Online Poker Room Reviews

Analysis of Party Poker 'Sidebet'

Introduction

With their latest update Party Poker have introduced a new betting option named 'Sidebet'. A Sidebet is a bet on the whether the flop will be all of one color and is available on all real money and single table tournament Hold'em and Omaha tables. In this article I will analyze this Sidebet and how much the player is expected to win or lose for every dollar bet.

Details

A wager is placed before any cards are dealt on one of two options - whether the flop will be all red or all black. A bet of $5 or $10 can be selected and if successful pays out at 8 for 1, which is equivalent to odds of 7 to 1. This means for every $1 risked the player stands to collect $8(win $7) if the bet wins.

Analysis of Bet

Whether you decide to bet on red or black the odds of success are the same as there is an equal number of each color in a deck of cards.

Using the standard formula for selection without replacement we calculate the expected win/loss for the player as follows:
Probability of winning = 26/52 * 25/51 * 24/50 = 0.117647059
Probability of losing = 1 - 0.117647059 = 0.882352941
Expected win/loss for player = (+$7 * 0.117647059) + (-$1 * 0.882352941) = -$0.058823529 for every dollar bet

Conclusion

At close to a 6% disadvantage the new 'Sidebet' game introduced by Party Poker is relatively expensive in comparison to other gambling options. If you are looking to gamble for entertainment a better option is Party Poker Blackjack where the expected result is a loss of $0.005 for every dollar bet - 10 times less than Sidebet. See our article Analysis of Party Poker Blackjack for a more details.