National Blackjack Day®

March 2nd is a great day!  3:2 is the perfect day to celebrate and play blackjack at your favorite casino.

This year has seen a lot of change in the gaming industry with big name disgraces, major new casino openings, more regional options, casino closings, eSports booming, skill games floundering, and Vegas booming yet showing signs of consumer pushback based on perceived value.

All of these things and more are going on around the industry and yet really all we want to do is enjoy our favorite casino game.

This day was chosen to raise awareness of the fact that casinos are moving the odds as far away from the players’ favor as possible and we want to continue to implore owners to make the games we love a good value for everyone.  It is also meant to be a celebration of the game itself.  We want to encourage as many people to play blackjack as possible while learning the rules and odds to make it more enjoyable for everyone.

We applaud the players and casinos who are making efforts to keep everyone engaged in the conversation around favorable odds and growing the interest in the game.  We’ve seen casinos like the D and The Cromwell in Vegas continue 3:2 blackjack payouts while many of their rivals push 6:5 payouts and other less favorable rules.  Regional casinos continue to play with mainly favorable rules, however pressure from corporate and political forces to earn every additional dollar still create risk for future changes.

So what do we do?

It pretty simple really.  On March 2nd, grab your friends, maybe a cold beverage, and head out to the casino for a session of 3 to 2 blackjack on Friday, March 2nd to celebrate.

Good luck and have fun!

For National Blackjack Day 2018 we sent a petition to the Guinness World Record people for an event on March 2nd at The D Casino to set and establish a new blackjack related world record.  We received the response from Guinness last week after a 3-month wait and at first, it looked good.  The email said that our application was approved.

The team at the D was excited to host us and we were starting to pull together a plan.  Unfortunately, when we dug into the details the Guinness folks assigned our attempt to the wrong category which made completing the record essentially impossible.  We have appealed the decision and Derek Stevens from the D offered to assist with the application process if it would be helpful, which we greatly appreciate.

At this late a date it will be too late to complete the record in 2018 so we will keep pressing the committee to see if we can bring this home in 2019.  Unfortunately, this was our main focus for 2018 so hopefully, the casinos and players will rally their organic support this year while we work to create a memorable event in 2019.

We appreciate your continued support and look forward to seeing you at the tables on March 2nd for National Blackjack Day on 3:2!

2017 was the 2nd full year of National Blackjack festivities and we had some great traction!

The feature shown above on the marquee at The D Las Vegas was the favorite example of the day, but it wasn’t the only highlight.  We are starting to see momentum for National Blackjack Day across the country with players and casinos.  Sure, this post is self-serving, but it is a great way to review the day and set the tone for future growth.

The casino community did step up this year and show some love.  Derek Stevens and The D (and Golden Gate) were by far the most vocal and supportive with tweets and a Periscope showing their marquee touting Blackjack Day and their year-round 3:2 blackjack policy.  In addition to The D we heard from casinos in 7 other states: 4 Bears in North Dakota, Graton in NoCal, Harrahs SoCal, Seminole Hard Rock in Tampa, Foxwoods CT, Potowatamie in WI, Horseshoe Tunica, and Horseshoe Baltimore.  The Downtown Las Vegas Alliance also chimed in.  We’ll keep the drumbeat going to get more casinos involved in years to come.

Of course, most of the feedback came from players who came out in force to play and support the cause on 3:2.  I was lucky enough to be interviewed on High Roller Radio leading into 3:2 and the support continued throughout the day.  There are too many supporters to thank here, but you can see the Twitter feed with everyone and I’ll give a few shout-outs to our Tweeps including Vegas Fanboy, Faces and Aces, Chips Racks, DSK, Wall Street Nole, Vegas Aces, Brian Moore, Cool Hand Luke, 2 Way Hard 8, Lucky45, and even the UNLV special collections account.

So where do we go from here?   The first step is to keep the conversation going so we can spread the word as far as possible.  We will do that through this blog and our Twitter account @blackjackday  The next step is planning for National Blackjack Day 2018.  We have some ideas to help take this to the next level and we welcome any feedback or suggestions you have.

Thank you for the support and good luck at the tables!