A. I can agree with the idea that high house-edge side bets don’t hurt players knowledgeable enough to avoid them. As for it being a win for players because of benefits to the main game, I’m dubious. We haven’t seen profits from side bets used to shore up the blackjack rules in the last decade or so. Instead, we’ve seen an erosion of rules, making for a tougher game than the one we played not so long ago.

The most notorious rules setback for players is 6-5 payouts on blackjacks. But the most far-reaching probably has been the virtual elimination of S17 games at low limits, and even at a large segment of high-limit tables. Even with six or eight decks, blackjack has evolved to a H17 game. There doesn’t seem to be any inclination on the part of operators to reverse that, with or without side bets.

Should operators put several side bets on the same table? Probably not. There are a couple of issues to consider. Operators have to pay a licensing fee to side bet owners. Putting multiple bets on the same table would mean multiple fees. Operators might be able to cut a deal to use more than one side bet from the same company – for example, 21 + 3 and Lucky Ladies from Galaxy Gaming, or Royal Match and Bet the Set 21 from Bally Technologies. But the side bets have to draw enough action to justify the fees, or the casino drops them.

Each side bet also requires some dealer training, and taking the time to settle the bets brings a reduction in hands per hour. Multiple side bets would slow the game, which is not a problem for the house if it gains enough action on the side to make up for the reduction of hands. But think about the possibility of four players each making a different side bet, and the dealer trying to keep it all straight. Some dealers would have to take it slow.

Blackjack games with multiple side bets have a natural home at tables with electronic wagering, where bets can be settled instantly, without mistakes. That’s already possible on DigiDeal tables or Bally’s iTables. But at dealer-paid tables, the cost-benefit ratio would have to be weighed carefully.

A. I vaguely remember the game, and I even recall playing it once at Texas Station in the northern part of Las Vegas, but I forget important details.

Were you allowed to designate just one royal, or could you designate four. That’s important, because on other video poker games, you get four royals – A-K-Q-J-10 in each suit. So to have as many royal possibilities in your game as in others, you’d have needed to designate four rank and suit combinations.

Even if you were allowed to designate four royal combos, some strategy considerations would have led to fewer royals in your game. You might hold a lone Jack because of the possibility of pairing it up for paying hand, and occasionally draw a royal. But if your big-pay hand is 9-7-5-3-2, you won’t hold any of those cards on their own, because pairing them up does not give you a winner.

Without remembering all the details, I’m confident that the game you describe would have a lower overall return than others with regular royals that otherwise have identical pay tables. That’s the most likely reason the game disappeared – players discovered they weren’t winning as much as on other games.

A. There is no guessing game. Cards are determined by a random number generator, and all it does is deal the cards. It has no strategy in doing so, and it neither knows nor cares what your strategy is.

Programming the game so that it adjusts its deal to beat your strategy is illegal in every U.S. gaming jurisdiction. You’re not playing against the random number generator and it’s not trying to beat you.

Several years ago, there was an attempt to introduce artificial intelligence in a video Hold’em game, but it never carved out a niche in casinos. IGT’s Texas Hold’em Heads Up had no pay table to beat. It was strictly player vs. machine. It used artificial intelligence and neural net technology to simulate a player, and that player WAS trying to beat you. It anticipated play, tried to read your tendencies, raised, checked, folded and bluffed. It slow-played some hands and tried to bully you on others. It even seemed to step up its game against better players.

But in traditional video poker games, you’re not playing against an opponent that’s trying to beat you. You’re playing against a pay table, and there is nothing in the programming that would subvert your attempts to draw a winning hand.