At my local casino, there are a couple blackjack tables that have diffrent bonuses at each one.

One is called "straight jack". You place your standard bet, and if you want you can put any bet ranging from $1 to $25 on the straight jack bonus. You win if your first two cards are of consecutive rank, a Straight. The order of the cards does not matter — a 3 followed by a 4 or a 4 followed by a 3, both are winners. Every time you hit your hand, if it makes the Straight longer, your payout increases.

The other is "match the dealer". This one is pretty self explanatory. If one of your cards matches the dealers up card you win. If they both match, the payout is something sick like 20or50-1.

I rarley play blackjack and when i do i dont play the bonuses since they are so -EV. But I have seen people hit some pretty sick stuff and they get huge payouts when they do.


So my question is if one were to play the bonuses, which one has a higher EV and higher probablility of hitting?

To answer that question we need to know the payouts.

For the straight, the first card doesn't matter and the chance the next card is consecutive is 8/51 or 15.7%. So a fair payout would be 5.375 to 1.

Matching the dealer upcard is 3/51 or 5.88% and a fair payout would be 16 to 1. Matching with two cards would be 3/51*2/50 or 0.24% and a fair payout would be about 424 to 1. If you get paid 50 to 1 it's a huge ripoff.

To compare them you need to state the exact payouts, as already mentioned.

He can match either card, so for single deck it would be

1 - (48/51 * 47/50)

=~ 11.53% or 8.7-to-1

But it would change a lot if it's say 8 decks. In that case it would be

1 - (384/415 * 383/414)

=~ 14.4% or 6.95-to-1

? I thought it was only the upcard.

Also wouldn't infinite deck (i.e. a shoe without counting) be the same as single deck?

oops, i see now

You can match either of your 2 cards.


Even your probability of the up card matching one particular card, say your first card, will be better the more decks there are. With single deck this probability is 3/51. With infinite decks, it is 1/13.

Sorry for the delay and thanks for the responses. The payouts for the games:

Straight jack
2 card straight pays 3-1
3 card straight pays 25-1
4 card straight pays 100-1
5 card straight pays 250-1


Match the dealer
1 non-suited match pays 4-1
2 non-suited matches pays 8-1
1 suited match pays 9-1
1 non-suited and 1 suited match pays 13-1
2 suited matches pays 18-1

And fwiw, this casino uses three decks per shoe.

For straight jack, do we still get paid on bets if we bust?

The answer to this affects the game.

Here is the house edge for Match the Dealer:

Result	Combinations	Probability	Pays	Return
no match	10296	0.8626728111	-1	-0.8626728111
1 unsuited match	1296	0.108588186	4	0.434352744
1 suited match	288	0.024130708	9	0.217176372
2 unsuited match	36	0.0030163385	8	0.024130708
1unsuited + 1 suited	18	0.0015081693	13	0.0196062003
2 suited matches	1	8.37871805613741E-005	18	0.0015081693
Total	11935	1		-0.1658986175

House edge: 16.59%

fyi, the same paytable with a 6-deck game, the house edge is lowered to 10.49%.

Yes, we still get paid if we bust. For example: if you are dealt a 8-7 and have $5 on the SJ, if you hit again and bust you receive $15.

With that said, which game is more +EV?

But if you have 8-7 and hit a nine and bust, would you get paid $125 or just $15? I'm guessing just $15, but correct me if I'm wrong.

And unfortunately the math for this is a much bigger pain, and strategy may change based upon the ratio of the side bet to the BJ wager.