Behind the Cards

Behind the Cards: Crafting the Ultimate Blackjack Experience – Kevin/CFO/Innovation

Anyone who has visited our Henderson office has probably spent time at Green Valley Ranch, and if you’ve been there, you’ve likely played Blackjack. Inevitably, the conversation turns to, “How do we make this a skill game?” That question stuck with me, and one night at 3 AM, when I couldn’t sleep, an idea came to me that I thought had potential.

Turning Blackjack into a Skill Game

Whenever I tell people I work for a skill game company, I usually need to explain what that means. I often say:

“We allow people to play against each other for cash, and the games are based on skill, not chance. The best example is Solitaire – if you and I play a match, we have the same deck in the same order. It all comes down to how well you play, not whether you got lucky with a better shuffle.”

Applying that to Blackjack, my first thought was to come up with a way to count cards – giving players exact information on how many of each card are left. The problem, though, is that in Blackjack, taking one extra card changes every hand after that, meaning there is still some luck involved. Then it occurred to me – what if we let players see the next few cards? This idea, which we now call “peeking,” completely changes the strategy of how you play.Being an accountant, I built a quick layout of how this could work in Excel – you can even see it over my shoulder in the game’s intro screen.

Building a New Kind of Blackjack

One thing I learned early on from our head of games is that skill games need an “elder game” – a level of strategy you develop over time to get higher scores, giving the game depth. What excited me about this Blackjack concept was that “peeking” creates an elder game. You may intentionally bust a hand or hold back on taking a card to influence the dealer’s hand or set up for the next hand.

I shared the idea with the games team , and immediately the games team went to work on it. Engineering  built a quick sandbox to test ideas, the Art department  started on the visuals, and Design  ran with the actual play pattern. The whole team jumped in and started testing different mechanics – especially around side bets. At one point, there were dozens of versions with different feature sets. I’ll be honest, I thought we had lost our way. But through that process, we developed a core mechanic that worked.

The Real Skill: Betting Strategy

It turns out that the split, double down, and insurance features are fundamental to the game. The real skill element, beyond the basics of “peeking” and card counting, is how much you choose to bet on each hand and how you maximize side bets to increase your score.

A Team Effort

Thanks to the games team for running with the concept and making it many orders of magnitude better than the original idea. And for their willingness to entertain a design built in Excel! Slightly less thanks for putting me in the intro screen for the game and including my image in marketing materials. We’re doubling down on Black Jack Peek Payout!