Not an easy one to find out there in the online casino world, but Lucky Cat Blackjack is a game invented by Geoff Hall, the same man who is responsible for Blackjack Switch, Zappit Blackjack, and Free Bet Blackjack.
It’s a game made for mobile play as you will see from the layout, with standard game rules but an additional game within the game in the form of lucky cat dice.
It’s RNG based, although it has been available in the real world casinos in Las Vegas, but for most people the internet is the only accessible place to try the game.
How to Play Lucky Cat Blackjack
You will notice immediately that the layout is long and vertical and designed for a mobile phone screen.
This doesn’t impact the gameplay at all but in terms of the way things look it might take a few hands to get used to.
One fun touch is that the ‘lucky cat’ sat on the table is also the dealer, so will dish out the cards.
In terms of the rules, they are as follows:
- 8 decks
- Dealer hits on soft 17
- Dealer checks for blackjack
- Re-splitting allowed
- No re-splitting Aces
- Double after splitting allowed
- No surrender
As with most other games, you select your chip value then click to place it on the board, with bets of between 1-500 being allowed.
The buttons to hit, stand, split, buy insurance etc. will all appear as and when they are needed, but aren’t there all the time.
Lucky Cat Special Feature
The thing that sets this game apart and gives it the theme, is the Lucky Cat special feature.
This is a sort of mini game after the fact, which only triggers when the dealer busts with 22, and the player does not have blackjack and has not also bust.
In this instance, the game screen will change and the player will be prompted to roll the 4 lucky dice.
Each dice has one side with a cat’s paw print on it, and landing 1 or more paws facing upwards will grant a payout of between 1:1 and 100:1, as follows:
| Paws | Payout |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1:1 |
| 2 | 3:1 |
| 3 | 10:1 |
| 4 | 100:1 |
However, if no paws are revealed then what would have been a winning hand becomes a push, returning your stake but leaving you no better off than at the start of the hand.
RTP
For this game, the theoretical return to player percentage is 97.00%.
For blackjack this is not that great, and the Lucky Cat feature is to blame.
It’s fun, and it gives the potential for much bigger payouts if you get very lucky, but the cost of that chance is winning hands becoming pushes, and that ultimately impacts the RTP.