Far from it. The answer pretty much boils down to a combination of "because there was no good poker reload bonuses available" and "because I don't hate money." Even though blackjack is a -EV game even when played with perfect strategy, due to the bonuses currently available at a variety of online casinos it actually becomes a massively +EV endeavor. The basic idea is that the casinos are giving you so much money to play, that it much more than makes up for what you are expected to lose. Read that again - if you play you will lose money on your initial deposit, and there is no strategy and/or betting scheme that can change that. However, the amount of sign-up bonus the casino gives you far outstrips that expected loss amount.
The structure of a typical (cashable) bonus is the following: you make an initial deposit, the casino deposits your bonus money immediately, contingent upon you wagering a total amount of money until the bonus will be satisfied. To give a concrete example, the bonus I just finished (Intercasino) was a 100+100/2500 cashable bonus, meaning that for my deposit of $100, the casino added $100 immediately, and I have to place a total of $2,500 in bets before I can withdraw. The plan is to play perfect basic strategy and make very small bets to reduce the risk of going broke.
What can I expect in profit from this bonus played this way? For the sake of calculation ease I will use the figure of 0.5% as the house advantage against perfect basic strategy. Some sites have even less of a house advantage, and some slightly more, but the 0.5% will do for basic calculation / estimation. This figure means that for every $1 bet, the house will make $0.005. In the case of our $2,500 wagering requirement, this means the house will make (on average) $12.50. Thus, we are left with $187.50 for an (average) profit of $87.50 for this bonus.
As it turns out, you can increase your EV very slightly by betting more, but this also increases your Risk of Ruin. The main reason for me to bet more than the minimum is to trade off a bit of risk in order to decrease my clearing time (thus increasing my hourly rate) - not to increase my EV by a minuscule amount.
OK, so how long would this bonus take to clear? When I played, I was going through a bit more than 300 hands per hour. This seems like a good enough assumption - although this number could likely be pushed closer to 400/hr with dedicated play, better memorizing of the basic strategy chart and focus. Using the 300/hr assumption we obtain the following table:
This hourly rate is much, much greater than at poker (at least at the levels I am currently playing), but as could maybe be expected the variance is greater. Much greater, even for the lowest betting limits. Exactly how much greater? Stay tuned for the next blog post, where I anticipate much more math (and graphs!) As you can see from the amount listed in my bankroll, I ran rather "hot" on this first bonus (cue the conspiracy theorists, please!) winning $250 in a bit under 3 hours by flat-betting $3/hand. This corresponds to about $90/hr, but the expectation for a bonus like this should match the above table - about $31.50/hr for what I was betting. Like I said, I was running hot, and this is just the positive side of the previously mnetioned variance.
There are affiliate sites (much like PSO) that will give you even more cash for signing up through them. For example, I signed up through GamesGifts.com, which will give me an additional $250 for clearing 5 casinos.
A word of warning: Not all sites allow blackjack to clear the bonus. Not all bonuses are cashable - some are "sticky" bonuses, but are best left to after you exhaust all of the available cashable bonuses. Some sites (including Intercasino) charge you a $1 withdrawal fee (kind of ticky-tack, considering the amount you wager with them, but hey, them's the rules.....)
As you can tell, I've done quite a bit of reading on the subject, but am no means an expert. Anyone interested enough in this can follow up with pages off of casinobonuswhores.com, casinodave.com, and the 2+2 Internet Bonuses message boards.
I don't enjoy this as much as I do poker - how could I? I personally get no thrill out of the act of betting itself (in fact, I'm likely one of the more risk-averse people you'll ever meet), and there is no decision-making / strategizing anywhere. It is just reading a strategy right off a chart, and makes you feel like a blackjack-playing robot. At the same time, I don't hate money, and would hate to not take advantage of the situation as it exists right now. I expect to split my time somewhat between blackjack and poker and see how it goes.
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