Time Equals Money

From Billion Dollar Blackjack
by Rob McGarvey

These are definitely words of truth. Time is something that we only get so much of, and we have to learn to spend it wisely. There are also much more important things to do with your time than playing blackjack and making money, so to get as much value out of each hour you spend behind your computer should be a key goal.

All bonuses were not created equal. Some may appear to be a better offer than others, but when you put the bonus through a time factor test, you will see that the best bonus is the one that will give you more money per hand played. I will use three real bonuses that are available right now at a Microgaming casino. They are all an option at the same casino, so this would be something that we should be doing at every casino that offers more than one sign up bonus.

The banner reads "Chose Your Own Bonus," and will actually calculate which bonus you should go after depending on how much money you are willing to put into play. We can pick a bonus of $100, $50, or $300, the high roller bonus. The $100 deal gives you $10 free and will match your $90 deposit with a $90 bonus. The $50 deal requires a $20 deposit, which works out to a 250% bonus. The $300 deal is a 30% on a $1000 deposit. When I used the bonus calculator at the site it gave me the right information. A few weeks prior to this calculator was telling me that if I deposited $200 I should go after the 30% bonus and start off with $260 instead of going for the $100 bonus. I hope it was just a programming error and not a rotten marketing trick.

The terms and conditions for bonuses at the site ask for 5 times action on the bonus and deposit, and 8 times action for any free money. Lets compare these offers to each other.

Offer #1
$10 free x 8, $90 x 5, and $90 x 5 = $980 worth of action for a chance at $100. $100 / $980 = .1020. That is 10.2 cents per dollar played. Since the minimum bet is $2 we are making about 20 cents per hand.

Offer #2
$20 x 5, $50 x 5 = $350 worth of action for a chance at $50. $50 / $350 = .1428. 28 cents per hand.

Offer #3
$1000 x 5, $300 x 5 = $4500 worth of action for a chance at $300. $300 / $4500 = .0666. A drop to 13 cents per hand.

We quickly see that the best offer is the $50 offer. We have an advantage of 14% compared to 10% and 6%. We can't change our edge, but we can increase the size of our bets to get the same cents per hand results. By taking the $300 offer and changing to a $4 minimum bet we could get 26 cents per hand. With such a large deposit it would only make sense to be making larger bets. The casino is about to lose $300 to you so you will want them to think that you are just a lucky player, not a bonus bandit. I will go into this more in the chapter on cover.

I have had conversations with other online players that tell me they normally make their minimum bets $25 simply to save them the time that it takes to put all of the required action in. The swings in the game at $25 a hand can get pretty wide. Losing 12 $25 hands is $300, not $24, and takes a lot of nerve. The nerve comes from making thousands of dollars by playing online blackjack. I can say that I would not be worried about losing $1000 going after a $500 bonus with $25 bets. I will also say that I would much rather take a more cautious approach to it and make sure that I left with all of the $500, and anything extra I could scrape out of the deal as I went along.

In the end the choice is yours. It is a good idea to sit down and work out these offers so you get a clear understanding of what you are getting for your time at your PC. I went after the $300 offer and bet between $2 and $80 ($1300 x 6.6% = 85.8) most of the time keeping it below the $20 mark. I pulled my $1000 deposit after I had completed the required action plus some, and moved that money back into action a few days later. I had over $500 in the account and put a stop loss on it at $400, risking $100 to make another $100. A few weeks later I spent a Saturday morning moving this stop loss upwards until I had had enough, made a few crazy looking plays for cover and for fun, and took out $700.