How many times have you held a pair of tens in blackjack, only to have the dealer draw a four-card 21? Or stick with a 19 and the dealer shows 20? Now there’s a way to cash in when you lose the hands you’re not supposed to.
Bad Beat Blackjack® is a side bet for standard blackjack games. The Bad Beat bet wins if you stand on an initial hand of 19 or 20 but lose to the dealer or push.
How To Play |
- Like many blackjack side bets, each player simply places a wager in an additional betting circle near the main wager.
- If the player stands on an initial 19 or 20 but his hand loses to the dealer, he wins the Bad Beat bet. He’ll win 30-to-1 if he loses with a two-card 20 and 10-to-1 if he loses with a two-card 19. If the player pushes with a two-card 19, 20, or natural 21, the Bad Beat wager wins 5-to-1. If the player starts with a pair and splits, the Bad Beat wager applies to the first split hand. If the player wins with a two-card 19, 20, or 21, the Bad Beat wager pushes, and if the player doesn’t stand on a 19, 20, or 21, the Bad Beat wager loses.
- In another version, if the player wins with her initial hand of 19, 20, or 21, the Bad Beat wager loses instead of pushing. In this version, the payouts for getting beaten are higher: 35-to-1 on a beaten two-card 20 and 15-to-1 on a two-card 19. Pushing and splitting are the same as before.
- In a 6-deck game where the dealer hits on soft 17, the house edges for the paytables above are 5.37% and 5.10%, respectively.
- Twelve different paytables have been developed with house edges ranging from as low as 1% to almost 12%, depending on the number of decks and dealer’s soft-17 strategy. It is very easy to modify the awards in Bad Beat Blackjack® to meet a desired house edge.
- Coming soon: Bad Beat Blackjack® will be available on electronic, touch-screen multiplayer blackjack tables by the 2nd quarter of 2010.
- Bad Beat Blackjack® is U.S. Patent No. 7,651,096 and approved for play in Nevada, Mississippi, and Washington, and has been played in Washington casinos and on the Internet in Europe since 2008.
- Game math summary – contains house edge statistics for all paytables and all rule variations
- Game brochure – one-page overview of the game and rules
