I mostly play video poker in AC. The Atlantic City casinos do occasionally run blackjack tournaments which are usually invitational, and usually not advertised at all. Even though I have alterted my casino hosts to my interests in such tournaments, I rarely hear about them. Yesterday, I happened to be playing video poker at Sands AC, and became aware that a blackjack tournament was in progress. I called up my host, and was able to get into it. The tournament structure was that of a 2 round event. In the first round, you played one shoe against the field with the top 6 advancing to the finals. Prize fund was $25k total, paying down to 20th place. This was a freebie tournament. Nothing was posted about the high scores, but we were told that players were shooting for about $60k (you started with $10k, min bet 100, no max bet). I tapped out fairly quickly, and didn't hang around to find out what it took to make the finals. At the time I played, it wasn't clear whether mine was the last qualifying round, or whether there would be another one. They were running 4 tables of 6 players each at one time, and I believe there had been 120 entrants by the time I played. I don't know whether these tournaments are run regularly, or when the next one might be. Hopefully, I will learn of the next event a little ahead of time. Other AC casinos do run blackjack tournaments as well. I've seen (but not bothered with) Harrahs tournaments with $5k prize funds, and played once or twice in a Resorts tournament with something like a $20k prize fund. Both had similar formats to the Sands tournament. A few years ago, Taj had an active tournament program with large prize funds, but I haven't heard anything about tournaments there in quite a while. Plaza seems to only run small, very selective invitational tournaments. Hilton and Park Place do run some blackjack tournaments, but I don't have any recent information on them. I have no information on what other AC casinos might be doing with respect to blackjack tournaments.
AC is tough AC has always been a very tough market to find out information about blackjack tournaments. Even when Blackjack Confidential was being published out of nearby Cherry Hill NJ, Connie Olsen was rarely able to find out any information about upcoming events in AC. Maybe your participation in this one event means you'll get an invitation mailed next time. Certainly, all of us would appreciate any info you get.