| Choosing Your
Online Casinos and Blackjack Games Wisely |
This day and age you would be hard pressed to find a casino offering single
deck blackjack, especially amongst online casinos with automatic card shufflers
built into the software. However, if you do, there's probably more than meets
the eye. In other words, before jumping into a single-deck game of blackjack,
you need to check the rules.
Certainly, playing with a single deck is more
advantageous than multiple decks. In terms of handicap, two decks versus one
deck raises your disadvantage by .35%. Play with 8 decks and your handicap is
raised by almost .6%. For anybody familiar with blackjack strategy, every
tenth of a percent counts. But the question remains, is this small gain worth
it? Well, not if you are getting paid 6:5 for a blackjack.
A common trick that
casinos like to employ is to offer 6:5 for a blackjack (natural 21) instead of
the standard 3:2. In terms of payout on a $10 bet, 6:5 would pay $12 and 3:2
would pay $15. Fifteen bucks doesn't sound like much, but you wouldn't believe
what this does to your overall odds and the Casinos Edge. Instead of a
reasonable .58% Casinos Edge playing eight-deck blackjack with a 3:2 "natural
21" payout, a single deck game with a 6:5 payout on a hand of blackjack comes
with a 1.4% Casinos Edge - a huge difference!
Expanding this even further, if
you were to play 60 hands per hour (a low estimate when playing at an online
casino), the expected loss on the 3:2 eight-deck game using perfect strategy
would be $3.50/hour, as opposed to $8.35/hour on the 6:5 single-deck game. You
can see why you should never play a game of blackjack that pays 6:5. Be careful
because some casinos will even advertise it like it's better than 3:2.
Before you play blackjack, know your math, and pick blackjack games that
have the fewest decks, allow early and late surrender, doubling down on any two
cards (including after splitting pairs), allow multiple pair splitting, re-splitting of
Aces, and require the dealer to stand on a soft 17. And when you're playing (no
doubt using perfect strategy), remember to have enough bankroll to get you
through extended lengths of time. Always double down when strategy dictates,
because it's the doubling down that will help to put you in a profitable margin.
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Additional Blackjack Tips |
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