Free Blackjack Guide

Blackjack Frequently Asked Questions

Is casino blackjack a "beatable" game?

Many books have been written that claim that Blackjack is beatable.

Simulations performed show different amounts of potential player advantage in theory in Blackjack, depending on strategies, exact rules, and playing conditions. These numbers typically approach 1% (an average penny gain for every dollar bet) though in certain particular, ideal circumstances this can get somewhat higher. There is disagreement on the net about how much advantage this translates into in "real-world" casinos, but it's generally believed that players can play with a small, long-run advantage in Blackjack. The variance is very high in this game, however, which makes the slight advantage in Blackjack far from a sure thing.

How much of an advantage can card counting give?

A typical blackjack card counter will have an edge of 1.5% or less, depending on the counting system used, the skill of the player, and the particular casinos house rules that the player is fighting against. It is quite unusual to find playing conditions that allow the player to get more than a 2% edge against the house, even against single deck blackjack games. The player's edge against multi-deck blackjack games is generally less than 1%.

Is card counting illegal?

No. The casinos would like you to believe that card counting is illegal, immoral, and fattening, but the fact is that card counters are simply using a greater level of skill than the typical blackjack player. The Nevada courts have ruled that blackjack players are free to use any information that is made available to them, provided that there is no collusion between a player and casino personnel. For example, if a dealer accidentally handles the cards in such a way that a player can see the dealer's hole card, the player can make
use of this information without breaking the law.

Can the casino ban blackjack card counters?

This depends on where you play. In Atlantic City Casinos, where games of skill are not permitted, the casinos are not allowed to ban skillful players. In Nevada, casinos are allowed to refuse service to anyone at any time for any reason. Players are routinely "barred", usually by being asked to leave or by being told that they are welcome to play any game other than blackjack. If you are barred but persist in trying to play, the casino can have you arrested for trespassing.

What is the correct basic strategy for single deck Blackjack?

The following basic blackjack strategy is for single deck blackjack games without DAS (double-after-splits).

S=stand H=hit D=double P=pair(split),
DH= double if allowed, otherwise hit
DS= double if allowed, otherwise stand
[uppercase] = "strong" hand, favorable to player
[lowercase] = "weak" hand, favorable to house

(*) notes:
Playing A7 against dealer's ace:
- hitting gains 4.08% if dealer must hit on soft 17
- standing gains 0.74% if dealer must stand on soft 17

Playing A8 against dealer's 6:
- doubling gains 1.96% if dealer must hit on soft 17
- doubling gains 0.03% if dealer must stand on soft 17
(this rule may be ignored to simplify the strategy)

What is the correct basic strategy for Atlantic City blackjack?

The following basic strategy is for typical Atlantic City rules.

HOUSE RULES:

Strategy Table For Atlantic City Blackjack

S=stand H=hit D=double P=split Q=surrender

NOTES:

What is the house edge when playing basic blackjack strategy?

The expected gain for basic strategy play depends on the house rules and the number of decks. The following table summarizes the player's expectation for a variety of games. All numbers are in units of percent of initial bet.

"AC" rules (typical of Atlantic City):

"strip" rules(typical of Vegas Strip):

"vegas" rules (typical of Vegas Downtown):

"reno" rules (typical of Reno, northern Nevada):

DAS = Double After Splitting
LSR = Late Surrender
ESR = Early Surrender (no longer available)

Why are single deck games better than multi-deck games?

There are some surface differences, such as single and double deck usually being hand-held, while four or more decks are dealt from a shoe, but there are fundamental mathematical differences too.

Single deck blackjack is usually better than multiple deck blackjack for card counters, basic strategists, and the clueless. Additional decks make busts less likely, since one can draw to hands like 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2 (for 18) which are improbable/impossible in single deck. Busting less often helps the dealer's hand more than yours, since the dealer is forced by the rigid rules to hit more often than you. Blackjacks are also less frequent, which is bad since you get paid 3 to 2 for those. All in all, multiple decks will cost a basic strategist nearly 0.5% in advantage, which is more than all but the very best package of
favorable extra rules will give you. This was an intuitive explanation; a complete mathematically sound (albeit huge) proof can be generated by a combinatorial analysis program.

Card counters face the additional problem that the count is less volatile with multiple decks and hence offers less frequent opportunities for large favorable bets. Consider the difference between an urn with 1 black and 1 white marble versus an urn with 100 black and 100 white marbles. Draw half the marbles: what is the probability that all the remaining marbles are white? In the 1 and 1 case, there is a 1 in 2 chance. In the 100 and 100 case, there is only a 1 in 100,891,344,545,564,193,334,812,497,256 chance!

Do 'bad' players at third base have any effect on expected gain?

No. It is a common misconception that incorrect plays by the player at third base will "take the dealer's bust card" or "leave the dealer a good card". As long as the shuffle is sufficient to randomize the cards, improper play of other players will be just as likely to help as it is to hurt. However, bad players can cause frustration and anxiety which may increase the likelihood of making mistakes. It is best to avoid the temptation to strangle bad players.

Where is the best place to sit at a blackjack table.

It depends. For basic strategy players, seat position has NO significant effect on the player's expected return. For card counters who use strategy variations, it is probably best to sit at third base in order to see as many cards as possible before playing the hand. When playing against a "front loading" dealer, the best seat is whichever seat gives you the best shot at getting a glimpse of the dealer's hole card. When playing at the Rio, the best seat is the one that gives the best view of the cocktail waitresses.

How is blackjack card counting done?

The card counting system described below is an unbalanced 10 count that is 100%
accurate for determining when to take insurance. As a general purpose card counting system, it is relatively weak and not particularly recommended, but it illustrates many of the principles behind card counting. This is intended only to give a feel for how card counting is done, and is not recommended for actual practice, although I've used it because of its simplicity. This counting strategy is listed as "Unbalanced 10 Count" in other parts of the FAQ list.

For single deck games:
1) Start the count at -4 when the deck is shuffled.
2) Count -2 for 10, J, Q, K
3) Count +1 for everything else (including aces)
4) Bet low when the count is negative, high when the count is positive (actually, simulations show that you can bet high for a count of -2 or above).
5) Take insurance when the count is positive.
6) Play basic strategy at all times.

For N deck games:
1) Start the count at (-4 * N).
2) all other rules are the same.

Notes:

The unique feature of this counting method is that it is perfectly accurate for dealing with insurance. When the count is positive, the player has the advantage when taking the insurance bet. When the count is negative, the house has the advantage, so insurance should not be taken.

Counting is best done by counting several cards at once. It is easy to practice this counting method in the following way:

1)
Count through a deck of cards, counting one card at a time. Start at -4, and count through the entire deck. After all of the cards have been seen, the count should be ZERO. If it is not zero, a mistake has been made somewhere. Repeat counting through the deck one card at a time, until you can do it quickly without making mistakes.

2)
Count through the deck, counting two cards at a time. Look for the following patterns, adding the correct amount for each pattern
(X = 10, N = non-ten)
NN: +2
XN: -1
XX: -4
Again, the count should be zero after all cards have been seen. Repeat until you can do it efficiently.

3)
Count through the deck, counting three cards at a time. Look for the following patterns, adding the correct amount for each pattern.
(X = 10, N = non-ten)
NNN +3
XNN 0 (this pattern is common)
XXN -3

4)
Practice against a computer blackjack game. When I play, I usually count the cards by counting an entire hand (player's or dealers) at once. If there are more than three cards in the hand, I mentally break it up into groups of 1, 2, or 3 cards (I usually look for "XNN" patterns and ignore those cards, since they add up to zero). I usually count the cards just before the dealer picks up the hand (exception: for insurance, you should count your cards and the dealer's up card immediately).

What counting system is "best"?

This has been answered by rec.gamblers using different approaches.

The first approach is to evaluate different systems by simulation. This approach obscures the particular advantages of each system, but it's easy to see how a system will perform in one particular realistic casino playing situation, and not hard to judge the tradeoff between performance and ease of use.

The second approach estimates several performance parameters of each system that collectively approximate the system's inherent potential. This allows the strengths of different BJ systems to be studied in detail, which should allow better, more precise comparison of different systems and aid efforts to improve a particular system. This approach gives results which may be used to determine which counting system is theoretically most profitable, but does not address the issue of how easy it is to use the counting system under actual playing conditions.

It's not yet clear how these two studies relate, and no consensus has emerged as to how the more sophisticated performance parameters actually translate to advantage at the tables as in the simulations.

What counting system is easiest to use?

Background: Lots of systems are available. There is an important tradeoff between complexity and theoretical power, as more complex systems are harder to use and more error-prone.

Answer: You pick 'em. A study was accomplished that compared different systems, and here a summary of what came out:

Complexity is a subjective measure with guidelines described in the results paper. Power is the integer closest to p/0.05%, where p is the % advantage of the strategy one-on-one in a single deck, dealer hits on soft 17, no DDAS, resplitting-allowed game that's dealt down to 20 cards and using a 1-4 betting spread. 15,000,000 hands guarantee correctness to within 1 point 99% of the time.

WGBJB: "World's Greatest BlackJack Book" by Humble and Cooper
PBaaB: "Playing Blackjack as a Business" by Lawrence Revere
BiB: "Blackbelt in Blackjack" by Arnold Snyder
PB: "Professional Blackjack" by Stanford Wong
TtToLV: "Turning the Tables on Las Vegas" by Ian Andersen
MDB: "Million Dollar Blackjack" by Ken Uston
(1) with modifications by 'thunk'
(2) with modifications by Paul C. Kim

What Blackjack counting system is most effective?

The playing efficiency, betting correlation, and insurance correlation is listed below for several counting systems. These numbers give an indication of the effectiveness of the counting system. When two numbers are listed, the second number results from adding an ace side count in addition to the "main" count.

See our 'Blackjack termnology' found in Free Blackjacks Menu for definitions of "betting correlation", "playing efficiency", and "insurance correlation".

Note: Playing efficiencies have a practical maximum of about 0.7. "Unbal 10's" is short for "Unbalanced 10 Count"

Does penetration have any effect on basic strategy expectation?

Probably not. Unless the dealer is cheating, the cards will be in a random order after the shuffle. If the player is not counting cards or using other techniques to gain an advantage, it will not matter if there are several rounds or only a single round between shuffles. But, if the dealer if using preferential shuffling, this will hurt the basic strategy players as well as the card counters.

What is the correct strategy for late surrender?

Basic strategy for late surrender in AC multi-deck games is:

If you are the least bit risk-averse, you should also:

At some casinos you can surrender your first two cards. You lose half your bet in return for not having to play through the hand. With early surrender, you get back half your bet even if the dealer has blackjack, while with late surrender you lose anyway when the dealer has blackjack.

What is the correct strategy for "multi action" blackjack?

Multi Action blackjack allows the player to place up to three bets simultaneously on the same blackjack hand. The player is dealt a single hand, and the three bets are played out against the same dealer upcard, but with different "drawn" cards for each bet. Many players feel nervous about hitting stiff hands against a high dealer's upcard (7 or higher), since they will lose all three bets if they bust. However, basic strategy is COMPLETELY UNCHANGED for this game, and the correct strategy is no different than if the player had
only a single bet at risk.

What is "Over/Under" Blackjack?

Caesar's Tahoe introduced the Over-13 and Under-13 side bets that are allowed at some blackjack tables. These bets are based on the player's total for the first two cards, when aces are counted as one. Over-13 bets win when the player's cards total 14 or higher, while under-13 bets win when the player's cards total 12 or under. Either bet will lose when the player's total is exactly 13. These bets are placed at the same time as the blackjack bet, and usually the side bet can be no larger than the bet on the blackjack hand. Over/under games are usually dealt from a 6 or 8 deck shoe, and the player's
first two cards are always dealt face up. Although these are "sucker" bets for basic strategy players, with a house edge of 6% to 10%, special card counting strategies can be used to give the player a significant edge on these bets.

What is the counting strategy for Over/Under blackjack?

The card weights used for the Over/Under count are as follows: count +1 for Ace, 2, 3, and 4, and count -1 for tens and face cards. The deck becomes favorable for counts of +2 and above, and for counts -4 and below. Over-13 bets should be placed when the count is +3 and above. Under-13 bets should be placed when the count is -4 and below.

When playing Over/Under blackjack with this counting scheme, virtually all of the player's profit comes from the over-13 and under-13 side bets. This counting scheme is very poor for playing the blackjack portion of the bet, and will only allow the player to play about even with the house on the blackjack bets. However, the over/under bets can be very profitable if the game has good penetration. A 6-deck over/under game with good penetration can give the player an advantage of 1.5% or more. Single deck over/under games with good penetration (very rare) can give the player an edge of over 4% when using the over/under count.

Snyder's "Over/Under Report" discusses the over/under game in detail, and is available from our Blackjack Books Section.

Is Ken Uston dead?

Yes. He was found dead in a rented apartment in Paris, France, on September 19,
1987. The cause of death remains undetermined, since an autopsy was not performed and the body was cremated. The local police found no evidence of foul play. Alcohol and drug abuse were strongly suspected by several people who knew Uston intimately. Reference: Stanley Roberts, "A Double Dose of Death", Roberts' Rules (column), Gambling Times, Jan./Feb., 1988, pp. 8, 41. That article is the only printed mention that I have seen on Uston's death. Maybe someone else has the citation for the Card Player article?

What do these funny acronyms mean ...

The acronyms that are often used in blackjack are listed below.

Abbreviations: