Super split

Sometimes, the side bets available to you during blackjack are a stretch, and as such are ridiculous in rules and in the house advantage. They require no extra skill or decision-making, they aren’t fun and they severely kill your chances of making any money off your regular bets. So why are they there? You know why.

Super split, in my opinion, is one such game – so absurd it just begs to be examined. As you probably have figured out already, its payoff is based on whether you split your hand on the first two cards, and what sequences show up after that determine the amount of return on your side bet.

For the purposes of this breakdown, we’re going to look at a six-deck game, where the overall house odds are somewhere in the realm of 23 percent. Yeah, those 6 or 7 percent house edge games aren’t looking so bad now, are they?

Also, an eight-deck game yields the “best” odds on this one, with a house edge at only 22 percent. But take it down to a 2-deck game, and the edge balloons to nearly 28%. That should be enough for you to keep your worst enemy away from this table.

Here’s how it breaks down. The biggest payoff is for splitting two aces in your original hand, and then getting two face cards after the split – all suited. This is the brass ring here, and actually features a nice payoff at 2,500 to 1. Of course, your odds of ever seeing this are 0.0004 percent. So, it’s never going to happen. Take that same scenario but remove the suited requirement, and you get a 500:1 payoff, with the odds at 0.03 percent – significantly fewer zeroes, but not much more comforting. Take it down another notch, and require only one, non-suited face card after splitting aces, and you get 50:1, with a 0.2 percent chance. Splitting two aces nets you 25:1, at 0.3 percent. (That’s right, there’s only a 0.3 percent chance of you ever getting aces to split in a six-deck game). Splitting two of the same face card (value and suit) pays 15:1 and has a 0.4 percent chance. Two general face cards has a 5 percent chance and pays off 3 to one.

Not much to gamble on here, unless you’re the type that plays the Caribbean Stud progressive. If you’re not oblivious to probabilities, though, you’ll want to move on to the next game.