the payout on that hand by 1 and that will level the house edge.
there are many ways to accomplish this.

The online casino Betfair is offering a BJ game with zero % HE. That's why it's called Zero Blackjack.

Here are the rules:

Rules and house edge

The rules for the blackjack game are quite unusual. There are four standard rules...

• 8 deck
• S17
• Doubling only allowed on 8-11
• DAS

...and three unusual rules:

• Aces cannot be split
• Suited blackjack pays 2:1
• Five-card 21 pays 2:1

The more usual rules - 8D, S17, D8 and DAS - give a house edge of 0.59%.

Not being able to split aces is bad for the player, costing a further 0.17%, giving a grand total of 0.76%. Suited blackjack adds 0.56% and the five-card 21 adds 0.2%, giving an overall return of 100%.

For the adjusted basic strategy look on this site: http://www.hundredpercentgambling.com/betfair_zero_margin_blackjack.htm.

I hope this helped! Good Luck!

In craps, there is an interesting way to get the pass line and don't pass as straight 0% bets, as well as the Come and Don't Come.
Make the pass line lose one-half on a come-out 12, and the don't pass pay one-half on a come-out 12. Come and don't come would also have this one-half action on a 12. Obviously, the place bets would pay at true odds, and the lay bets would have no vig. The field as 2 and 12 paying triple would work.

Quote: Funbox

No player or house advantage.
What rule changes would you guys make for existing table games to eliminate the house edge?

This INCLUDES side bets like Royal Match, Dragon Bonus, Pair Plus, etc.

Some games, such as Roulette, most bets in craps, and Casino War are obvious,

but how about Three Card Poker,
Pai Gow Poker,
Baccarat

This is good stuff especially for tournament style play at Casino Night Party events also.
I go to a lot of these parties.

Here is Baccarat
Player and Banker 2 card drawing rules should be the same.
0-5 always hit
6 and 7 always stand.
Naturals 8 and 9 always win
snapshot of rules from SN Ethier Doctrine of Chances book page 598

For the Tie bet, I think a 10.5 to 1 payoff would be very close to a fair payout.

Quote: Paigowdan

In craps, there is an interesting way to get the pass line and don't pass as straight 0% bets, as well as the Come and Don't Come.
Make the pass line lose one-half on a come-out 12, and the don't pass pay one-half on a come-out 12. Come and don't come would also have this one-half action on a 12. Obviously, the place bets would pay at true odds, and the lay bets would have no vig. The field as 2 and 12 paying triple would work.

Almost. Passline is -28/1980; add in 0.5/36 gets you to -0.5/1980 or -0.0002525. It's close enough to zero to not matter, but it's not zero the way paying true odds on place bets is (e.g. buy bets with no vig).

Quote: Paigowdan

In craps, there is an interesting way to get the pass line and don't pass as straight 0% bets, as well as the Come and Don't Come.
Make the pass line lose one-half on a come-out 12, and the don't pass pay one-half on a come-out 12. Come and don't come would also have this one-half action on a 12. Obviously, the place bets would pay at true odds, and the lay bets would have no vig. The field as 2 and 12 paying triple would work.

Wow, that's extremely freaking simple. I like it.

Quote: guido111

This is good stuff especially for tournament style play at Casino Night Party events also.
I go to a lot of these parties.

Here is Baccarat
Player and Banker 2 card drawing rules should be the same.
0-5 always hit
6 and 7 always stand.
Naturals 8 and 9 always win
snapshot of rules from SN Ethier Doctrine of Chances book page 598
*image*
For the Tie bet, I think a 10.5 to 1 payoff would be very close to a fair payout.

*blinks* I'm not quite sure I understand. I deal mini-baccarat, so I know the drawing rules, but the image in your post looks like a perfectly accurate set of drawing rules. Granted, I'm falling asleep and may be missing something obvious, but if you say that both sides always stand on 6, isn't the ONLY difference that...

...wait, are you saying that to make the game fair, you'd simply change the drawing rules to where both sides do exactly the same thing? I mean, yeah, that'd work, but there's no real player/banker "competition" to speak of if 0-5 always draws and 6-7/8-9 always stands.

Quote: MathExtremist

Almost. Passline is -28/1980; add in 0.5/36 gets you to -0.5/1980 or -0.0002525. It's close enough to zero to not matter, but it's not zero the way paying true odds on place bets is (e.g. buy bets with no vig).

True, but it is a quick and elegant way to reduce the craps house edge to essentially zero (or one decision in approximately 4,000 hands). I thought it was a beaut.

If you figure that the HA is about 1.4% on each the pass line and the don't pass, and that the don't pass bar-12 action gives a swing of 2.8% from its Player advantage of +1.4%,
- then subtracting half of that effect (via the half pay/loss on the 12) gives each side the 1.4% neutralization for no edge, essentially.
The Pass Don't bets would be as good as straight odds right from the come-out roll, or anytime on the Come/DC.

Even John Scarne wailed at his inability to find a way to an essentially zero house edge on Pass/Come and Don't pass/DC in his "Scarne on Dice" and his "Complete Guide to Gambling" tomes. A CFL lit up here....