Red Rock Casino Blackjack Rules

105% return -- I'm there!	5 votes (19.23%)
Call me maybe.	No votes (0%)
$13/hour -- I'll pass	8 votes (30.76%)
Two month jackpot cycle -- I'll pass	4 votes (15.38%)
Is there a team I can join to hit this?	No votes (0%)
Thanks, Wiz, for ruining yet another good play.	10 votes (38.46%)
Total eclipse reminder April 8 2024.	4 votes (15.38%)
Don't forget to vote.	2 votes (7.69%)
My chess set is missing a black pawn.	1 vote (3.84%)
Can incest happen with a step relative?	3 votes (11.53%)

26 members have voted

ChumpChange

The poker room in Las Vegas that everyone is talking about is the room at Red Rock, clearly the best and brightest of the new Off-the-Strip rooms. Red Rock is, in fact, on a par with some of the best of the big rooms on Las Vegas Boulevard. It is worth the trip out Charleston Blvd. To see what is arguably the best of the 'outer ring' casinos.
A blackjack, or natural, is a total of 21 in your first two cards. A blackjack is therefore an Ace and any ten-valued card, with the additional requirement that these be your first two cards. If you split a pair of Aces for example, and then draw a ten-valued card on one of the Aces, this is not a blackjack, but rather a total of 21.
Red rock casino had two jackpots over $200,000 today. One was a sequential royal for $278k and a keno slot jackpot for $200k. I hope it was Alan that hit the royal. Probably that Rick Harrison (pawn stars) though. He plays in the high limit room at Red Rock a lot.

The dealer places one card face up. If the dealer is showing an ace, insurance is offered. This is where a player can receive 2:1 if the dealer has a blackjack. Next, the dealer checks for blackjack if showing an ace or 10-value card. If the dealer has blackjack, the hand immediately ends. Players with blackjack push here. All other players lose. Blackjack Blackjack is the first game that casinos started to alter the rules for. The casinos started by changing the payout for a natural blackjack from 3:2 to 6:5. The house edge is 3 times as large when the casino only pays 6:5 when a player is dealt a natural blackjack. $10 wager pays $15 for 3:2 blackjack; $10 wager pays $12 for 6:5 blackjack.

Thanks for this post from:

If you're expecting a 105.22% payback and don't hit your sequential royal that pays 11% of the total payback, you're really playing a 94.25% machine. You'll need that sequential royal to break even.

gordonm888

If you're expecting a 105.22% payback and don't hit your sequential royal that pays 11% of the total payback, you're really playing a 94.25% machine. You'll need that sequential royal to break even.

This is exactly correct.. There is less than 1 in a million chance (per deal) of making a sequential royal - and 11% of your equity is tied up in this long-shot. If you don't make a reversible royal, then this is a dog of a VP game.
And if you do hit the $40,000 jackpot remember that it will be reported to the IRS and income tax will take a bite out of it. It's difficult to be an AP.

So many better men, a few of them friends, were dead. And a thousand thousand slimy things lived on, and so did I.

Wizard
Administrator

Thanks for this post from:

I returned to the Red Rock today to investigate Alan's game.
Good news: The jackpot is almost twice as much.
Good news: Better base pay tables.
Bad news: Jackpot requires betting 10 coins (as opposed to 5 coins for the games by the Starbucks in the food court)
All things considered, the returns are nearly the same:
Starbucks: 105.22%
Buffet: 105.26% 2019

The expected win per hour (assuming 1,000 bets per hour) is also much better:
Starbucks: $14.33/hr.
Buffet: $23.63/hr.

It's not whether you win or lose; it's whether or not you had a good bet.

Mental

Thanks for this post from:

If you're expecting a 105.22% payback and don't hit your sequential royal that pays 11% of the total payback, you're really playing a 94.25% machine. You'll need that sequential royal to break even.

There is no basis for removing any of the winning hands from the EV without putting it in context of bankroll calculations. For every single-line VP game that I know of, the most likely result over a session of exactly one hand is a 100% loss. Extending the logic of the comment above, I need a paying hand to get any ROI and I am unlikely to get a paying hand. Therefore, I should eliminate all paying hands from my EV calculation and assign every VP game with a 0% ROI if I intend to only play one hand. This is absurd.
The real question is does the gambler have the bankroll and stomach to undertake the variance offered by the opportunity. I have a cell in my spreadsheet that tracks my estimated variance for VP play. I have an accumulated lifetime variance of 140B dollars² just from video poker and more from other forms of gambling. If I estimate that the total is really 160B dollars², the square root of this is $400K. My lifetime standard deviation is roughly +/- $400K. If I added one SRF chase, it would be a drop in the ocean compared to my lifetime variance -- whether or not I hit the SRF.
Even if you don't have great records, you can easily estimate how much variance you incur in a year doing what you already do. You can see how this play stacks up in comparison to your other gambling. Variance is simply additive. Over the long term, a million dollars Red

² variance from chasing a SRF progressive is the same as a a million dollars² of variance from blackjack. The variance of the game in the OP is about 18K.

100xOdds

you might want to clarify how come the buffet game is so much more per hr profit.
ie: that the starbucks game is .25 and the buffet one is nickels.
and what are pay tables offered at the buffet ones?

Craps is paradise (Pair of dice). Lets hear it for the SpeedCount Mathletes :)

billryan

This is not the way any decent career AP looks at expected value. The play has an hourly EV and a variance per hand. Over a very long time frame, the standard deviation of an AP's results is determined only by their accumulated variance. There are a number of tools available to calculate risk of ruin and bankroll requirements. If an AP has an appropriate bankroll such that the the RoR is low, then the only question is is the EV/hour worth it versus other opportunities. The Kelly criteria are another way of deciding the same question. If the max bet is 25 or 50 cents and Kelly says you could risk $2 per hand if that was an option, then your bankroll is adequate to play this game.
There is no basis for removing any of the winning hands from the EV without putting it in context of bankroll calculations. For every single-line VP game that I know of, the most likely result over a session of exactly one hand is a 100% loss. Extending the logic of the comment above, I need a paying hand to get any ROI and I am unlikely to get a paying hand. Therefore, I should eliminate all paying hands from my EV calculation and assign every VP game with a 0% ROI if I intend to only play one hand. This is absurd.
The real question is does the gambler have the bankroll and stomach to undertake the variance offered by the opportunity. I have a cell in my spreadsheet that tracks my estimated variance for VP play. I have an accumulated lifetime variance of 140B dollars² just from video poker and more from other forms of gambling. If I estimate that the total is really 160B dollars², the square root of this is $400K. My lifetime standard deviation is roughly +/- $400K. If I added one SRF chase, it would be a drop in the ocean compared to my lifetime variance -- whether or not I hit the SRF.
Even if you don't have great records, you can easily estimate how much variance you incur in a year doing what you already do. You can see how this play stacks up in comparison to your other gambling. Variance is simply additive. Over the long term, a million dollars² variance from chasing a SRF progressive is the same as a a million dollars² of variance from blackjack. The variance of the game in the OP is about 18K.

Would you say Powerball is a positive EV if you factor in the one in a billion chance of hitting the top prize?
The game in question will return 94% to the thousands of people who play it and 105% to the one person who basically gets hit by lightning. To say that the game has an Ev of $ten dollars or more an hour seems very wrong as every person who plays it, with one exception is playing a very poor game.
If a casino had a blackjack game where the dealer won all ties, but it offered a million-dollar prize if every player at the table got a suited BJ, and the dealer got a BJ in spades, would you call that game a +EV?
When you start including once in a lifetime events into a games ev, the formula seems flawed.DogHand

Thanks for this post from:

<snip>If a casino had a blackjack game where the dealer won all ties, but it offered a million-dollar prize if every player at the table got a suited BJ, and the dealer got a BJ in spades, would you call that game a +EV?<snip>

YES!..... If I could play heads-up ;-)
Dog HandWizard
Administrator

Thanks for this post from:

you might want to clarify how come the buffet game is so much more per hr profit.
ie: that the starbucks game is .25 and the buffet one is nickels.
and what are pay tables offered at the buffet ones?

It's mainly because you can bet twice as much at the buffet games. The pay tables are stated in my article.

It's not whether you win or lose; it's whether or not you had a good bet.

rdw4potus

It's mainly because you can bet twice as much at the buffet games. The pay tables are stated in my article.

Isn't the buffet 60% less than the Starbucks game? 10 nickels versus 5 quarters?

'So as the clock ticked and the day passed, opportunity met preparation, and luck happened.' - Maurice Clarett

gordonm888

Thanks for this post from:

No one is arguing that >1.00 EV isn't refreshing and exciting. We are pointing that with 13% of equity coming from Royal Flushes and 11% of equity coming from a 'once in 700 billion' chance, that this game has unusually high variance and high risk of ruin, given a finite bankroll.
And again, there will be no escaping the Tax Man on a $40K or $80K jackpot. It is non-trivial to claim gambling losses to offset a big win, and with the standard deduction at about $20k it may be hard to avoid the tax man altogether. It may still be positive EV after taxes but these are factors worth mentioning.

So many better men, a few of them friends, were dead. And a thousand thousand slimy things lived on, and so did I.

All Las Vegas Strip casinos, as well as some in the downtown and locals markets, short-pay some blackjack tables with a 6:5 payout. The list below shows the minimum bet it takes for you to find a 3:2 blackjack table so that you can get the best game for your bankroll.

The minimum bets and rules listed are based on my observations when visiting Las Vegas casinos in December 2019. Minimum bets may increase during peak hours or due to a policy change.

The list assumes that the game is a six or eight-deck shoe with double down before and after splitting and the dealer hitting soft 17. If there is a variation from these rules, it is included in parenthesis.

$1

Lucky Club

$2

Poker Palace

$3

Jokers Wild (no double down after split)
Sam’s Town

$5

Aliante (double deck or shoe, latter adds surrender)
Arizona Charlie’s Decatur (double deck and shoe)
Bighorn (double down before or after split on two or three cards plus surrender and re-split aces)
Boulder Station (surrender)
California (double deck or shoe, no double down after split in both)
Cannery (double deck or shoe, latter adds surrender)
Club Fortune (double deck or shoe)
Downtown Grand (surrender and re-split aces)
Eastside Cannery (double deck and shoe with re-split aces, shoe adds surrender)
El Cortez (single deck with no double down after split or double deck and shoe with double down after split)
Ellis Island
Fiesta Henderson and Rancho (double deck and shoe, latter has surrender)
Fremont (double deck and shoe, no double down after split in both)
Gold Coast (double deck and shoe)
Golden Gate
Jerry’s Nugget (double deck and shoe)
Longhorn (double down before or after split on two or three cards plus surrender and re-split aces)
M Resort (double deck and shoe)
Main Street Station (double deck, no double down after split)
Orleans (double deck and shoe)
Palace Station (double deck and shoe, latter adds surrender)
Plaza
Railroad Pass
Rampart (double deck or shoe, latter adds surrender and re-split aces)
Santa Fe Station (double deck and shoe, latter adds surrender)
Silver Nugget
Silverton (surrender and re-split aces)
Skyline
South Point
Suncoast (double deck and shoe)
Texas Station (double deck and shoe, latter adds surrender)
The Strat (surrender and re-split aces)
Tuscany

$10

Bally’s (surrender)
Circus Circus
Cromwell (surrender)
Green Valley Ranch (double deck and shoe, latter adds surrender)
Oyo
Palms (double deck and shoe, latter adds surrender)
Red Rock (double deck and shoe, latter adds surrender)
Rio (surrender)
Silver 7’s (double deck and shoe, latter adds surrender and re-split aces)
Sunset Station (double deck and shoe, latter adds surrender)
The D
Treasure Island (double deck and shoe, latter adds surrender and re-split aces)

$15

Caesars Palace (surrender)
Flamingo (surrender)
Golden Nugget (surrender)
Harrah’s (surrender)
Paris (surrender)
Planet Hollywood (surrender)
Sahara
Westgate

$25

Four Queens (double deck, no double down after split)
Cosmopolitan (surrender and re-split aces)
Encore (surrender and re-split aces)
Excalibur (surrender and re-split aces)
Linq (double deck, no double after split, or shoe with surrender)
Luxor (surrender and re-split aces)
Mandalay Bay (surrender and re-split aces)
MGM Grand (surrender and re-split aces)
Mirage (surrender and re-split aces)
New York New York (surrender and re-split aces)
Park MGM (surrender and re-split aces)
Tropicana (double deck and shoe)
Wynn (surrender and re-split aces)

$50

Red Rock Casino Blackjack Rules To Play

Aria (surrender and re-split aces)
Bellagio (stand on all 17’s with surrender and re-split aces)
Palazzo (double deck or shoe, latter adds surrender and re-split aces)
Venetian (double deck or shoe, latter adds surrender and re-split aces)

Red Rock Casino Blackjack Rules Game

Las Vegas casinos with no 3:2 blackjack games

Red Rock Casino Blackjack Rules For Real

There are three Las Vegas casinos with table games that do not offer any traditional 3:2 blackjack games. Those casinos are Binion’s, Casino Royale and O’Sheas. I found 3:2 tables with a forced $1 side bet at Binion’s but no other ones. The other two casinos have no 3:2 tables of any kind, based on my observations.