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Tripping Out

If the only Blackjack available close to you is a 6-deck game, are you better off making a lot of trips there to play, or would you be better off just making a few trips every year to play at a single-deck game? Travel to either place costs something, but it's probably fair to say that a trip to the single-deck game will involve airfare, hotel rooms, etc. so the $$$ you have to lay out will undoubtedly be a lot more. Is the single-deck game that much better? Let's find out.

Since 6-deck Blackjack games are the most common, many- of you probably live within driving distance of a casino which offers it. A drive of 100 miles or so isn't too taxing and you may or may not spend the night once you get there, but you'll most likely have lunch or dinner, so let's say the total cost for each trip is $50, which covers gas and a meal. If you play Blackjack for 6 hours on each trip, you'll average about 400 hands each session. At a 6-deck game where the dealer stands on A-6, double after split is allowed (and you may double on any first two cards), and they deal out 4.5 of the decks, you can expect to win 1.06 units per 100 hands played, using a 1 to 12 bet spread. If you bet $10 units, that's an expected win of $42 per trip. The figure of $42 is an average, but in reality, your result range from a loss of $1705 up to a win of $1790, or anywhere in between. This is called a 'three standard deviation' result and it covers 99.5% of all your sessions. But after a bunch of trips, your results will get closer and closer to the $42 result. That doesn't even cover your modest travel expenses! Plus, to bet $10-$120, you'll need a $12,000 bankroll to insure a 'risk of ruin' of 5%. (Restated, it means that with a $12,000 bankroll, there's just a 5% chance of losing it all at that game and that betting spread.)

Now, let's say you take 6 trips a year to an area which offers a decent single-deck game (Reno, Laughlin, etc.), stay for 3 days, and use a betting spread of $25-100. The rules I'm assuming are dealer hits A-6, no double after split and double only on 10 or 11. If they deal 60% of the cards, your expectation is to win 1.56 units per 100 hands, but remember that on this trip, a unit is $25. So, in 3 days, you can play about 1200 hands, thus the expectation is to win $468. If you can keep your costs below that amount, you're WAY ahead of all those day-trips to play 6-deck games. On any given trip, your result will fall somewhere between a loss of $5843 to a win of $6779. (This number is a lot bigger than the 'day-trip', but it also represents 3 times the amount of play.) Such a betting schedule requires a slightly larger bankroll: $14,000, but think of the advantages! At the 6-deck game, you're just another $10 player, but at the single-deck game, you're a 'green' chip player and you should get a lot more meal comps, room comps, free shows, etc.

To me, this is a 'no-brainer'. Unless you live within 20 or 30 miles of the 6-deck game, you'll be a lot better off flying to a single-deck game 4 or 6 times a year, than making 20 or 25 day-trips. Yes, setting aside $14,000 to play Blackjack is a big commitment and, if I didn't mention it before, this applies to card-counters only, but which is better - a lot of losing trips or a few winning trips where you can get away, relax and kick some butt?

Incidentally, all the calculations for this article were performed by the Blackjack Risk Manager which I wrote about in a previous article, 'Letter to An Ex-Counter'.

See you here next time.

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