Lucky Ladies
Lucky Ladies is a side bet that pays whenever the player's first two cards total 20: any two cards worth ten, or an ace with a nine. The more particular the 20, the more it pays. An unsuited 20 such as K♠ 10♥ pays least, a suited one such as Q♣ 10♣ pays more, a matched 20, the identical card twice such as J♦ J♦, pays more again, and two queens of hearts take the top awards, the largest of them when the dealer also holds a blackjack.
Only the first two cards count, so a 20 built with a third card leaves the bet lost. How its price compares with every other side bet is set out on the blackjack side bets page.
Play Lucky Ladies Blackjack Free
TaDa Gaming's Blackjack Lucky Ladies is the table for this bet. Deal a long session with the side bet on and keep count of the twenties: most will be the plain ones that pay 4 to 1. Other side-bet tables sit in the wider game index.
From Any 20 to the Queens of Hearts
Each winning hand is counted once, at its highest line. A two-card 20 of some kind lands 10.59% of the time with six decks in the shoe, and the plain and suited twenties at the foot of the list make up nearly all of those wins.
Two Pay Tables by Deck Count
Schedule A pays 1,000, 125, 19, 9 and 4 to one, from the top line of the odds table down to any other 20. Schedule B keeps the top and bottom pays and raises the three between to 200, 25 and 10. The figures give the house edge as a percentage of the amount bet.
Why Lucky Ladies Is So Expensive
The bet rests on its most common line. A plain unsuited 20 comes about 1 in 12 six-deck deals and pays 4 to 1, far short of its odds, and the higher lines are too rare to close the gap. The queens of hearts look like the heart of the bet, yet they turn up about once in 3,394 deals, so the 1,000 and the 125 add little to what a player gets back.
Schedule B shows where a better price comes from. It leaves the plain 20 at 4 to 1 and raises the three middle lines, which alone brings the six-deck price down from 24.71% to 17.64%. Even then it costs several times what the cheaper side bets do.
The key number: On six decks Schedule A keeps 24.71% of every Lucky Ladies bet, the highest six-deck price of any side bet on these pages.
A bigger shoe helps a little, from 30.05% on two decks to 24.05% on eight under Schedule A, because more decks deal a 20 slightly more often and matched twenties most of all.
Lucky Ladies in Our Library
Blackjack Lucky Ladies from TaDa Gaming is the table here built around the bet. Its help screen lists the five lines it pays, and setting them against Schedule A and Schedule B shows which price applies; a table that matches neither has a price of its own.
Other tables in the free blackjack games index carry side bets of their own, and the pay table inside each game is the place to read their terms.
Lucky Ladies FAQ
Yes. The ace counts as 11 for this bet, so A♠ 9♥ is a plain 20 and A♣ 9♣ a suited one. An ace with a nine and two cards worth ten are the only two-card hands that make 20.
No. The side bet is settled before the hand is played, so splitting cannot win it again or lose it. A hard 20 is among the strongest starting hands in the game, and the standard strategy chart stands on it against every dealer upcard.
No. Lucky Lucky adds the dealer's upcard to the player's two cards and pays on three-card totals of 19, 20 and 21, with extra for 6-7-8 and three sevens. It is also far cheaper, keeping 2.66% on six decks against 24.71% for Schedule A.
Because a matched 20 is the identical card twice, such as two jacks of diamonds, and a single deck holds one of each card. Every schedule priced on this page deals from two decks or more, where the second copy exists.