Stadium BlackJack

So you're a beginner of don't have a lot of bank so you roll into one of those casinos that has a low limit table. Odds are it is some form of stadium Blackjack like "ShaqJack". That is there is a dealer at the head of a number of tables and every player gets the same exact hand. Essentially you get to play "head up" against the dealer. If you know basic strategy you know when someone has done something "foolish" because they'll hit a hand where BS says to stand (classic variability). But there's a very, and I mean VERY, nice thing about stadium Blackjack:

You don't have to bet any money and still be in the game.

Here's the thing about stadium type games: As far as I've seen, so long as there is at least ONE player, the dealer must continue to deal hands. Unlike a standard table where if you don't bet, you don't get cards, in stadium games, the hands you don't bet on are still play out and are subject to the statistics I covered in earlier posts. You do realize what this means right?

If you understand that Blackjack is beaten by betting high (some would say extremely high) when the odds are in your favor, then you know that you bet the table minimum when odds are not in your favor. You don't expect to make money at these times. In stadium BJ the table minimum is effectively $0.

Some people would call this Wonging. I'd call it modified Wonging. Usually one would back count a table (or whatever model your using) and then jump in when the odds are good for a win. The problem IMO is that when you jump into a table you affect the flow of cards (a counter may not care about that, but other methods are definitely affected by a player entering and exiting a game). However in stadium BJ your entering and exiting by way of not betting, in no way affects the card flow since the cards you would have gotten would be played out in that order anyway.

So for example, in my last trip to a casino that has stadium style BJ with $5 minimum, I had an epic 16 hand losing streak. once I hit loss 8 I simply stopped betting and waited for the dealer to lose a hand before entering again. I "saved" $45 in losses. When you are playing with small bank $45 is a lot of money. That 16 hand losing streak broke a lot of other players and they exited the table one after the other as their money evaporated to negative variance.

I'm not telling anyone how to play, but if you are going to play a stadium type game, you may want to consider not betting whenever you are in the situation. Mind you, this is not an invite to ignore the cards. For example, if on a 'non-bet" some player makes a bad basic strategy call that leads to a bust but that hand would have won, you should consider that a dealer bust because your hand would have been unaffected by other player's bad call.

Good luck y'all.