Author Archives: Steve M

What Changes the House Edge in Blackjack?

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One of the main reasons blackjack is such a popular game is that the house edge – by which we mean the casino’s advantage over the player – is, generally speaking, very low when compared to other casino games. However, many online casinos have lots and lots of different versions of blackjack, many of these featuring slightly different rules in terms of what you can and can’t do, what the dealer does and even things like the number of decks of cards used.

Whilst some online casinos will tell you the precise house edge for whatever game you are playing, some won’t – even if you ask them outright – either because they themselves don’t know or because they just don’t divulge that information.

However, to help you pick the version of blackjack that will give you the greatest chance of winning, here we take a look at the different factors that have an impact on the house edge.

Number of Decks

The fewer the number of decks, the better things are for the player. One deck is great if you can find it but each added deck increases the house edge. For example, all other factors being equal, the jump from four to eight decks changes the casino’s advantage from 0.45% to 0.53% under certain rules, which might not sound like a lot but over the course of hundreds of hands that soon adds up.

Blackjack

Never play blackjack in a game where the payout for hitting the hand of blackjack is less than 3/2. Some casinos pay at 6/5 instead which turns the house edge of 0.53% above into a whopping 1.88% – more than three times as big!

Split Aces

Few casinos let you hit split aces but if you can, our 0.53% edge drops to just 0.34%.

Double

Being able to double on any total is the best option, followed by 9-11 and lastly 10 and 11 only, although the impact of this is relatively small. Not being able to double after a split has a relatively large impact on the house edge, for example turning 0.53% into 0.66%.

Soft 17

If the dealer hits on soft 17 stay away, as this would turn a house edge of 0.53% into a much larger 0.75%.

Other Factors

Other factors that increase the house edge are being able to re-split to just two, rather than more hands, not being able to re-split aces, and not having a surrender rule compared to the rarely found late surrender.

What are my choices when playing blackjack?

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When playing online blackjack (or when playing in a casino for that matter) you have a number of choices after being dealt your first two cards. Here we explain your options so you can be a confident and efficient player of this fantastic casino favorite.

 

Stand – If you are happy with your two cards you can simply stand, meaning you keep what you have and play passes to the next in line (either another player or the dealer).

Hit – If you want another card from the dealer to get closer to 21 you can hit. If your new card takes your total to 22 or over you have bust. You can hit as many times as you like as long as your combined card total is 20 or below.

Double – Different variants of blackjack will have slightly different rules when it comes to doubling down, but in general you have to bet the value of your stake again when requesting to double (which you can only do after you’ve received you first two cards). When you double you will receive just one more card and will not then have the option to hit or double again.

Split – If you are dealt a pair (for example two 7s or two kings) you will be able to split, which costs you the value of your initial stake again. You will now have two hands and each will receive a second card and be played independently of the other. As with doubling, splitting rules vary according to the specific game variant you are playing, and you may or may not be able to re-split hands if dealt a second pair.

Insurance – Insurance is offered in the form of a side bet if the dealer’s open card is an ace and gives you the chance to bet on the dealer having a blackjack (i.e. that their second card is a 10 or a picture card). The bet pays out at odds of 2/1 and your hand is played out independently of the insurance bet. Some blackjack game variants will offer you an early payout of evens (instead of the usual 3/2) if you already have a blackjack yourself, which you can opt to take or refuse as you see fit.

Surrender – Early surrender rules are sometimes played whereby you can surrender your hand early for the loss of half your stake without completing the hand. This may be done, for instance, if you have two poor cards and the dealer’s first card is worth 10.

Using Blackjack Bonuses

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One major advantage of playing online blackjack over doing so in a bricks and mortar establishment is that whilst you may get the odd free drink in a Vegas casino, online casinos and blackjack sites give you cash bonuses to entice you in. And those bonuses are often big, really BIG!

Some sites will offer hundreds or even thousands of dollars to new customers in order to get them to try their site. Whilst this isn’t a case of free money, it certainly gives you a great chance to make some cash, place bigger bets than you would normally place, and enjoy longer playing blackjack than you would ordinarily be able to.

Most blackjack bonuses take the form of a percentage match of your first deposit, with bonuses of 50%, 100% or even higher being the norm. So, let’s say you have a 100% bonus worth up to $1,000: deposit the full $1,000 and you’ll have $2,000 of blackjack action sitting in your account!

In order to withdraw funds you’ll need to complete wagering/rollover requirements and these are usually explained as “X times the deposit plus bonus”. Some online casinos have wagering as low as 15 times the deposit and bonus, whilst others will have as high as 50 or even 100 times!

The higher the rollover, the harder it is to actually clear any of the bonus from your account and walk away in the black. This means that choosing a blackjack bonus with a high percentage and low rollover is really important.

Perhaps even more important is making sure that blackjack counts towards the wagering. If you play at a blackjack specialist you can be confident it will but at many online casinos, unless the bonus is specifically a blackjack offer, the casino’s best game is often either excluded entirely or else only contributes towards the wagering at a reduced percentage.

Other terms to look out for include whether there is a maximum bet (you may be allowed to stake whatever you want but only a portion of that may count towards the wagering requirement), if there is a time limit on the bonus and if some forms of blackjack (for example progressive games) are excluded.

Having checked that you’re good to go, the next step is to actually play the game. Due to the low house edge of blackjack when played to correct strategy, blackjack bonuses give you a real chance of winning, so play smart and good luck!

Blackjack Staking Plans

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Playing blackjack, whether online or in a real casino, can be great fun and because of the low house edge – effectively the casino’s profit margin – it gives the player a great chance to make a profit. However, as with all gambling, be it playing blackjack, betting on the NBA or any other sport or casino game, a staking plan is an essential route to success.

A staking plan is a method of managing your money in order to give yourself the best chance of success, be that to guarantee a certain length of time at the table, to try to make a profit or to clear the wagering requirements of an online casino bonus. Your staking plan should change according to what your goal is and here we look at the three aims stated above.

Prolonging Table Time

If you have a fixed budget and want to make sure it lasts for a certain period of time, a staking plan for blackjack is crucial. Whatever staking plan you adopt, dividing your total budget into base units is essential. For example, if you want to play for a long time you may decide that betting 5% of your total funds on any one hand is sensible. If your total account balance is $500 that would mean betting $25 per hand (doubling and splitting would take that to more but as long as you do that only when basic strategy dictates, that’s fine). By doing this your risk of ruin – of going bust – is greatly reduced, although a more complex version of this blackjack strategy includes assessing how many hands per hour you would expect to play.

Making a Profit

A staking plan cannot change the casino’s advantage, merely alter the standard deviation and so in truth there is no staking plan that will guarantee a profit, despite what many sites may claim when they try to sell you their own staking plan.

Completing Bonus Wagering

Many bonuses are configured such that allowing for the house edge there is a small profit to be made by the player, based on expected returns. However, in order to reduce the risk of variance causing you to go bust, the smallest stakes possible are needed, which means completing the wagering may take many, many hours. One way around this is to play high stakes early on in an attempt to double, triple (or more) your stake, before switching to smaller (but larger than you would otherwise be able to had you not increased the bonus first) stakes to “grind” out the blackjack bonus.

What Makes a Great Blackjack Site?

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There are literally hundreds of online casinos and blackjack sites out there and whilst not all of them accept US players or make depositing and withdrawing easy, there is still a huge choice. That makes the issue of deciding where to play your blackjack a tough decision but we’re here to help by telling you exactly what to look out for.

Blackjack Bonuses

The bonus may not be top of everyone’s list but if you’re operating in a buyer’s market and with so many sites competing for your business, there are some great bonuses about. The important things to look out for are what the total bonus is, what percentage it is, what wagering is required before you can make a withdrawal, if there is a time limit on the wagering and, last but certainly not least, does blackjack count 100% towards the rollover? In terms of assessing the value of the bonus we feel the fairest measurement is the value of the bonus compared to the total wagering required to clear it (allowing for the fact that some sites may only count blackjack at 50% or even less).

The Site Itself

There are lots of things to look out for when it comes to the site itself but, assuming you’ve already checked if US players are welcome and won’t have a problem getting their money in and out of the online casino, the following are the most important factors to consider: Does the casino have a good reputation for safe and fair play? Are they licensed and regulated by a trustworthy organization? Have they been around a long time? Do they use good, reliable software?

The Games

The issue of the games is related to that final point about the software a site uses. You want to enjoy playing online blackjack and that means the games must function smoothly, have nice graphics, good sound and they must never crash. In addition, the speed of the games is crucial, too slow and working through a bonus can take forever but equally, too fast and you can lose a heap of money before you realize it. The final thing to check is whether or not the available blackjack games have a low house edge, with the most liberal rules offering the casino an advantage of less than 0.4% and offering the player a great chance to win.

History of Blackjack

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Blackjack is one of the most simple yet best loved casino games around and is a card game enjoyed by many. But where, when and how did it all begin? Here we take a look at the history of blackjack.

The exact history of this great game is, as with that of many casino games, inexact and uncertain. What is universally accepted is that it developed from the French game Vingt-et-Un – 21 in English. In Spain the same game was called Ventiuna, meaning the same, and although the game was mentioned in classical Spanish literature as far back as 1602, it only became widespread at the start of the 18th century.

The roots of the game may actually go back even further, however, with some suggesting blackjack ultimately evolved out of a Roman gambling activity that used numbered wooden blocks, whilst a more credible tale suggests a Spanish game called 31 was invented in 1440. It is thought that this game may have merged and melded with chemin de fer, a variant of bacarrat and ultimately ended up with 21 and then blackjack. I did say this history was uncertain!

What is better documented is the rise of 21 in the 18th century, the game being played by travelling European merchants, as well as in continental casinos. The game made its way over the Atlantic with European immigrants at the end of the 18th century and quickly became popular in the US too.

However, at this stage the game was still 21, blackjack only really evolving at the start of the 20th century. The extra reward for a “natural”, a 21 made with just two cards, was introduced and when gambling was legalized in America in the 1930s Nevada casinos introduced an even bigger payout for a “natural” made with the ace of spades and a black jack. That paid out at a generous 10/1 and the game, and the name, grew rapidly.

Whilst both the game and the name would endure, that 10/1 payout was short-lived and casinos reverted to the original 3/2 bonus for any two-card 21. Since that change blackjack has remained largely the same, although as with almost all aspects of life modern technology has impacted on blackjack.

Nowadays online blackjack and live dealer blackjack are massively popular and growing all the time. The low house edge of blackjack, combined with the element of skill, or at least player decision, as well as new online progressive and bonus blackjack games means that blackjack may have an uncertain past but its future is certainly assured.

Can You Make a Profit From Online Blackjack?

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Blackjack is a hugely popular casino game and part of the reason it is so loved is because the casino has very little advantage over the player. The house edge under the most liberal blackjack rules around is just 0.28% but a better guide is around 0.5% as that covers a variety of the most commonly found rule variants.

However, that still means the casino has an advantage over the player and that in the long-term the casino will win, whilst of course in the short and medium term the player maintains an excellent chance of making some money. So, is the answer a straight “no” to the question of our title, “Can You Make a Profit From Online Blackjack?”, if we are thinking long term?

Well, in fact, the answer is yes, you can make, and expect to make, a positive return from playing online blackjack assuming you take advantage of the lowest available house edge, the best online casino bonuses and strictly adhere to basic strategy, the optimum method of playing any given blackjack hand. Throw in extras like comp points, loyalty schemes and extra promotions too and you can certainly leave the (online) casino with a few extra bucks in your pocket.

In years gone by there were excellent profits to be had by using the low house edge and generous bonuses but as some players began to cash in, the casinos tightened up, introducing rollover requirements on their bonuses that were more and more restrictive. Some even ban blackjack entirely, or at the very least make it contribute only a very small (sometimes as low as 1%) percentage towards the necessary wagering.

How to Profit

Assuming you find an online casino that allows blackjack – and some do exist – and has a 100% bonus worth $1,000, with a rollover requirement of 25 times the bonus plus deposit, that would mean in order to withdraw the bonus you would need to wager $50,000 at blackjack.

Now, if we assume a house edge of just 0.5%, one would expect to lose around $250 during that wagering, leaving a very healthy profit of $750. You’d have to play a lot of blackjack – 5,000 hands at $10 a time or even more hands if you want to minimise your risk – but even so, for those with time, the inclination and who enjoy playing online blackjack, this does prove that yes, you can indeed profit.

What is Card Counting and Can it be Done Playing Blackjack Online?

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Many people have often toyed with the idea of trying card counting when playing blackjack and with the growth of online casinos and blackjack sites, trying your skills at home while playing online seems like a good idea.

This begs the question, is it possible to count cards playing online blackjack? Sadly, the answer is no.

For those that don’t know what card counting is, it is a legal technique that is thought to have been “created” in the 1950s, though it wasn’t until mathematician Dr Edward O Thorp, the godfather of card counting, published his 1962 book “Beat the Dealer” that it really came to prominence. Card counting involves keeping track of the high and low cards that have been dealt because a deck with an above average number of high cards creates conditions favorable to the player.

The key principle which makes card counting possible and blackjack, unlike all other casino games, beatable, is that what has gone before has an impact on what is to come. In roulette, 50 reds in a row – though unlikely – does not alter the probability of a red next. However, in blackjack, if a large number of low cards come out in the early hands, leaving the remaining deck stacked with high cards, we know that DOES influence what happens next.

However, almost all online blackjack sites and casinos that feature blackjack use continuous shuffling, such that after every hand all cards are automatically returned to the deck and shuffled before the next hand. This is done electronically, of course, using Random Number Generator software, but the impact on the potential for card counting is the same – it is fatal. Each deal starts with a full complement of cards and so the deck never changes in composition, thus rendering card counting impossible.

However, the position is slightly different with live dealer casinos, which replicate, to a large degree, the conditions of a normal land casino. Here, card counting is possible, especially if you happen to find a live dealer casino that only reshuffles the cards when the whole deck is almost played. To combat the threat of card counting most such casinos shuffle the cards when only about half the deck has been played and this limits the accuracy of card counting, though it may still be worthwhile.

Overall, card counting doesn’t sit well with playing online blackjack and, as ever, our main tip is to use good bonuses and freebies with basic strategy in order to maximize your chances of making a profit playing online blackjack.