Eliot Jacobson Ph.D.

The rumor of the death of table games has not been exaggerated, at least in Nevada. For many years the slow creep of slots into the real estate once held tightly by tables was barely noticeable. But, beginning in 2007, at the peak of the housing crash and beginning of the financial collapse, table games have taken a huge hit. The future of table games in unclear.

The High Tie blackjack side bet (HT) dates back at least to 2004, where it is mentioned in this article. I recently ran into this bet at a casino I was visiting. After all these years, it’s still around.

During a recent trip to Las Vegas, I saw a new (to me) blackjack side bet in a downtown casino called Golden 21 (G21). What struck me as immediately suspect were events listed in the pay table corresponding to the player getting an unsuited blackjack, a suited blackjack or a suited A/K. Wagers based around blackjacks are usually very vulnerable to card counting.

Back in 2012, I was very fortunate to be able to speak at the annual convention of the Casino Chip and Gaming Token Collectors Club. There was an expo associated with the convention, where people were selling casino collectibles of all sorts.

The Field Gold 21 (FG21) side bet is one of the more popular side bets available for blackjack. The company that owns it is Fair Trade Gaming, and it is also listed on Shuffle Master’s website. I recall seeing this side bet for many years, and I never thought twice about it. That’s the way it is as a low-level AP.

The game of Ultimate Three Card Poker is a version of Three Card Poker where the dealer exposes one of his three cards before the player acts. It may seem that this solves the ubiquitous "hole-card" problem for Three Card Poker, especially if the card that is flipped face-up is the bottom card from the three-card packet delivered by the shuffle machine.