When playing blackjack, in a casino or on the Internet, just like any other game in life, we all want to win. Some claim blackjack is all about luck and no skill involved, where as there are some great mathematicians out there that swear by the math and say that the game can be beaten, with skill.
There is no doubt, blackjack is all about odds and math can calculate all of the odds involved in blackjack. The game is designed for the casino to beat you and to win your money to build bigger and nicer hotels and pay for all of the lights, glass, brass and chandelier.
But can the game truly be beaten? For the average player, blackjack’s basic strategy is a good place to start for losing less, but no so much for winning more, it is designed to minimize your losses, to increase the amount of time you can play, before running out of chips, it is not designed to maximize your winnings, or pay your college tuition. Basic strategy cards for blackjack can be purchased on the Internet or sometimes in casino gift shops as well. It is the size of a credit card, comes with all scenarios possible and the choice to make for each of those scenarios. I’m sure the card costs no more than five dollars.
How about card counting? Well, card counting has been tried by many, to make a living playing blackjack, some have succeeded, but many card counters out there are just as frustrated with the game as they were before they learned how to count cards. First off, let’s get passed the number one misconception of card counting. Card counting is not about sitting at a blackjack table and counting each card that comes out of the shoe and remembering it, no photographic memory required for card counting. Card counting, in blackjack is basically just keeping score of ten valued cards and non ten valued cards that have came out of the shoe, you will be adding and subtracting a value from the running count as you go, only having one number to keep track of, which would be either a negative or positive number, positive number means that there are more ten valued cards remaining in the shoe than non ten valued cards. Card counters believe that when the count is at a high positive number and the odds of getting ten valued cards on the next hand are greater, that all they have to do is bet more and they will make money, it does not always work out this way. The blackjack dealer also has the same chance of getting those ten valued cards, so to me, your counting cards does not equal automatic success at beating the house at the game of blackjack. It does increase your odds, no doubt, because the ten valued cards benefit the player and the best card for the dealer is a five, so in theory, you do have a better chance when the count is higher than zero, but I believe it takes much more than that to ensure riches while playing the game of blackjack.
There are also some forms of cheating out there, that do help some blackjack players increase their chances of beating the house in the game of blackjack, but those are just that, cheating, which can lead to trouble, getting barred from that casino and not to mention the legal trouble you can get in to, depending on the method of cheating you chose.
The game of blackjack has been designed for the house to make money and for the player to have a good time spending their money, so that the casino can build bigger hotels and add more blackjack tables to choose from to spend your money. Although there are some people that have successfully beaten the casino at blackjack, I would say that the best, sure fire way to win at blackjack, is to have your own blackjack table and invite anyone who has the money to play. Keep in mind, that the edge the casino has over the player is very small, around five percent, so having only one blackjack table may not make you rich, nor ensure that you will never lose. The reason the casino does so well, is because their blackjack tables are open twenty four hours a day, every day of the year, and even more powerful than that, they have dozens of blackjack tables. So even if one blackjack table is losing money for the house for a couple of hours, there are many more tables that are making up the difference.