Standard deviation of pontoon

[thelawnet]

I am curious to know what the standard deviation of pontoon is, as I have just had an excessive winning session, up 200 in 1100 of betting with a flat 3 wager. This would be very unlikely with regular blackjack, and it seems that pontoon should logically have higher variance (given that there are 2-1 wins and a lot more doubles, so the larger average win must balance out more smaller losses).

Anybody any ideas?

 

[orangeindiana]

The Wizard of Odds lists a number of standard deviations for casino games here at

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. Unfortunately, Pontoon is not yet included, although he does have a page including odds for some online casinos and basic strategy. You may want to email him about it.

 

[sirius]

1.44 according to this page:

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(which is down at the moment but it is in google)

 

[orangeindiana]

1.44 according to this page:

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(which is down at the moment but it is in google)

Where'd you find standard deviation on there? Am I missing something?

 

[thelawnet]

1.44 according to this page:

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(which is down at the moment but it is in google)

I did see that. The page isn't actually down, but has been updated to remove that information. Given that it's no longer there, I figured that that information is wrong. The old version of the page contained some incorrect information about crypto casinos not letting you double soft 21s, which has been removed in the current version (as it was incorrect). The standard deviation was removed; whether or not 1.44 is correct I do not know.

 

[GrandMaster]

The old version of the page contained some incorrect information about crypto casinos not letting you double soft 21s, which has been removed in the current version (as it was incorrect).

This is useful information. It means that pontoon has a lower house edge than the normal Crypto blackjack game.

 

[thelawnet]

This is useful information. It means that pontoon has a lower house edge than the normal Crypto blackjack game.

Indeed. The edge is very small - it's an excellent game to play with easy strategy. It does have higher variance - the fact that with a $10 stake you can very often get $50 back (but also lose $20) without splitting, means that you should lose more but the wins will be larger.

In variance terms I believe a $2 bet on pontoon has almost exactly the same variance as a $3 bet on blackjack, for a given amount of wagering. It's also I think a little faster to play, so you might end up losing money at the same rate.

The higher variance and lower edge makes hitting a target rather more likely than blackjack - so a big win is more likely, but so is going bust.