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The Triple 7s™ Side Bet

This is a side bet that's available at many casinos powered by Microgaming software (MGS) and, while it has very little impact on your Blackjack play, there is a point at which making the $1 bet is worthwhile.

Basically a variation of the "Super Sevens" ™ bet that is very popular at both brick and mortar casinos and Internet casinos (which I wrote about in a previous article; see "Making Side Bets for Fun and Profit" - Part 1" on the GameMaster's Secrets page), this version has a progressive "jackpot" and that puts a positive spin on it. While a player may be able to gain an edge in Super Sevens by tracking the cards, the Blackjack game at MGS-powered casinos shuffles the cards after every round of play, so that won't work. However, because the jackpot is constantly increasing, there is a point at which the bet has a "positive expectation".

What that essentially means is, you can make the $1 bet as often as you like, because if you do it long enough, all your $$$ will eventually be returned by hitting the various bonuses that the game offers. It's not much different than playing a Video Poker game where you'll lose in most sessions, but so long as you're playing a machine that offers a 100+% return, your $$$ will come back to you, someday. And, much like a VP game, this bet has a "Royal Flush", which is getting a hand of three 7s of diamonds dealt to you.

Before I get too carried away with this, here's the pay schedule the bet was offering on the date shown above:

Three 7s of Diamonds: Jackpot
Three suited 7s (xDiamonds): $1000
Three unsuited 7s: $250
Two suited 7s: $50
Two unsuited 7s: $25
Any 7 as the first card: $5

Hopefully this is clear to you. If the first card dealt to you is not a 7, you lose the $1 side bet and you'll continue on with the Blackjack hand in the normal way. If the first card is a 7, then the bet is "activated" and, depending upon what your subsequent cards are, you'll be paid for the highest hand achieved. But you get paid for only one 7 if you split a pair of 7s, so that would be a good time to ignore the proper Basic Strategy and try for the third 7. You've already made $25 or $50, so go for it!

For obvious reasons, this bet is available only on the five-deck Blackjack game, which carries a casino advantage of about 0.54%, as opposed to their single-deck game that has a house edge of 0.10% or so. The rules are: dealer stands on soft 17, double only on 9-11, no double after split, but split Aces may be re-hit, the European Hole Card rule applies (lose both bets when doubling or splitting if the dealer gets a 'blackjack'). That being the case, you may want to play this game only when there's a positive expectation, but remember that any edge you get on the side bet is based only upon the dollar you bet there, because it has no effect on your Blackjack hand. Fair warning: You could chew up a lot of cash chasing this, but if it's your lucky day…

By the way, I believe the $1 side bet is optional, but if you're not going to play the Triple Sevens, you should be playing the single-deck Blackjack they offer.

Okay, so how high does the jackpot have to be for this to reach "break-even"? I'll spare you the mathematical calculations needed to determine that point and just tell you it's when the bonus for three 7s of Diamonds reaches $110,000. It has been as high as $121,000 in the past, so the opportunity definitely presents itself to play this at a break-even level. How do I know what the jackpot has been in the past? Well, get on over to www.slotcharts.com/ where you can find a lot of free information about this bet including its current value, when it was last hit and so forth.

Important point: When I first talked about this bet on my "radio" show at www.casinogazette.com/, I mistakenly said that being dealt three 7s of diamonds was a 1 in 60,000 chance, but that's for three suited 7s of any suit. The odds of getting three 7s of diamonds are 1 in 289,649.

You can quickly see that, if the progressive got to $289,649, the bet would be at a 100% return level, based upon the jackpot alone. However, we also get paid for "lesser" hands and all of them add to the return, too. But you need to understand this: All of the return figures I'm talking about here are based upon a $1 bet and it completely ignores the bet you must make on your Blackjack hand (usually $2 minimum) in order to place the side bet. With a 0.54% house edge and a $2 bet, you are paying the casino $.01 for the privilege of playing each hand of BJ. Consequently, at a rate of 50 hands per hour, this game can cost you more than $50 an hour in losses if you make the $1 side bet on each hand and are so unfortunate that you don't get any 7s as a first card. From a realistic point of view, you're going to get at least a single 7 once every 13 hands, on average, so that will cut down your interim loss to about $30 an hour, but there will be times when you'll play for the better part of an hour and not get even one 7 as your first card, so don't say I didn't warn you.

Because there is no real skill required in this game (ignoring the Blackjack game for the moment), this bet is a lot like playing a lottery where the jackpot has gotten so big that your $1 bet actually has a small player advantage. The nice thing here is that the odds against you are just a fraction of those in a lottery, but at a rate of play of 50+ hands per hour, you sure are buying a lot of "tickets", yet if you can keep playing when the return is at 100% or more, it's a ticket that will eventually cost you nothing.

Hmmmm, is there some sort of team play lurking in here? Let's see, 10 of us each puts up $2000 and we agree to split all profits and losses evenly…

I gotta go! See you here next time.

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