I bet the house edge is somewhere between 3 to 5.5 %

The house edge on High Card Flush is 2.64% using optimal strategy as follows:

Make maximum Call bet with J-9-6 or higher.
Fold 9-7-4 or lower.
You’re on your own with 9-7-5 to J-9-5.

The Flush side wager carries a HA of close to 8%.

The Straight Flush side wager has a HA of 13.11%.

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In Player’s Choice 21 the player is required to make 3 bets, one on each of the two bj hands and a 3 card bonus bet. The player should never bet more on the 3 card bonus than he makes on the bj hands because it is a terrible bet.

The bonus bet carries a negative HA of around 25%. The bj hands carry a positive HA of around 22% in favor of the player.

If you make equal wagers on all 3 bets the overall HA is a negative 0.64%. A reasonable HA of less than 1%.

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In Racing Card Derby the HA depends on how the casino sets the machine since it is essentially a slot machine game.

The HA varies from 10% to 20% depending on how loose the casino decides to be with their game.

A fellow I worked with while in the IT field was an aspiring table game inventor. I watched as he developed a game based around poker. It was real interesting to see the processes he went thru just to get it to the point where he felt confident enough to take it to the big show at the LV Hilton held annually at that time. Thousands of hours and untold $$$$ he spent, everything from the game itself to the table felt and hundreds of hours paid to mathematicians’ who analyze the game backward and forward. All with the idea of attracting one Casino game manager to try it out on his floor or get a larger Company to bid for the rights.

At the Show he hired "Lookers" with brains to deal the game on several tables he had constructed. Had a Large professional display manufactured and rented to space on the floor. He also had to have several tables and felts ready in case there was someone who wanted it on his floor right now.

He ended up selling it to one of the big developers but didn’t clear a hell of a lot as I remember and I have never seen the game on a Casino floor. But I do believe I’ve seen derivations of it from time to time down thru the years.

Talk to him on occasion and he still works on new ideas even now. Never hit the big on though.

I got to know the person who is responsible for bringing new games to one of the casinos. They had to call him down to the floor to resolve a question regarding a rule on a new feature they added to Pai Gow Poker. I was banking and they did not know how to handle a bonus for the players that depended on the dealer’s hand. The language on the table felt was not clear and could be interpreted two ways. I was able to talk him into using my interpretation which favored the players. The next day he saw me at the table and came over to tell me he had called the designer of the game to ask him about the rule. He said he was reamed out for the way he interpreted the rule. The designer said that was ridiculous and he could not believe he fell for my argument. When he explained the logic behind the proper interpretation of the rule, it made sense. But I still maintained the wording on the felt was ambiguous and should be changed. I was happy I was able to talk the casino into making a pay out to the players that they were not supposed to make. It did not help me, only the other players at the table. But it did my heart good to see the players get a break for a change.

They did not change the wording on the layout and I heard dealers and supervisors get confused over how they are supposed to handle the situation. Some have related stories to me of how it happened again on occasion and they still made mistakes because they could not understand the rule. It is rare for it to come up so they are not familiar with the proper ruling. Last time I was there I noticed they removed that version of PGP from the casino. I am sure it had nothing to do with this. I believe the different version was not all that popular.

But I got diverted from why I started this post. I wanted to mention that looking at new slot and table games was almost a full time job for this exec. He has other duties but spends a lot of time looking into new games on a regular basis. Apparently this is a very big and competitive business. I can understand why your friend has not been able to break into the "game".