Side Bets 10-1 on dealer/player bj

Here's the scenario at a casino near me:

DOA, DAS, No Surrender, Hit on S17, 6 deck shoe.

Side bets on "dealer" or "player" pay 10-1 on any bj. 21-1 on suited bj, and 50-1 on suited bj with jack of spades.

Illustration: Basically, if I place a side bet on "player" and i happen to get a blackjack, i would get 10x(sidebet). Same if I bet on "dealer" and dealer gets blackjack.

I'm not a master blackjack player, but from a very basic perspective, I'm guessing that if the odds are greater than 10% that a blackjack will be dealt to a single player, I should place a side bet right?

Assuming that I'm using a simple hi-lo count, at what count (if any) should I place a side bet?

Thanks!

At TC+3 the probability has just risen to about 5.5%.So in a hundred trials you will lose 94.5 times and win 5.5 times.Even figuring in the 50:1 payout for spade-BJ you will still have a net loss of almost 40 units.
I don't think a TC where this sucker-bet is worthwhile will ever occur in real life.

Francis Salmon

So what is the TC, even if it's theoretical and would probably never happen in real life?

I first heard about the side bet in an Indian casino located in California. The game has been analyzed in several places: on bj21, bjmath and others. If memory serves me correctly, Norm W. provided a link that supported the notion of "TC of +3" was the correct TC to make the side bet -- Norm supported his assertion with a table on TC frequencies (founded on bjstats.com -- at the time, I didn't realize so much bj stats were available for free!).

The catch here is the Indian game offered 15:1 for a regular bj, 21:1 for a suited bj and 50:1 for the "Maverick" (the Ace-Jack of Spades). Note, the Indian game has a higher payoff for the regular bj versus the 10:1. Therefore, Francis Salmon is correct in his analysis.

I don't think a TC where this sucker-bet is worthwhile will ever occur in real life.

FYI - I went to bjstats and chose tables (6D, H17 w/ DAS, Hi-Lo, 75% pen, no cover, and "cumulative true count") to see the frequency of blackjacks (it was listed as "bj averages"):

TC +16 - avg bj was 10.23 hands
TC +15 - avg bj was 11.29 hands
TC +14 - avg bj was 11.95 hands
TC +13 - avg bj was 12.16 hands
TC +12 - avg bj was 12.62 hands
TC +11 - avg bj was 12.99 hands
TC +10 - avg bj was 13.67 hands
TC +09 - avg bj was 14.11 hands

Very powerful stuff.