Deathclutch
Well-Known Member
And I believe you are correct. I don't think you'd split against a 17. Feeling too lazy to look it up though.AnIrishmannot2brite said:
Maybe someone can tell me if this is a treasure trove or not
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AnIrishmannot2brite
Well-Known Member
Herein lies the problem: Cash out rules are a real bitch on these "free chips". The maximum cash you can withdraw is low even if you win through the roof.Deathclutch said:
While all bonuses have a "blank x the bonus" rule the free chip ones are especially bad. Some have a "99 x the bonus" and such. This however isn't all bad. The free chips give one a chance to scope out the house BEFORE putting any solid cash down,
The reason I'm optimistic about "face up 21" is that there is a tremendous volatility to the game (I realize that this should have been put in "Online games" forum to begin with). So with the huge swings in fortune lie (I think) the possibility of beating the REAL bonuses later on. Real bonuses don't have the "99 x the bonus" betting rules. These vary from house to house. Ones I've seen vary from 4 x bonus to 20 times bonus. There are probably others too.
Maybe one of our online gaming experts can touch base on this.
What i may do later on is find the better bonus giveaways with the lowest maximum betting before cash out. Then play the "face up 21" in order to take advantage of possible volatility.
If you were to get tens against dealer sixteen on a large bet, split get more tens and split again up to 3 to 4 times (depending upon house rules) you could more easily beat the playing requirements. Assuming you has decent luck.
Hypothesis: Face up 21 may be one of the better ways to win through online bonus. Gives much more advantage to splitting an doubling conditions than regualr blackjack. Least ways this is the way it feels to me.
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Nynefingers
Well-Known Member
If I understand correctly, you have some number of chips to play with that were free, with no deposit required. But, you must play through 99x the bonus amount in betting action before you can cash out. Am I correct so far?
I don't believe your standard deviation will be substantially higher at this game because even with more splits and doubles, you only get even money on blackjacks. SD will probably be somewhat higher, but not by much. Are you betting the table max? If not, bigger bets are a more effective way to increase the overall SD over the required betting action. And regardless of the game, you MUST play the proper BS for the game in question or you are leaving money on the table.
One common strategy on these types of high-playthrough bonuses is to employ a high variance strategy early to attempt to either achieve a high target or bust (somewhat similar to a sticky bonus strategy) and if the target is achieved, then you would play out the required playthrough at a low house edge game like blackjack. Here is an example of how that would work, using a hypothetical fair coinflip game for the first stage:
Lets assume your account starts with a $100 bonus with no deposit required, but you must play through $10000 in betting before you can cash out. Playing BJ with a house edge of 0.5%, you expect to lose $50 of the $100, so your EV is approximately $50. (Actually, this isn't quite correct because it doesn't account for the times you bust before completing the required playthrough, but lets ignore that for now.)
Now, if we flip a coin and either bust or start with $200 in our account, our EV is 0.5*$0+0.5*($200-$50)=$75. By flipping a coin before starting, we've raised the EV by $25. This is because on average we are only giving $5000 in action at 0.5% HE, not the original $10000.
We can continue by flipping a coin twice, so we bust 75% of the time and start with $400 25% of the time. The EV for this approach is $87.50.
The point is that a high playthrough requirement isn't an automatic dealbreaker. It just requires a different approach. The approach is essentially to play a very high volatility game until you hit some target or bust, then if you hit the target, you play through the remaining required action and cash out a good profit.
I don't believe your standard deviation will be substantially higher at this game because even with more splits and doubles, you only get even money on blackjacks. SD will probably be somewhat higher, but not by much. Are you betting the table max? If not, bigger bets are a more effective way to increase the overall SD over the required betting action. And regardless of the game, you MUST play the proper BS for the game in question or you are leaving money on the table.
One common strategy on these types of high-playthrough bonuses is to employ a high variance strategy early to attempt to either achieve a high target or bust (somewhat similar to a sticky bonus strategy) and if the target is achieved, then you would play out the required playthrough at a low house edge game like blackjack. Here is an example of how that would work, using a hypothetical fair coinflip game for the first stage:
Lets assume your account starts with a $100 bonus with no deposit required, but you must play through $10000 in betting before you can cash out. Playing BJ with a house edge of 0.5%, you expect to lose $50 of the $100, so your EV is approximately $50. (Actually, this isn't quite correct because it doesn't account for the times you bust before completing the required playthrough, but lets ignore that for now.)
Now, if we flip a coin and either bust or start with $200 in our account, our EV is 0.5*$0+0.5*($200-$50)=$75. By flipping a coin before starting, we've raised the EV by $25. This is because on average we are only giving $5000 in action at 0.5% HE, not the original $10000.
We can continue by flipping a coin twice, so we bust 75% of the time and start with $400 25% of the time. The EV for this approach is $87.50.
The point is that a high playthrough requirement isn't an automatic dealbreaker. It just requires a different approach. The approach is essentially to play a very high volatility game until you hit some target or bust, then if you hit the target, you play through the remaining required action and cash out a good profit.