California blacjack banking question

There is a casino in california near where I live that allows you to bank with the following rules:

You can bank any amount you want, and what ever you dont cover, the corporation will. This is for the normal hand betting. Let us ignore the side bets for now.

My initial reaction to this was, this is a great opportunity because it seems like you are only exposed to 1:1 payouts for blackjack, splits and doubles. For example, if there is only one other player at the table and he bets $100, there is no point to banking $200 because if he hits blackjack, you only lose $100 but he will win $150 (100 from you and 50 from the banking corp). This should increase your edge significantly. (my estimates are around 3% extra edge?)

But now here is my real question: Lets say there are instead two players at the table, the first one (on our immediate left) bets 20 and the second one bets 80. We bank $100 for this hand. The way the rules work, our $100 is used to pay out the player to our left first should they win, then the next player.

In this case where we have multiple players playing different bets, and we cover the total amount they bet but nothing more, are we losing edge by not covering more?

The reason I ask is because, lets say in the above example, the first player with a $20 bet doubles down and wins but the second player with $80 looses. Therefore our net on this hand is -40 + 60 (we can only win 60 from player 2 because we lost 40 of our $100 bank to player 1) for a net of +$20. However, if we had just put out a saturating amount to bank like $500, we would have won (-40 + 80) = $40

So in the case of playing against a single player, it never makes sense to bank more than his bet (is this statement accually correct?). But with two players, there are a number of cases where if the first player in the series loses, we decrease our expectation

Thanks for any replies or thoughts you have. I am going to try banking this game with a limited bankroll and was wondering about this point. Whether im costing myself edge by not covering more than the baseline bets with my bank when there are multiple players.

Thanks!

Be careful! In the versions of CA blackjack I know, the player has the edge without the house vig. So if you bank, the corporation player is going to bet using basic strategy for the game and blow you out of your chair.

Thanks for your reply!

Im wondering if anyone is available to comment on the original post, this is still a question I am thinking about and haven't answered.

Maybe another example will help. Lets say I am the player banker, and player A and player B to my left both wager $100. I have two options, I can bank $200 or I can bank $400. Which option will make more money in the long run?

If the rules are still the same then both sides pay a $1 fee per hundred to the house regardless of win or lose

So betting $100 you are either losing $101 or winning $99.

It gets worse since based on that hundred range. Betting $100 and paying a $1 vig is bad enough but betting say $2 (I remember some $2 tables) and you are paying $1 for betting that. So a $2 wager you are either losing $3 or winning $1.

A $101 dollar wager you are either losing $103 ($1 per hundred) or winning $99 (paid $101, minus $2).

I don't see how there is any advantage under those circumstances. It's just banking gives you an opportunity to lose slower.

This game has $0.50 fee to bank 1 to $49, $1 fee to bank $50 to $99, and a $2 fee to bank any action over $100. So if you bank $1000 worth of player bets you still only pay $2 fee

But perhaps this is besides the point, because in your example you are assuming the house edge is 0%, and therefore yes if you are paying the juice you will always lose. However, if the game has a house edge greater than percentage of the banking fee in respect to the action, then it is profitable to bank.