StrikeSapphire - NEW Bonus - New $15 Blackjack - New 15 BTC in Weekend prizes!

[ssaCEO]

* We're starting a new thread for all this. Please let the old one die. Way too much has changed, too much old random stuff in there.

* NEW $15 Blackjack tables are now open to everybody!

* NEW Weekend Leaderboard structure. Everyone who plays has their winnings automatically entered in our Leaderboard from Friday through Sunday. This counts for all games in the house, including our 3 daily poker freerolls and special weekend tournaments.
First place for the weekend now pays 100% - double your winnings - up to 10 BTC! Second place now pays 50% on top of your winnings up to 5 BTC. There are no bonus wagering requirements, this is FREE CASH. What's not to love? All you have to do to qualify is to be up $25 or more for the weekend. If no one qualifies, we'll pay a 5 BTC prize to the player who played the hardest - whoever wagered the most.

As always, follow our blog to see where you stand in (almost) realtime during the weekend, and how the competition stacks up. Only StrikeSapphire has this kind of fun!

* NEW BONUS CODE FOR THIS FORUM! Get 50% more on deposits up to $50. Your bonus code is: VieuxCarre

See you at the tables!

[Evolutionary]

Why don't you guys grow some balls and accept USA gamblers?

[ssaCEO]

Why don't you guys grow some balls and accept USA gamblers?

Because breaking the law isn't a responsible way to run a business, and you'd be an fool to trust us with your money if we were willing to. See: Full Tilt. Next question?

[ssaCEO]

Starting tonight -- we just added a new $3.25 guarantee to the nightly tournament at 8PM GMT. This tournament costs only $0.75 to buy in, and it'll start with as few as 2 players.

[ssaCEO]

SO... this one was interesting. Bonjin and Dooglus basically decided to tie each other as winners, and wound down the clock on a blackjack table. Both got 75% of the prize at the point they tied, a $31.88 award for each.

Great fun, and thanks to everyone who played this weekend. We'll start it again next Friday with even more action!

[dooglus]

SO... this one was interesting. Bonjin and Dooglus basically decided to tie each other as winners, and wound down the clock on a blackjack table. Both got 75% of the prize at the point they tied, a $31.88 award for each.

You make it sound as if we just decided to both win.

With a couple of hours to go, we were very close in score without another contender in sight, and so decided to stop competing, but to share the prize money by stopped when we were both the same amount ahead.

I think that makes it sound a little better - and a little more accurate!  

[swissmate]

Are you guys interested in a proper traduction in spanish of the website?
I must say that the traduction you got now is pretty bad with lots of errors.

[ssaCEO]

Are you guys interested in a proper traduction in spanish of the website?
I must say that the traduction you got now is pretty bad with lots of errors.

This is definitely on our to-do list. Right now we use google translate for most of the 16 languages on the site. But translating it is a big job. We just finished with a good Russian version, but it took 3x longer than we thought it would. Hopefully we'll get to Spanish in the next couple months.

[swissmate]

Are you guys interested in a proper traduction in spanish of the website?
I must say that the traduction you got now is pretty bad with lots of errors.

This is definitely on our to-do list. Right now we use google translate for most of the 16 languages on the site. But translating it is a big job. We just finished with a good Russian version, but it took 3x longer than we thought it would. Hopefully we'll get to Spanish in the next couple months.

Nice, also if you need any help with German or Spanish feel free to contact me.

[dooglus]

Can you please clarify what this means exactly?

Minimum $25 positive weekend balance to qualify. Not available in the United States.

Does it mean that if I hit $25 at any point during the weekend I qualify?
Or that I must be over $25 all weekend, and if I drop below then I'm disqualified?
Or that I must start the weekend with at least $25?
Or end it with at least $25?
Or something else?

Will the leaderboard show players who aren't qualified such that I may find myself trying to catch someone who isn't really even in the game?

So many questions! 

[ssaCEO]

Can you please clarify what this means exactly?

Minimum $25 positive weekend balance to qualify. Not available in the United States.

Does it mean that if I hit $25 at any point during the weekend I qualify?
Or that I must be over $25 all weekend, and if I drop below then I'm disqualified?
Or that I must start the weekend with at least $25?
Or end it with at least $25?
Or something else?

Will the leaderboard show players who aren't qualified such that I may find myself trying to catch someone who isn't really even in the game?

So many questions! 

Glad you asked. As with the previous tournament, the leaderboard starts at $0 for everybody at the beginning of the weekend (00:00 GMT Friday morning). From that point on, it shows the total sum of your gains from that point until 00:00 Monday morning (GMT), when the tournament becomes final.

You must have $25 or more on the leaderboard when the tournament is *final* to qualify for a prize. We don't care how you get there - freerolls count, for example. Withdrawals don't count against you. Deposits don't count for you. We don't care how much you have in your account... this isn't about your account balance, just about how much you win over the weekend. You must be up at least $25 at the end of that 72-hour span to qualify for a prize.

The leaderboard itself shows all players who have played real-money games over the weekend, excluding any players who are too far down the list (i.e. more than $10 negative). No one is disqualified for dropping below $25 at some point; the only thing that matters is the final score on the leaderboard.

Hope that answers your questions...

[dooglus]

Hope that answers your questions...

Yes, thanks.

I was thrown off by the phrase "weekend balance".  The word 'balance' made me think of account balance, not weekend profit/loss.

[ssaCEO]

This weekend's tournament is up and rolling! Check the live stats at https://strikesapphire.com/blog

If you're a member of StrikeSapphire you are automatically entered into the contest. All you have to do is win $25 or more for the weekend, and beat out the other players on the leaderboard.

First place: An additional 100% of your weekend winnings up to 9 BTC.
Second place: +50% up to 4 BTC.
Third place: +25% up to 2 BTC.

See you there!

[ssaCEO]

Tournament ends at midnight tonight. Current qualifiers on the leaderboard:

oceans1 : +$142.50
petrescuerz : +$31.17
digger : +$29.35

Just 3 winning hands at our $15 blackjack table could still land second place for a 50% bonus... not a bad bet!

[ssaCEO]

Just a quick note, we've amended our wagering requirement rules for bonuses and referral rewards. The full terms are on the site at https://strikesapphire.com/tos.html but the major changes are these:

1. Previously, Roulette, Craps and 5 Hand Video Poker play did not count toward meeting wagering requirements. The reason was that Roulette and Craps are obviously very easy to make hedge bets on, and 5 Hand VP has a bonus round with three chances to double or quadruple each win, which are zero-house-edge. However, this led to a lot of Roulette players switching up to Blackjack to clear bonuses. So, while we're still going to monitor for hedge-betting and will revoke bonuses if we see e.g. a player betting red and black at the same time just to clear them, we're now letting bets in these three games count at 20% toward wagering requirements. In other words a $1 bet clears $0.20 of the WR.

2. We've acknowledged the wisdom of other casinos as far as Blackjack qualifying toward wagering requirements. Most casinos only allow only 2% to 10% of classic Blackjack bets to count towards bonus wagering requirements. Previously we were allowing 100% of them to count toward clearing WR. With our rules (6-deck shoe, dealer hits soft 17, player can hit or double on split aces, no re-splitting), our house edge in Blackjack is only 0.51%. Given this it was a certainty that even a very bad player would make up to a 200% profit by slowly grinding his stack and claiming the bonus. At least one player built a bot just for that. Underlying our philosophy of handing out lots of bonuses is the idea that they should be a perk, and give the player more chances to have fun with while still gambling; we're not in the business of just handing out free money with no risk (I'm not sure what website is). So in line with our other games, and still twice as good as other casinos, Blackjack bets now count only 20% toward clearing WR. This means a player only needs to beat the house edge by 0.71% to clear the bonus on top of winning a significant amount from his deposit, but it also means players will have to gamble their bonus rather than try to grind it.

All other bets in the house - including any bet called in live poker, poker tournament buyins, VP, keno, all of our slots, three card poker, Sapphire Rummy, Scuba Cube, ChipWars and Mayan Gold - continue to qualify for 100% toward wagering requirements.

[dooglus]

The reason was that Roulette and Craps are obviously very easy to make hedge bets on

I've never understood the problem with hedging.  If I bet red and black, I lose 2 units every 38 spins (when the two green zeroes come up).  That gives a house edge of 5.26%, the same as if I was only playing red (where I win 18 units and lose 20 units every 38 spins).  I can expect to lose the exact same amount whether I play red every spin, or red and black every spin.  Is it the reduced variance that you don't like?  I'd have thought that the reduced variance works in your favour.  Losing over 5% on each of 30 playthroughs means the player loses 150% with high probability - ie. is very likely to lose the whole bonus and more before clearing it.  Only counting 20% of bets towards wagering requirements means the player will likely lose over 750% of their bonus before clearing it.

Blackjack bets now count only 20% toward clearing WR. This means a player only needs to beat the house edge by 0.71% to clear the bonus on top of winning a significant amount from his deposit

Doesn't that depend on which bonus they are trying to clear?  And I'm not sure what "beating the house edge by 0.71%" means.

Do you mean "reducing the house edge by 0.71% of 0.51 to give 0.506379%?  Or "subtracting 0.71% from 0.51% to give -0.2%"?  I don't see where 0.71 comes from in either case; I guess it depends upon an arbitrary value for "significant".

[ssaCEO]

I've never understood the problem with hedging.  If I bet red and black, I lose 2 units every 38 spins (when the two green zeroes come up). 

The reason for the roulette restriction (as with craps) is that given a significant stack and playing on a $50 roulette table, a player could clear a bonus by betting both ways within 36 spins. The probability of no 0/00 coming up in those is (36/38)^36, or 27%. Meaning that with a 200% bonus which is what we've been offering (e.g. $40 bonus on a $20 deposit) the house would be taking a ~73% chance on a bet that only pays 30%. If we win the player's $20 exactly 73 times, and the player nets $60 exactly 27 times, that's an EV+ 109.8% expected RTP from the bonus.

And I'm not sure what "beating the house edge by 0.71%" means.

It just means your blackjack needs to average (100-0.51)+0.71 = 100.2% to clear the complete bonus (aside from what you net yourself). The bonus gives you depth on your deposit which means you have substantially more of a chance to come back from a loss and be ahead of the house, whether the whole bonus is cleared or not.

And to be clear about this - StrikeSapphire allows you to take your winnings and any bonus you've cleared so far at any time if you're willing to void the uncleared remainder of the bonus. The point of the bonus is ultimately to provide you with a margin on your play, as opposed to capital that you're gunning for directly.

[dooglus]

The probability of no 0/00 coming up in those is (36/38)^36, or 27%.

Code:

>>> (36/38.0)**36
0.14278433046568895

It's 14%, not 27%.

If we win the player's $20 exactly 73 times, and the player nets $60 exactly 27 times, that's an EV+ 109.8% expected RTP from the bonus.

Even if we assume the player wins 27%, I think the house still wins:

The player either loses his deposit (-20, 73% of the time) or keeps the bonus (+40, 27% of the time).  You can't count the $20 deposit as "winnings".

Expected profit for player = 40*.27 - 20*.73 = -$3.80.  That is, the player can expect to lose 19% of his deposit.

But in the scenario you proposed, where the player is betting $25*2 each spin to get through the WR without losing, when the player loses they lose $50, not $20.  They're betting $25 on both red and black.  You win $50 73 times and the player wins $40 27 times.

Then the expected profit for the player is 40*.27 - 50*.73 = -$25.70, ie. he can expect to lose 128.5% of his deposit.

Now if we use the real value, 14.28%, the expected profit is 40*.1428 - 50*.8572 = -$37.18, or 185.7% of the deposit.  If the player played all 36 spins, you would expect him to lose more, but he's going to stop playing and forget about the bonus as soon as a zero comes up.

Note that the player could bet $50 on red and black and get through the WR in just 18 spins, with 37.79% chance of success, but a 62.21% chance of losing $100.  The expected profit then is 40*.3779 - 100*.6221 = -$47.094 or 235.5% of initial deposit.

In no situation is allowing 100% of roulette bets to count towards WR going to be a net loser for the house (unless you're comparing it to the current situation, of course).  There's no getting away from the >5% house edge, which when multiplied by 30 gives >150%.

It just means your blackjack needs to average (100-0.51)+0.71 = 100.2% to clear the complete bonus (aside from what you net yourself).

So 0.6% would work too?  Anything over 0.51% means you end up more than tripling your deposit.  I was confused about the 0.71% - it seems like of arbitrary, so why write it to 2 decimal places...

[ssaCEO]

Huh. I'm gonna let FragileJD read through this. He's better with the math than I am, and I'm already over my head. I saw something going sideways and brought our WR in line with other casinos. AFAIK no online casinos qualify roulette for wagering requirements, and it has to do with how quickly it can be cleared by hedging; but I'm gonna play a dummy card here and tell you: I don't see why they do that, or why your argument is wrong. Just to clarify: Your contention is that based on the house edge in roulette we shouldn't care about hedging and we should make Roulette qualify for 100% of WR. Right?

[dooglus]

I don't see why they do that, or why your argument is wrong. Just to clarify: Your contention is that based on the house edge in roulette we shouldn't care about hedging and we should make Roulette qualify for 100% of WR. Right?

I don't know if my argument is right, and I don't know what you should do.  I just don't see any reason to not allow 100% of roulette bets to count towards WR.  It doesn't affect me, since I play very little roulette, but I like things to be right, and since roulette has a high house edge it doesn't seem right to make roulette bets count less than other games.

If there's a good reason why they need to count less, I'd like to learn of it, but asking for 150 times playthough with 5% edge (ie. a 750% expected loss) seems to me like the player has about a 0% chance of clearing their bonus before losing their deposit.