Whether you’re a complete newcomer or are in regular attendance at a casino, you’ll know all about the numerous poker tournaments that go on around the world. But what you may not know is there are nearly as many blackjack tournaments that take place every year in various gambling-heavy countries.
The goal of a blackjack tournament is simply to have more chips than anybody else sitting at the table when it ends, instead of focusing on building up a balance. Players will either pay a fixed fee to enter a tournament or will be invited to do so, depending on experience and the type of tournament that is being played.
If you want to know more, here are some of the biggest blackjack tournaments in the world.
Online Blackjack Tournaments
Many frequenters of land-based casinos have begun to turn their attention to using an online blackjack casino to take part in tournaments and different games alike.
Online digital tournaments are a convenient option for people who don’t have full access to a land-based venue. For this exact reason, a lot of these individual operators host blackjack tournaments regularly. Events will vary based on:
- The buy-in amount
- Prize pool
- Blackjack variant
If you want to try and win higher prizes in a blackjack tournament, your best bet is to shift your attention toward those occurring in land-based casinos.
Las Vegas Tournaments
It really should not come as a surprise that Las Vegas features so high on this list as it is the first choice for playing tournaments for professional and amateur blackjack players alike.
If you play professional blackjack at a casino in Vegas then you’re likely making your dreams come true. High rollers can try their hand in the iconic Wynn Las Vegas where bets often reach more than $100,000 per hand. However, the majority of tournaments taking place in this casino are invitational.
One of the largest annual blackjack tournaments is hosted at the Cosmopolitan. The buy-ins for this event can be extreme but the prize money can reach $100,000. You won’t earn millions by taking part in this tournament but it’s a great way of getting your name out there.
Monte Carlo Tournaments
If it’s an extravagance you’re after, look no further than a blackjack tournament in Monte Carlo! One thing that differentiates this location is that all gambling activities are controlled and monitored by the state.
The majority of blackjack tournaments will take place in the Sun Casino. This is a place where the annual Blackjack Tour is hosted and is also where the American variant of the game is offered.
But if it’s high-roller tables you’re after, the Le Grand Casino de Monte Carlo is the place to be! Bets typically range anywhere from $1.80 to $1,800.
Macau Blackjack Tournaments
One of the more obvious choices for the biggest blackjack tournaments in the world is the Asian gambling scene. Blackjack isn’t necessarily the most popular game at these casinos but the city provides some of the best blackjack tables for professionals.
Basic blackjack games offer a minimum bet of around HK$100 with higher limit games offering a minimum bet of around HK$500.
If it’s cash you’re looking for, you may want to check out tournaments in Casino Lisboa. With attentive customer service and a whole host of high roller tables, there is plenty to do here.
The Floating Place may be a great place to try your hand due to a favorable house edge which has been known to remain as low as 0.02%.
World Series Of Blackjack
Though this entry to the list is slightly different from the ones above, it more than deserves a spot.
The World Series of Blackjack was the biggest tournament of them all, and one of the largest televised blackjack tournaments ever hosted. Both created and produced by cable network GSN, this annual tournament had its parallels with the World Series of Poker yet was much younger than this event.
A lot of the entrants to this tournament were invited but other seats were made available via satellite qualifiers. There were tweaks to the rules, rounds, number of players, and the format throughout the years but it was essentially a BJ tournament with a few preliminary rounds that lead to a final table.
The first season offered a prize of $100,000 to the overall winner and was played over 30 hands. The fourth series saw a tidy sum of $500,000 from an end pool of over $1 million, with only 25 hands played in each round.
Summary
These are some of the biggest blackjack tournaments in the world. Unlike poker, there aren’t necessarily all that many notable and specific blackjack tournaments to mention.
While the World Series of Blackjack is no longer airing on television, it deserved a spot on this list purely because of the attention it brought to the game of blackjack. In the gambling hubs of Monte Carlo, Las Vegas, and Macau, many blackjack tournaments take place with very high stakes.