Bethedealer

[thelawnet]

I am trying to work out how legitimate this is.

They offer the following games:

blackjack: six deck, split to 3 hands, no double after split, dealer hits soft 17. HA 0.7719%

However they claim for their bethedealer option:

BeTheDealer Casino offers you the unique option of playing the role of the Dealer... At the end of every round the casino takes a commission of 1.75% of the total bets bet against the Dealer.

....
The casino's edge in Blackjack with these rules is approximately 2% (bear in mind that this percentage depends on the knowledge of the player in Blackjack. Also, this 2% is how the casino makes a profit on Blackjack) so as the Dealer you actually gain an edge of about 0.5%.

I am not sure if they are saying that achieving only a 2% HA with their rules requires a knowledge of blackjack. This is not the case, as a 2% HA assumes a *poor* knowledge of blackjack. In fact unless they have some trickery with their blackjack, against a good player, you stand to lose .98%, making 'being the dealer' worse than their regular game. Either way this is pretty poor practice, as they do not make it clear that 2% assumes suboptimal play.

Anyway, this 1.75% commission makes sense, and ensures that bethedealer cannot lose as you have player versus player for a guaranteed 1.75% profit. Fair enough, but to imply that there is an edge for the dealer is quite misleading.

I can't say I would want to 'be the dealer' with these rules.

They also claim you can play as the dealer on their slots, although I am not sure how this could work, and they provide no explanation or commissions listing.

As dealer you can also play video poker with a 2% commission, underwriting all losses except the royal flush, which is paid by the casino.

In return they offer 8/5 Jacks or Better. The return of this game, excluding the Royal Flush, under optimal stratey is 95.3%.

Given the 2% commission, it seems that the player has at least a 2.7% edge.

To 'be the dealer', you must first wager an equal amount as player. Even under their blackjack rules, (2.7 - .7719) / 2 = 0.96% which is a pretty substantial player advantage, and better than many players count at blackjack in b&m casinos to achieve.

It seems too good to be true, although I guess the casino still wins - the only loser is the 8/5 jacks or better player!

At caribbean poker they are again misleading:

Example
Let's say the Player places $5 as an initial wager. The Player decides to 'Raise' his/her bet, and places an additional wager of $10.

The Player loses his/her bet and since the bet against the Dealer was $15 the casino takes a commission of 1.75%*15 = $0.26, which means the Dealer wins 15-0.23 = $14.77 on this round. The casino's edge in Caribbean Poker is approximately 5.3% (bear in mind that this percentage depends on the knowledge of the player in Caribbean Poker. Also, this 5.3% is how the casino makes a profit on Caribbean Poker) so as the Dealer you actually gain an edge of about 3.8%.

In fact 5.3% is the expected percentage loss on the original $5 bet, not on the final wager. However the commission is being levied on the full $15. The actual loss for perfect strategy as a percentage of wagers is only 2.55%.

Similarly on Pai Gow Poker, they also misleadingly suggest there is a 2.9% HA, when in fact the expected loss is 1.46% of wagers (making 'being the dealer' a losing proposition once their 1.75% commission has been taken).

I also suspect that they recently increased their commission from 1.5% to 1.75% as all the sums use that amount, but didn't update the edge calculations, as their numbers for net advantage wrong, based on 1.5%

Anyway, can anyone comment on the apparent 1% advantage that they offer the player being the dealer on jacks or better and playing blackjack?

[icenine]

It seems too good to be true, although I guess the casino still wins

yup. basicly, one has to earn their 'dealer points' by playing the normal -EV games- the ammount of -EV play needed to earns those points outweighs any +EV one gets by using the points. They are, in my experience, profitable- if you're ready for some serious variance- i had a dude martingaling on me and he was lucky enough to never lose more than five in a row. the profit comes from imperfect play on the parts of the people playing against you- With good table selection, a ton of dealer points, and a healthy roll, i like being the dealer, but i'd rather just go do another bonus somewhere else.

BTW, playing as the dealer does not count towards bonus WRs.

B

[thelawnet]

Originally Posted by icenine

yup. basicly, one has to earn their 'dealer points' by playing the normal -EV games- the ammount of -EV play needed to earns those points outweighs any +EV one gets by using the points. They are, in my experience, profitable- if you're ready for some serious variance- i had a dude martingaling on me and he was lucky enough to never lose more than five in a row. the profit comes from imperfect play on the parts of the people playing against you- With good table selection, a ton of dealer points, and a healthy roll, i like being the dealer, but i'd rather just go do another bonus somewhere else.

BTW, playing as the dealer does not count towards bonus WRs.

B

Doesn't it accrue at $1 bet as player lets you take $1 as dealer? So betting on blackjack and being the dealer at their short jacks or better paytable seems profitable.

Or do you have to play the same game as you be the dealer at.

[largeeyes]

Last I looked, their VP was 100+% payout because of the enormous Royal Flush jackpot