Side bets in these two games work in opposite ways. In Lightning Blackjack, the extra cost is built into every hand and pays back through multipliers on later wins. A TriLux-style bet is an optional wager on a poker hand that runs alongside your blackjack hand. This guide explains both with exact odds, so you can see what each one costs before you play.
How Lightning Blackjack's fee and multipliers work
Evolution adds a 100% Lightning Fee to each initial bet in Lightning Blackjack, shown in the game's interface. A $10 hand therefore costs $20 to start. In return, every winning score earns a random multiplier: 2x, 5x, 8x, 10x, 15x, 20x or 25x. The multiplier is saved for your next round, and the payout of that round is multiplied only if you win it. If you leave the table, a saved multiplier stays available for up to 180 days.
Two consequences follow. First, the fee halves the number of hands a budget covers: $200 at $10 a hand is 10 hands, not 20. Second, a multiplier only pays off after two wins in a row, the one that earns it and the one that uses it. Lightning Blackjack is listed with an RTP of 99.56% on this site, with bets from $1 to $5,000.
The multiplier does not change how you should play the hand. Hitting a hand basic strategy says to stand on lowers your chance of winning, which is the only way the multiplier pays. Our blackjack tips cover basic strategy.
TriLux and other three-card side bets
We could not find a current studio page for a game called TriLux Blackjack. The TriLux Bonus bet as usually described pays on the same hands as the 21+3 side bet found in most of Evolution's blackjack games: your first two cards plus the dealer's upcard, judged as a three-card poker hand. The odds below apply to any bet of this type. Only the paytable and deck count change.
| Hand | Example payout | Chance, 8 decks | Chance, 6 decks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Suited three of a kind | 100:1 | 0.024% | 0.021% |
| Straight flush | 40:1 | 0.206% | 0.207% |
| Three of a kind | 30:1 | 0.517% | 0.504% |
| Straight | 10:1 | 3.095% | 3.102% |
| Flush | 5:1 | 5.884% | 5.842% |
| Any winning hand | 9.73% | 9.68% |
With this paytable the bet returns 96.30% on eight decks, a house edge of 3.70%, and 95.38% on six decks, a house edge of 4.62%. Fewer decks make suited three of a kind rarer, and that one hand carries a large share of the return. A table with lower payouts on the flush or straight can push the edge much higher, so the paytable matters more than the name of the bet.
In money terms: 50 hands with a $5 side bet is $250 staked, and at a 3.70% edge the expected cost is $9.25 on top of the main game. The bet loses on about 9 hands in 10, so most sessions lose more than that and a few win a lot.
Other side bets at Lightning and standard tables
Evolution says Perfect Pairs and 21+3 are present in most of its blackjack games, and Infinite Blackjack and Power Blackjack offer four optional side bets: Any Pair, 21+3, Hot 3 and Bust It. Pair bets win when your first two cards share a rank. On an eight-deck shoe that happens 31 times in 415, about 7.5% of hands, so a pair bet would have to pay about 12.4 to 1 on average just to break even. The help screen shows the exact paytable and RTP of each side bet.
For side bets in roulette, baccarat and poker games, see the good and the bad of live casino side bets.
Keep side bets on a separate budget
- Decide before the session how much goes to side bets, and stop placing them when that amount is gone.
- Keep the stake flat. A run of side bet losses is the normal result of a bet that loses 9 times in 10, and it says nothing about the next hand; see the gambler's fallacy.
- In Lightning Blackjack, count the fee as part of your stake when you set a loss limit.
Licensed casinos let you set deposit, loss and session limits in your account. Our responsible gaming page explains the tools.
