Blackjack WagerTracker guide

If you have read our articles on bonus whoring / clearing, then you'll know by now that Blackjack is the game of choice when it comes to ensuring you get to keep the lion's share of a cashable casino bonus. When playing through a casino bonus, you need to wager a certain amount of money, which can be difficult to keep track of. Some casinos track your wagering in the casino and allow you to view it in their cashier department. But many others don't, and besides, we like to keep them honest, right? This is where Blackjack Wager Tracker comes in.

Blackjack WagerTracker is a small, completely free, program for Windows written by a bonus whore known only as Chunky. This guide will help you get started using it to work through a casino bonus. You can download Blackjack WagerTracker freely and safely from our servers here - it is a simple zip file that requires no installation. Just download it to your computer, double-click to unzip it and then click on wagertracker.exe to get going.

Enter wagering requirements

One you run the program, the first window allows you to enter your starting balance, and the wagering requirement that you need to clear the bonus. You can work this out from any of our bonuses by multiplying the bonus amount by our listed wagering requirements - eg 27xB at Golden Palace is 27 x 300 = 8100 (in this case it is actually 8000, but close enough).

You can also enter a filename in the lower text box so that the program keeps a log of your wagering, in case you want to do it in multiple sessions. If you are returning from a previous session, just search for the file you previously used and click the Ok button and it will ignore the balance and wagering requirements boxes and just pick up where you left off.

BlackJack wager tracker usage

The first thing you should do is decide your wager size per hand and enter it into the "Wager" box. You can use the little arrow buttons to increase or decrease in 0.25 increments, or hit the buttons to the right to add that amount to the wager. I have no idea why Chunky didn't just let you type it in. Don't forget to update this value if you change your wager size.

Now position the windows so that the WagerTracker window is conveniently placed next to the casino's software window and start up a game of blackjack. Make sure you are following the blackjack basic strategy table contained in our blackjack guide. Each time you complete a hand, click the appropriate result button on the wager tracker (i.e. Win / Push / Lose, doubles, and blackjacks). If you split a hand, just record the result for each split hand as you would normally. As you record your results the tracker will list them in the hand history part of the screen:

• You'll see a green circle when you win a hand, yellow when you push, and red when you lose.
• A "D" inside the circle signifies a doubled hand
• A black-centered circle means the hand was a blackjack.

On the right side of the tracker window you can see a blue "thermometer" style vertical bar that increases in height as you get closer to the wagering requirements, and you can also see exactly how much you have wagered in the "Wagered" text box at the top left.

Unfortunately there is no surrender button for when you are playing a blackjack variant that allows surrender (such as Atlantic City Blackjack at Microgaming casinos). What I do then is just alternate between clicking Push on one surrendered hand, then Lose the next time I surrender (in reality you lose half of your wager each time). This ensures the full amount you wagered is counted - all you have to do is remember the option you picked last time you surrendered. This happens rarely so it doesn't matter much if you forget - the important thing is that you record the full amount wagered on the hand.

You'll notice that there are some buttons at the bottom of the window. Press "Undo" if you make a mistake, and the last hand entry you made will be removed. "About" just pops up a little window that tells you who wrote the program, and as for "Stats" - this screenshot shows the sort of thing you will see when you click it:

Conclusion

That is all there is to it. Once you know your blackjack basic strategy, you'll be able to click through hands like a speed demon, and using the tracker will become second nature. There are a few minor problems with the program which we mentioned above, but nothing that detracts too much from the usefulness of the program.

Next Steps

If you're reading this as part of our Beginner's Guide series of articles, then well done - you have educated yourself and should be readily equipped to take advantage of casino bonus offers to make yourself a healthy chunk of change. So head on over to our guide to your first five casinos and we'll go about turning that spare $100 of yours into a cool $1000.

On the other hand, if you're already an experienced player, then you might like to check out our massive lists of the best value blackjack bonuses, casino sign-up bonuses, and monthly and weekly bonuses which you can use to supplement your earnings each month.