Last week, the Casino Control Commission approved a plan for Resorts to bring back $2 blackjack tables to Atlantic City. The idea was some people are intimidated about playing $10 to $15 a hand, the usual minimums, and are afraid other players will jump on them if they don’t make the right moves. The tables will debut in mid-February.

   Sounds like a wonderful move, but there’s a catch.

   The casinos claimed they can’t make money on $2 bets, so the commission allowed them to charge extra. The “tuition” for instruction at the low-limit tables is 25 cents a hand, and they collect the quarter from each player before a single card is dealt. The fee is collected on all bets from $2 to $5. Not a good deal. Do the arithmetic. The average blackjack dealer can serve about 60 hands an hour. If you pay a quarter per hand fee, that’s $15 an hour you’re paying for the pleasure of the low-limit tables. 

   And here’s the kicker. You can’t avoid the fee by betting $6 per hand. You can bet $2, $3, $4 or $5, but after that, bets have to go up in $5 increments. So you’d have to bet $10 to avoid the fee. For that, you may as well go to a regular table.

   It’s your money, but I suggest you avoid these games. The fee makes it equivalent to playing a 6-to-5 blackjack game. Pennsylvania recently legalized table games, and if you like playing low-limit blackjack, you can probably do it there in the next few months. Delaware is also talking about legalizing table games, and you can play there too, and their casinos are smoke-free.  You may just want to hang loose for a few more months. My guess is, with the competition heating up in neighboring states, $5 blackjack will come back to Atlantic City not long after the Pennsylvania and Delaware tables start dealing.

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