888 Poker Introduces New Luck-based SNG Game, BLAST

Home » Poker News » 888 Poker Introduces New Luck-based SNG Game, BLAST

Tuesday, August 16th, 2016 | Written by Shane Larson

While other gambling sites introduced new poker variants which blended chance and skill in order to attract recreational players to the game, 888 Poker remained one of the few holdouts without a slots and poker hybrid option. That all changed in late July when the site introduced their new lottery sit and go game called BLAST.

Features of the New Game

– Like other lottery sit and go games, BLAST is an ultra fast no-limit, hold ’em style format that lasts two minutes and begins with 30 big blind stacks.

– Prior to the start of the game, a randomized drawing takes place, letting players know how much money they will be competing for. As per usual, the lower multipliers tend to pop up with greater frequency than the higher ones.

– With lower payouts, the winner receives the entire pot, but when the multipliers rise, the payouts become more evenly split.

– One key difference between BLAST and its competitors’ games is that four players are required, one more than the three player format which seems to be the prevailing trend with these lottery sit and go games.

– The shot clock makes it very difficult to make smart, strategic decisions. As a result, most of what happens during the course of the game is left up to luck. If you fail to make a decision when the shot clock timer runs out, every player is forced to go all in.

– With higher multipliers, the time limits on the games do increase to up to 12 minutes, which does allow for more skill.

– 888 Poker charges a much higher house take than what has become the norm for lottery sit and go games. When players buy in at the lowest rate of $0.10, the house takes 10 percent. As the size of the buy-in grows, the percentage decreases, falling to 6.67 percent for $1 buy-ins. PokerStars lowest house take is 5 percent, and the maximum is 8 percent.

– With the initial launch, BLAST featured only $0.10, $1 and $5 games, but word is that the site will be adding $30 games sometime in the future.

– There is no rake back with BLAST, unlike PokerStars’ lottery sit and go game, Spin & Go, which gives 8 to 30 percent rake back calculated on the basis of their loyalty tiers.

Luck versus Skill?

When you consider all of the elements which comprise the BLAST game, it becomes clear rather quickly that there is little chance of being able to utilize a strategy that makes it possible to make money over the long term. The game is therefore further evidence that lottery sit and go style games are targeting the sort of person who is more interested in games of chance, rather than the traditional poker player. Still, those who are new to poker may enjoy the game and become interested in trying more traditional cash games.

Beacon For Recreational Players

888 Poker’s Blast follows a dramatic change in the online poker industry which now favors recreational players over regular grinders. Other major online poker operators offering the fast, lottery-type game includes PokerStars, partypoker, and Bodog. Regardless of whether games such as these are mostly luck-based, the format has undoubtedly been instrumental in increasing the number of recreational players opening online accounts at a time when poker had been experiencing a decline in popularity.

When such games were first introduced a few years ago, they automatically incurred a backlash from poker purists who opposed increasing the luck factor associated with playing poker. Operators responded to these regular, grinders by reminding them that the poker ecology depended upon new players entering the poker market, an industry which otherwise would have continued to go stale and decline. As PokerStars’ Ring Game Manager at the time, “Baard”, explained via a Two Plus Two forum message:

“Anyone who has followed the online poker market over the past few years will recognize the fact that it is more and more difficult to get new players to the tables. So when a new product comes along that captures the imagination of a wide range of players, it is not something that we can just pass on because we don’t want to upset the regular players. If we had decided to stand pat with the current offering for the next couple years, chances are that soon your games would have been far more reg-filled and running less often than you will see now due to the addition of Spin & Gos.”