Hi, betfair have a promotion on right now where by you get one free side bet of £5 when you play a £5 hand of “live” BJ. You can do it once a day between the hours of 8 and 10pm.

I’m not a blackjack player but I have a “perfect strategy card” and using that the casino only has a .05 (ish) edge, so basically it costs 2.5p for the £5 side bet.

My question is should I put it on the “perfect pair” or the “21+3”, I have tried googling it but I can’t find the answer. Cheers in advance, Benat

I do not have an account on betfair and can't easily find the paytables for these side-bets. They are both well-known side bets but different casinos may use different paytables. Please provide them.

Also, please explain how the "free bet" works. Is it free money? Is there a rollover? Oftentimes with a "free bet" you don't get the chip back after a winning bet, only the winnings. For example if you place a $5 free bet and win a 10:1 bet you get $50 back, where you'd normally get $55 back. Is that how it works?

Yes sorry, it’s not an actual “free bet” it’s bet £5 as a side bet and if it loses they return it

I’ve been searching all over the app for the paytables and I just can’t find them, the only information I have is the “return to player” is 99.46% when the cards are delt before a player makes a decision. If I were to guess I reckon it looks like about 6 decks in the shoe.

what are the pay tables? AFAIK you want to go for the more volatile / longshotty one.

here is the 21+3 paytable :

suited 3 of a kind 100:1
straight flush 40:1
3 of a kind 30:1
straight 10:1
flush 5:1

perfect pair

Red/Black Pair: 6 to 1
Colored Pair: 12 to 1
Perfect Pair: 25 to 1

it is an eight deck game

Right on, so you reckongo for the 23+1 option because it’s more longshoty?

well you'd have to calculate the probability of each payout to know for sure. flip a coin imo.

Ok, thanks

I'm still a bit confused. Of course you lose the free bet when you lose. What happens to the free bet when you win? Is it used up and the casino takes it back, or does it go into your balance as real money with the rest of your winnings?

Under the assumption that the former happens, we can calculate the player edge of a free bet by taking a weighted average of the payouts.

For Perfect Pairs under the above paytable this is:
(1456*25+1664*12+3328*6)/86320*£5 = £4.42

For 21+3 under the above paytable this is:
(2912*100+24576*40+61568*30+368640*10+700928*5)/11912160*5 = £4.33

I didn't want to do the math myself, so I got the number of combinations for each bet from https://wizardofodds.com/games/blackjack/appendix/8/

It's worth noting that 21+3 has a lower house edge normally, and it looks like more of a long shot, but Pair Plus is still better for free bets. The long shot is always better with these free bets when you're getting straight odds (like in roulette you should bet a single number), but these paytables with various types of odds make things more complicated.

Edit: Congrats! You just made 4.5p in EV, assuming you were 50-50 to choose correctly before.

Yes, I shouldn’t have said “free bet”, it’s actually just a regular bet but refunded if you lose. You have to put a minimum £5 bet on BJ in the regular way (which costs 2.5p(ish) using “perfect strategy) and then place a £5 side bet (which is refunded when you lose). So the way I figured it, it is under 3p to get a £5 bet on.

I didn’t know if putting on “perfect pair” or 21+3 made a big difference or not, sounds like it’s pretty close. I’m gonna go for the 21+3 as it sounds like that is probably slightly more positive plus there is the chance of hitting a much bigger score😎

Thanks everyone for your replies

I understand now. It functions the same way as a free bet, then.

Perfect pairs is better by 9 pence. Re-read my post.

Oh ok, perfect pairs it is😝, cheers brown!

A free bet usually means “stake not returned” but when it’s a refund when you lose it’s just a normal bet but they give you it back if it doesn’t win, that’s the difference. If I put a £5 free bet on a horse at 2/1 I get £15 if I use the usual type of free bet that is stake not returned we get only £10

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