Boss Media software in use

I don't know how they do it but Boss Media picks its casino owners very well. All of them all solid organizations. As far as I know the number of Boss Media casinos that have gone bad is zero. If you are looking for a safe place put put your money you can't go wrong with a Boss casino.

Version 3 offers a cash back program. The following is the cash back rate according to the game.

0.0%

Single deck blackjack

0.1%

Craps, Baccarat, Blackjack (6 deck), Roulette, Casino War.

0.2%

Pai Gow Poker.

0.3%

Sic Bo, Video Poker, Caribbean Stud Poker, Gold Pirates Slots, Killer Whale Slots, 4 Reels Drive Slots, Jack In the Box Slots, Aladdin's Lamp Slots, Haunted House Slots, Bonus Madness Slots, Temple of Isis Slots.

0.5%

Keno, Money Wheel.

Following are the games offered in Version 3, the rules, strategy tips, and house edge.

Be careful to pay attention to the time limits when playing at Boss Media casinos. Once the cards are dealt in blackjack the player has so many seconds to make a decision. If no decision is made the dealer will assume the player wishes to stand. Once I had a total of seven on my first two cards, got distracted, and I was forced to stand on seven. The dealer ended up getting an 18 and I lost a $60 bet. The manager at Casino.Net kindly gave me half of it back.

Baccarat

Six deck are used. The house edge is 1.06% on the banker, 1.24% on the player, and 14.44% on the tie.

Blackjack

Following are the blackjack rules:

• Six decks
• Dealer stands on soft 17
• Player may double on any first two cards
• Player may double after a split
• Player may not resplit
• One card to split aces
• Dealer always peeks for blacjack (U.S. rule)

Yes, Boss Media finally did away with their European no-peek rule completely with version 3.

Single Deck Blackjack

Kudos to Boss Media for offering a game with a player advantage. The single-deck blackjack game has the same rules as the six-deck except only one deck is used. Also, only one hand may be played at a time. This game has a player edge of 0.11%. To add 0.03% to the player edge follow my basic strategy exceptions. Following is the basic strategy for the single-deck game.

Caribbean Poker

This is the same game as Caribbean Stud Poker, with the conventional pay table. The house edge under the standard rules is 5.22%. There is also a side bet with the following pay table.

The house edge of the side bet is 63.76% less 2.92% for each $10,000 in the meter. When I checked on March 30, 2003, at Pharaoh's Casino the meter was at $110,795 for a house edge of 31.36%. For the side bet to have no house edge the meter would need to reach $218,047.

I get asked a lot about the possibility to collude with other players in multi-player mode by exchanging information about the cards held. According to Stanley Ko, in order to gain an advantage you need at least six total players. Boss Media as only five seats, so you colluders will be wasting your time at this game.

Casino War

Six decks. The game follows the bonus rule where both the ante and raise win in the event of a tie after a tie. Correct strategy is to always go to war on ties. The house edge is 2.68%.

Craps

The Boss Media programmers did a fine job with craps, which is a difficult game to do well. They offer two times odds on all points. The combined house edge on the pass line and the odds is 0.606%. The don't odds are correctly relative to the amount the player can win (a rule few Internet software companies get right). The combined house edge on the don't pass and laying odds is 0.455%.

Buy and lay bets only charge the 5% commission only on winning bets and always based on the amount won. Place to win and proposition bets are offered according to the usual rules. The field bet pays 2:1 on both 2 and 12. Following is the house edge on some of the unique Boss Media bets:

• Buy on 4,10: 3.33%
• Buy on 5,9: 3.00%
• Buy on 6,8: 2.73%
• Lay on 4,10: 1.67%
• Lay on 5,9: 2.00%
• Lay on 6,8: 2.27%

Keno

Version 3 has the same stingy pay table as version 2. The following table shows the expected return according to the number of marks.

Killer Whale

Mathematically speaking this is the same game as 'Five Deck Frenzy' or what Starnet calls 'King of the Deck.' In this game there are 5 spinning reels, each with 52 stops, one for each card. The player may hold any given card on the first spin and then respin the discards. On the second spin the player can not get the same card back on the same reel. In other words it is the same thing as video poker with one deck for each card position. I do not know the return for this game.

Money Wheel

This is the same thing as Big Six, with the Vegas rules that pay 40-1 on the joker and logo. The following table shows the house edge on each bet.

Not all version 3 casinos offer this game. As far as I know the only ones that offer the Money Wheel are Pharaoh's, Player's Club and Jamaica Bay.

Pai Gow Poker

Boss Media is the only brand to feature player banking in a mutli-player game. The turn to be banker zig-zags between the players and the dealer, the dealer banking every other hand. If a player declines to bank or there is nobody in a seat the banker will revert to the dealer. There are five player positions at the table. So the player will have a chance to bank once every 10 hands. While not banking the house edge is 2.85%, and as banker in a one on one game the house edge is 0.08%. The more the other players the less the house edge as banker. In a one on one game the average house edge is 2.57%.

A nice feature is a house way button to arrange your hand, although once clicked the action is irreversible. The player does not have a chance to see the house way first before deciding to take it. A2345 is the second highest straight. The house way used is the strategy found in Optimal Strategy for Pai Gow Poker by Stanford Wong.

Roulette

A single zero wheel is used for a house edge of 2.70% on all bets.

Sic Bo

Player's Club casino exclusively offers Sic Bo. The payoffs are better than some and worse than others. Of special note is the 6-1 payoff on a 2-number combination, resulting in a house edge of 2.78%, much better than the usual 5-1 payoff with a 16.67% house edge.

The following table shows the payoff and house edge for all bets.

The lowest house edge bets are on big, small, and any two number combination, all at 2.78%.

Not all version 3 casinos offer this game. As far as I know the only ones that offer the Money Wheel are Pharaoh's, Player's Club and Jamaica Bay.

Slots

A nice variety is available. Boss Media features some wide area progressive games, meaning all the Boss Media casinos feed into the same progressive jackpot. This allows large jackpots to get built up faster.

Video Poker

Only Jacks or Better is offered with a 5/7/20 pay table. With optimal strategy the expected return is 95.48%. The following table shows the probability and return of each hand.

Michael Shackleford runs the popular Wizard of Odds website and is a gambling consultant specialising in solving math-based problems related to casino games.