Increase Blackjack Odds

• Knowing your odds of busting in a particular situation or your odds of getting a blackjack can help you make better choices for your hand. For instance, if you know that you have a high chance of surpassing 21, you will refrain from hitting. This way, you will increase your chances of winning as you will make the right choices at the right time.
• Increase your Blackjack odds We are going to take you through some of the most effective ways to raise your blackjack odds - with minimal effort. Of course, this isn't an exhaustive list - but it gives you a firm introduction to some of the more popular tactics available.

Most people have already heard that blackjack is the best game in the casino, odds-wise. You might even believe that if you follow the right strategy, you can get a mathematical edge over the house. This isn't true, but you CAN get the house edge at blackjack low enough that it might seem that way.

Blackjack - Increase Your Odds With Basic Strategy Plus. Blackjack Basic Strategy, played perfectly in a game with favorable rules, will reduce the edge against you to about one half of one. Without any deeper understanding of odds in blackjack, it's easy to believe that hitting on a hand value of 12 would always be the right decision. This is because 12 is a very low value and the fact that more than two-thirds of the cards in the deck (s) would improve the value of it.

In this post, I explain – in detail – how to increase your chances of winning at blackjack.

Learn the Rules Before Sitting Down to Play

All the basic blackjack strategy and card counting skill in the world won't increase your chances of winning unless you already understand how to play.

Here's the thing:

If you make mistakes, some of them will cost you money.

When I first learned to play blackjack, I ignored things like doubling down and splitting because I didn't understand the rules for those. By leaving those out of my game, I lowered my chances of winning dramatically.

Luckily, you don't have many options to understand.

When you're playing blackjack, here are the only actions you can take:

Everyone knows that to hit is to take another card.

Everyone also knows that to stand is to refrain from taking any more cards.

Doubling down is like hitting, but you double the size of your bet. You also agree to take one more card and then stand – that's part and parcel of doubling down.

Splitting might be the most complicated move you can make, and it's not the easiest thing to describe in text. It's easier to understand once you've already done it in a real game.

Nonetheless, I'll explain splitting.

Each of the 2 cards in your original hand becomes the first card in each of your 2 new hands.

That's about all there is to splitting.

Finally, surrendering is like folding in a poker game. Only in blackjack, you only give up half your bet. Surrender is rarely the correct move.

Master Basic Strategy

Unlike some games, blackjack has been 'solved.' We know the correct play to make in every possible situation. It's just basic math.

You have no room for hunches or guesses in a game of blackjack.

The correct move is always the move that has the best expected value for the player.

You have 2 pieces of information in every blackjack hand:

• You know one of the dealer's cards – it's face-up.
• You know which 2 cards you have and what their total is.

There's a mathematically optimal way to play every total versus every dealer face-up card.

Basic strategy encapsulates all those possible moves into a simple chart where your total is listed on one side and the dealer's up-card is listed along the top. Cross-reference the 2 pieces of data, and the table tells you what the best move is.

You shouldn't rely on a basic strategy table forever, though – you should memorize the right play in every situation.

But you could play with a basic strategy chart every time, if you wanted to. The casinos don't mind.

After all, even with basic strategy, you're at a mathematical disadvantage.

Find the Games With the Best Odds of Winning

Different casinos have different blackjack variants with different rules in place. The biggest rules change to look for is the payout for a blackjack.

A 'blackjack' is a 2-card hand totaling 21 – it's always a hand made up of an ace and a card worth 10 points.

In most casinos, a blackjack pays off at 3 to 2 odds.

This means if you bet $100 and get a blackjack, you get $150 in winnings.

But in some casinos – at some tables – blackjack only pays off at 6 to 5 odds.

This means if you bet $100 and get a blackjack, you get $120 in winnings.

Some casinos even take advantage of the mathematically illiterate by acting like they're doing you a favor with the 6 to 5 payout.

Since 6 is a bigger number than 3, it sounds like a 6 to 5 payout is better than a 3 to 2 payout.

Of course, this ignores the fact that this is a ratio.

Avoid Side Bets at All Costs

All blackjack games feature a side bet called insurance. You should never take insurance unless you're counting cards and know that it's the mathematically optimal move at that point in the game.

Increase Blackjack Odds Vs

How does insurance work?

When the dealer has an ace as her face-up card, you can place a side bet the size of half your original bet. This side bet wins 2 to 1 if the dealer has a 10 in the hole.

Blackjack Odds Chart Bet

Of course, if the dealer has a 10 in the hole, you lose your main bet, so the insurance bet acts as a hedge against losing in this situation.

The problem with the insurance bet is that it's a hugely negative expectation proposition.

Sure, there are more 10s in the deck than anything else, but the other cards still outnumber the 10s by a statistically significant margin.

If you're counting cards, you might know when the deck has gotten lopsided enough for insurance to make sense mathematically.

But otherwise, just skip insurance.

You can also safely skip any other unusual side bet that the casino is offering. The house edge on those side bets is always high – especially compared to the house edge for the blackjack game itself.

Learn How to Count Cards

So far, all the advice I've offered will reduce the house's edge to its lowest possible number.

That still won't give you a mathematical edge over the casino.

To do that, you'll need at least one advantage gambling technique.

Counting cards is the traditional advantage gambling technique used in blackjack. It involves keeping rough track of the ratio of high cards to low cards in the deck.

Since a blackjack is made up of high cards – 10s and aces – if the deck has more 10s and aces in it than lower value cards, you have a higher probability of getting that blackjack.

This can be as simple as mentally subtracting 1 from the count every time you see an ace or a 10 and adding 1 to the count every time you see a 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6.

You raise the size of your bet to correspond with how positive the count is.

You also adjust the count based on how many decks are being used.

Keep in mind, though, that casinos consider card counting cheating. It's not illegal, but casinos sometimes back players off the blackjack table or even ban card counters from the casino altogether.

And always start the count over when the deck gets reshuffled.

If you're playing in a blackjack game with a continuous shuffling machine, you can't get an edge by counting cards anyway, so don't even try.

Practice Playing at Home

If you're serious about playing blackjack in a casino, you should practice at home – ESPECIALLY if you're planning to count cards.

How you practice is up to you but be deliberate about it.

You can find plenty of blackjack software tools that will help you practice basic strategy and card counting techniques.

You can also enlist the aid of a friend and play practice hands with a real deck of cards at the kitchen table.

And most online casinos offer free, play-money, blackjack games where you can play for free and test your skills. Most of the time, at least when dealing with a reputable online casino, you face the same odds and probabilities you'd see at a casino with a real deck of cards.

Try Online Blackjack Games

I'm not a lawyer, so I'll refrain from offering legal advice about playing blackjack for real money online. Suffice it to say that I trust you to analyze legalities and risk levels when gambling online for yourself and making an appropriate decision.

If you decide you're comfortable with the risk or that it's legal where you live to do so, give online blackjack a try. You can get in twice as many hands per hour as you'd see playing in a brick and mortar casino.

And sometimes online casinos offer better games with better odds than traditional brick and mortar casinos – especially if you're playing for low stakes.

Conclusion

How do you increase your chances of winning at blackjack?

Start by learning the rules and follow that up with learning basic strategy. Don't settle for games with rules that aren't acceptable, like 6/5 blackjack games.

Finally, if you want to take it to the next level, learn how to count cards.

Increasing your chances of winning at blackjack is easy, but it does take some work.

Who doesn't want to improve their chances of winning in the casino?

I know I do.

No one can teach you a method of making sure you'll walk away from the casino a winner every time. That's an unrealistic expectation that not even advantage gamblers have.

But you can reduce the amount you'll lose and increase your chances of winning by making a few either/or choices. I've listed 7 of them below.

1 – Play European Roulette Instead of American Roulette

You measure a casino's advantage over the player with a figure called 'the house edge'. That's a mathematically expected loss per bet expressed as a percentage.

If someone tells you that a game has a 5% house edge, that means you're expected to lose an average of $5 every time you place a $100 bet. Of course, this is an average over thousands of hands, but as a mathematical concept, it's a useful way of comparing casino games.

In American roulette, you face 38 different numbers on the roulette wheel. 18 of those numbers are black, 18 are red, and 2 of them are green—the 00 and the 0.

Those two green numbers are where the house gets its edge. A bet on red or black pays off at even odds, but the odds of winning aren't even. You have 20 ways to lose and 18 ways to win.

Over time, that difference adds up to a 5.26% house edge.

A European style roulette wheel, though, only has 37 numbers. 18 are red, 18 are black, and 1 is green. The bets still have the same payouts, though.

This reduces the house edge for the game from 5.26% to 2.70%.

What does that do to your expected hourly loss?

Let's say you're betting $20 per spin, and you're placing an average of 40 bets per hour. This means you're putting an average of $800 into action per hour.

Your expected loss on an American roulette wheel is $42.08.

But on a European roulette wheel, your expected loss is only $21.60.

2 – Play Video Poker Instead of Slot Machines

When you're talking about gambling machines, you talk less about house edge and more about payback percentage. The payback percentage is just the house edge subtracted from 100%. It's the amount of money you mathematically expect to win back in the long run from a game.

When you're talking about gambling machines, you talk less about house edge and more about payback percentage. The payback percentage is just the house edge subtracted from 100%. It's the amount of money you mathematically expect to win back in the long run from a game.

For example, if we say that a slot machine has a payback percentage of 90%, that means you can expect to win back 90% of whatever you gamble in that machine over a long enough time.

But here's the thing about slot machines:

They don't list their payback percentages, and there's no realistic way to guess. We do know that most slot machine games on the Las Vegas Strip pay back at around 92% or so.

But video poker machines, if you play them correctly and choose the games with the best pay tables, pay back much more than that. Even the worst games pay back at 95% or more.

And the best games pay back at 99% or higher.

Best of all, you can determine the payback percentage of a video poker machine based on its pay table. Any respectable video poker site (including our video poker section here), includes common pay tables with their expected payback percentage.

What's the difference to your bankroll?

Assume you're playing a slot machine with a 93% payback percentage. You're making 600 spins per hour at $5 per spin. You're putting $3000 per hour into action. The casino expects you to lose $210 per hour on that action.

If you're playing a video poker game with a payback percentage of 99.54% for the same stakes, you're looking at $3000 in action per hour still.

But your expected loss now is only $13.80.

3 – Master Blackjack Basic Strategy

Blackjack is one of the most popular games in the casino, but if you don't master basic strategy, you're probably facing a house edge of 4% or more. Master basic strategy, though, and you can reduce that to between 0.5% and 1% depending on the rules and the table conditions.

What's basic strategy?

That's just a fancy way of saying that every possible situation in blackjack has one mathematically best play. For example, you always split aces or 8s. That's the mathematically best play, and if you make a different decision, the house edge goes up.

What's the difference between a basic strategy player and someone who's just winging it?

Let's assume you're playing 60 hands per hour for $20 per hand. That's $1200 per hour in action.

If you're making a lot of mistakes and ignoring basic strategy, your expected loss per hour is $48.

But if you're using basic strategy and face a house edge of only 1%, your expected loss per hour is only $12.

Here's a bonus blackjack tip, too:

Skip the tables where you only get a 6/5 payoff on a natural. That adds almost 2% to the house edge. Insist on playing 3/2 blackjack, or play something else entirely.

4 – Stick with the Simplest Bets at the Craps Table

The number of bets available at the craps table is staggering. The good news is that the bets with the best odds are the easiest bets—the ones at the edges of the table. The inside bets at the craps table come with a much higher edge.

The most basic craps bets are the pass and don't pass bets. The pass bet is a bet that the shooter will win, and they don't pass bet is a bet that the shooter will lose.

The shooter loses on the come out roll if she rolls a 2, 3, or 12. She wins on the come out roll if she rolls a 7 or an 11.

If she rolls any other number, a point is set, and she continues to roll the dice until she rolls the point again (winning) or rolls 7 (losing) whichever comes first.

The house edge for the pass bet is 1.41%.

The house edge for the don't pass bet is 1.36%.

I should point out that even though they don't pass bet is marginally better, you'll probably have more fun betting on the pass line. Part of the fun of craps is rooting for the shooter.

I'll use just one of the proposition bets in the middle of the table as an example of a bet to avoid. The 'Any 7' bet pays off at 4 to 1, but the house edge is 16.9%.

Let's say you're playing for $10 per roll, and you're playing at a table where you're seeing 100 rolls per hour. That means you're putting $1000 into action every hour.

If you're betting the pass line, your expected hourly loss is $14.10.

If you're betting 'any seven', your expected hourly loss is $169.00.

That's a massive difference.

5 – Always Join the Slots Club

A lot of superstitious players think that if you play with the slots card inserted, your chances of winning go down.

That's a myth.

This tip almost doesn't belong here, though, because it makes it sound like you're more likely to win with the slots club card inserted, but that's not exactly the case.

What really happens is that the casino measures how much money you're putting into action per hour so that they can rebate some of it—maybe 0.2%.

What effect does this have on your expected hourly loss?

Let's look at a hypothetical Jacks or Better video poker player. The house edge is only 0.46%, so if you're playing 600 hands per hour at $5 per hand, you can expect to lose 0.46% of $3000, or $13.80.

But if you're getting rewards of 0.2% of your play, you're getting back $6/hour. That reduces your effective hourly loss to $7.80 per hour.

If you play at a casino which offers double rewards during certain hours, you can eliminate the house edge of even play with a slight margin over the casino.

That's worth doing.

6 – Take Plenty of Breaks and Play Slowly

This won't necessarily improve your chances of winning, but it will reduce your expected hourly loss.

You should think of the house edge as a tax on the money that you're gambling. Every time you place a bet, you pay this tax. That's not what really happens in the short run, but if you play long enough, that's exactly what happens.

Let's look at two slot machine players as examples.

One of them is playing 600 hands per hour at $5 per hand. She's putting $3000 into action per hour. If the house has an edge of 7%, that player's expected hourly loss is $210.

The other is only playing 400 hands per hour at $5 per hand. She's taking her time and taking lots of breaks, so she's only putting $2000 into action per hour. With the same house edge, she's only expected to lose $140 per hour.

The slower player might even be having more fun, because she's probably paying more attention to what she's doing. I call that mindfulness in action on the casino floor.

7 – Learn to Play the More Complicated Games

Here's one truism about casino games everyone should know:

The easier the game is to play, the higher the house edge.

Games like Casino War, which require no strategy and are so easy a child could understand them, are best to skip.

Games like blackjack, where strategy plays a big role in how the outcome is determined, offer much better odds.

The house edge for Casino War is 2.33%. The house edge for blackjack is between 0.5% and 1%.

This means you can expect to lose 5 times as much money playing Casino War as you would expect to lose playing blackjack.

The opposite is true of slot machines, though. The more complicated a slot machine game is—more reels, more bonus features, etc.—the higher the house edge has to be to pay for those extra features.

Your best bet with a slot machine is to find one with 3 reels and a flat dollar amount for a jackpot.

Conclusion

Casino games are designed with an unassailable mathematical house edge, but that number varies by game and according to strategy. Your goal as a casino player is to get as much entertainment for your gambling dollar as you can.

The way to do this is to choose the games with the lowest house edge. Go back through the list on this page next time you're at the casino. This will help you choose games where you will lose money more slowly and have a better chance of walking away a winner.