Dragon Bonus Push Rule: When Does It Push?
The push trigger on a Dragon Bonus wager is not a payout event β it is a state reset, and if your audit logic treats it as a win or a loss, your entire settlement model is already broken. π― The hand pushes the moment the Player and Banker totals land on identical values after the third card is dealt or the natural standoff resolves, and no commission, no bonus multiplier, and no side payout fires. That is the cold mechanical truth, and most operators still misclassify it inside their reconciliation logs.
What matters to a sharp auditor is the boundary condition: a natural eight versus eight or nine versus nine pushes instantly, before any draw logic executes. The Dragon Bonus push rule also engages when a natural tie occurs and neither side takes a third card. The wager is returned in full, the bonus meter does not increment, and the hand is logged as a void rather than a settled bet.
The Third-Card Push Threshold Nobody Audits
Here is where the RNG and the settlement engine diverge. The push condition is evaluated after the final totals are locked, not after the first two cards. A hand that reaches a tie following a third-card draw still pushes, but the bonus counter behaves differently β the draw sequence stays recorded for variance tracking even though the wager itself refunds. β οΈ If your backend reads the push flag from the pre-draw state, you will double-count ties and corrupt your hold percentage.
The precise threshold: any hand resolving to equal totals β 0-0, 5-5, 9-9 β triggers the push. No exceptions for naturals, no exceptions for drawn hands. The Dragon Bonus settlement logic must read the post-resolution total, period.
Why Push Frequency Skews Your House Edge
Push frequency sits around 9.5 percent across eight-deck shoes, and that number is your canary. A dealer hitting a 9-9 natural pushes, a player drawing to a tie pushes, and every one of those events returns stake without touching the bonus ladder. The Dragon Bonus push rule effectively removes roughly one hand in ten from the wagering pool, which means your effective bonus edge calculation must subtract the push cohort before applying the multiplier table. π©Έ Miss that subtraction and your reported RTP drifts by a full percentage point.
The Natural Tie Trap
Natural ties are the nastiest edge case. The cards are dealt, totals match at eight or nine, and the hand voids before the drawing engine even wakes up. The push fires cleanly, the bonus meter freezes, and the round is refunded. But here is the trap β some shoe configurations log natural ties as a distinct outcome code, separate from drawn ties, and reconciliation systems that key only on the drawn code will silently drop the natural push entirely, inflating reported handle and deflating true RTP. π€ The fix is a single rule: any equal final total, natural or drawn, must map to the same push flag. No dual codes, no exceptions.
The push window closes the instant totals diverge. Equal totals always push, the stake always returns, and the bonus ladder never advances on a tie.