Blackjack tournament fundraiser

[Muley05]

I know others here have played in and/or been in charge of poker tournaments that served as fundraisers.  I ran one last weekend for a neighbor's son's baseball team, and I think it was a success.  21 players and the team netted over $1000, not a bad night.

As I was sitting there, someone mentioned playing blackjack.  I know that casinos run blackjack tournaments, and I thought that could be a good idea for a fundraiser.  There are lots of teams in my area that run poker fundraisers, and a blackjack tourney would be different from the norm and allow more participants (not everyone knows how to play poker).

The basic premise of a blackjack tournament is that each player starts with a certain amount of chips (say 500), the table plays 25 hands, and whoever has the most chips at the end either wins or moves on to a final table.  There is a "button" that moves with each hand so that each player gets to play first base position, third base, etc.  And whoever is the button places their bet first and then the other players place theirs.  Minimum bet would be 5.

I was looking for ideas for how to do this as a fundraiser and make money.  Maybe have a $40 buy in and pay out half, with the team keeping the other half.  Maybe have an add on of 250 more chips for $10 or $15 that the team would keep.

[sharkyspoker]

As poker players I know we like to get a lot of play for our buy-ins, however you will find that 25 hands will take a long time. If you only have one table going there will be some bored people standing around and getting impatient. My recommendation would be to get either more tables or player fewer hands.  The other option you could do, and I have done this with success, is to raise the minimum bet sizes after so many hands so by the time you get to the final 5 hands your playing $100 minimum per hand.

Its a good idea and can be a lot of fun. Good luck with it.

Sharky