Betfair 'zero' games

[mathare]

It's not news that I like my casino games, especially craps and blackjack so it was with an equal mix of interest and skepticism that I read an e-mail from Betfair this evening about their new 'zero' games: blackjack, baccarat, roulette and jacks or better video poker. These are games with no house edge if played with perfect strategy.

There are two questions that spring immediately to mind when you hear about games with zero house edge: how have they done it and why have they done it?

Let's start with the easy one - how.
Roulette - there is no zero. Simple. No zero means 18 red numbers and 18 black numbers. 18 odd and 18 even. 36 numbers paying 35/1. And so on.
Blackjack - get a suited natural and you get an enhanced payout of 2/1 instead of 3/2 for an unsuited natural. 5-card 21s are also worth a 2/1 payout. Played to proper strategy (which may have slight variations from recognised basic strategy due to the 2/1 payout on 5-card 21s) this has a zero house edge.
Baccarat - the commission on banker bets is reduced to 2.75% (from 5%) which Betfair say is enough to reduce the house edge to zero and I can't be bothered to work through the maths to prove or disprove that so I am going to take it on trust. It certainly sounds plausible, put it that way.
Jacks or Better - the pay table is a full-pay 9/6 table but with enhanced terms on the five-coin royal flush to give this a 100% payback when played to the proper strategy.

So why are they doing this? I don't know!

They have regular casino games too but why play at a disadvantage when you have a truly even gamble with the house?

At present there doesn't seem to be any welcome bonuses or anything so I am holding off to see if any appear in the near future, and also to work out what the catch with it all is. Is it a marketing gimmick and the zero games will soon be withdrawn? Are they effectively running them as slight loss leaders (the house edge on the games they have made 0% was around 1% or so anyway) to try and attract people to the Betfair casino and thus to the other non-zero games? I honestly don't know but this seems like a fair gamble to me and a unique selling point so fair play to them.

If you decide to play let us know what you played and how you got on. You're at the mercy of lady luck (and standard deviation) so good luck if you do play :)

[TheOldhamWhisper]

I'm pretty certain that it is to tempt the 'casual' player - the ones who don't know/use the correct strategies.

As you point out above, the one place that strategy is paramount is Blackjack - so they have slightly changed the strategic edge that a good player might have by making the players develop new strategies to get that edge.

A great strategist may (with a few weeks study) gain a distinct advantage but I'm pretty sure they will have these angles covered (or will use the players to advertise their games to the quick fix brigade!).

[petercide]

just saw this email myself, went to have a dabble at roulette and any outside bet was a minimum £5. First time Ive seen a minimum bet on a table (altho Im by no means an expert). Was enough to put me off my dabble anyways.

[mathare]

£5 minimum on the outside is by no means unusual for any table, let alone one like this

[markwales]

Just dabbled on the video poker..... turned £20 into £100 and transferred it all back to the standard Betty account with pleasure :D:D

It certainly seems as fair, and as consistent with it's winners and % of winning plays as other video pokers I've played (Circa 53-57% win hand%), but then this may be a 'loose' first few days to suck people in. That wouldn't surprise me one little bit.

[mathare]

It certainly seems as fair, and as consistent with it's winners and % of winning plays as other video pokers I've played (Circa 53-57% win hand%), but then this may be a 'loose' first few days to suck people in. That wouldn't surprise me one little bit.Personally I don't buy the idea of loose and tight video poker machines. Slots - yes, but not video poker. After all it's being dealt from a standard 52 card deck so the probability of each and every hand is perfectly definable and as the pay table doesn't change between hands the house edge is fixed. Unless they are changing the RNG and I quite seriously doubt they'll get away with that.

Glad you had a nice result tonight though Mark. I too had a good casino session, although my profit is thanks to William Hill :)

[petercide]

£5 minimum on the outside is by no means unusual for any table, let alone one like this


is it not? As I said, Im no expert, just that the other sites Ive dabbled on havent put restrictions on it as far as I can remember.

[mathare]

is it not? As I said, Im no expert, just that the other sites Ive dabbled on havent put restrictions on it as far as I can remember.I have hardly ever played roulette online as I prefer a much lower house edge when I do play casino games so I am no expert on these matters but from my experience in brick&mortar casinos a £5 minimum on the outside is pretty much the norm. Not sure I can recall seeing anything less to be honest. You may expect lower minimum stakes online I guess but for a game like roulette where there is no optimal strategy the house edge on this game with Betfair is automaticaly 0% so it makes sense for them to up the minimum stakes to keep some of the grinders away maybe. I guess it all boils down to what you're comfortable putting on a coin toss.

[roma]

Is there no commission then?

[mathare]

Is there no commission then?Not as far as I can tell - no. This is a traditional casino in most respects with the normal casino odds etc (except for the zero games, obviously). It's a departure from the norm for Betfair. And you earn Betfair points too so if you're willing to face an even gamble on roulette or whatever you could use that to earn some more points and lower the commission you pay on exchange betting.

I haven't actually played at the Betfair casino so I am guessing about the lack of commission but I didn't see any mention of it when I was reading the blurb last night. And having it wouldn't make much sense as it effectively increases the house edge by 2-5% so unless they are offering enhanced terms or payouts on every game (which they aren't) why would you play at a casino with a much larger house margin?

As I said above it's a departure from the usual Betfair exchange activities so maybe they are trying to grow the brand and get a piece of the online casino pie.

[roma]

I might have a go at roulette, doubling stakes after a certain point of loss. Looks like you can only double once though, as the minimum bet on red/black (OK, blue/white) is £5 and the maximum is £10, so it would need some consideration what is the optimum point to double.

[roma]

Is there somewhere I can look at a standard deviation chart for a 50/50 probability? I suppose that is what I need, to see what my worst case scenario would be?

[mathare]

Is there somewhere I can look at a standard deviation chart for a 50/50 probability? I suppose that is what I need, to see what my worst case scenario would be?Not sure it can be done that way but let me have a bit of a think about it....

[mathare]

Is there somewhere I can look at a standard deviation chart for a 50/50 probability? I suppose that is what I need, to see what my worst case scenario would be?In removing the zero from the roulette wheel this has been reduced to a random walk game on the outside bets. I don't know if there is any strategy or staking plans for a random walk but I suspect there's nothing much worth knowing about out there.

As for the standard deviation - this is a tricky propostion and doesn't often apply to gambling. You can plot the results for a number of trials of a set number of spins (30+) plotting profit/loss against frequency. This should be centred around zero.

Hang on! You've got a binomial distribution haven't you? That's rhetorical really, you have got a binomial distribution. Aha! That means your variance (and standard deviation) is properly defined:

var = np(1-p) where n is the number of trials and p is the probability of the event happening, 0.5 in this case since it's an even gamble.

Your standard deviation is then the square-root of that. And with a large enough n you can apply the normal distribution. Woohoo!

Let's run a couple of quick examples...

100 spins (n=100)
EV = 0
SD = sqrt(100*0.25) = 5
Min/Max = -/+ 15 units

500 spins (n=500)
EV = 0
SD = sqrt(500*0.25) = 11.18
Min/Max = -/+ 33.5 units

1000 spins (n=1000)
EV = 0
SD = sqrt(1000*0.25) = 15.81
Min/Max = 47.4 units

Hope that helps

[danoneil]

And you earn Betfair points too

Sadly not! They've specified no points for their casino zero games...

[mathare]

Sadly not! They've specified no points for their casino zero games...I thought it sounded a bit too good to be true. I only scan read odd bits of the site last night and the bit about Betfair points wasn't one of them - I was just making assumptions from the banner ads.

[roma]

Thanks Mat that is what I needed! I am not sure I will do it though, I might need to work up some courage (and think about bank size) for a £5 minimum stake. I only usually play roulette if they will let me start at 10p :laugh