Best Blackjack Betting Strategy Reddit

• Best Betting System For Blackjack
• Blackjack Betting Chart
• Blackjack Betting Strategy Cards
• Blackjack Betting Strategy 1 3 2 6

Where to cash in on player-friendly blackjack games, and how to avoid the bad ones

by Henry Tamburin

I'm interested in what betting strategies people use. I'm not quite sure what to call what I use at $5.00 tables. First bet is $5.00. Every time I win I add $5.00 to the bet. If I lose, I reset to $5.00. I also reset to $5.00 whenever an even happens that would change my first card. Btw, I love the Bengals! Very fun team to watch. I think they'll lose to Denver or New England, but regardless you cannot beat 35:1 odds on a team that's currently undefeated. That's what futures are all about: striking at the best value that won't be available later. There are quite a few Slots Strategy tips that can improve your chances of winning. If you want to know more about how to win, visit CasinoTop10. Betting Strategy D: Proportional Betting. With this strategy, you bet a fraction of your balance in proportion to your edge. In this case, we used the Kelly equation for proportional betting. Here your bet would be your edge divided by the odds. In this example, since the edge is.

The 6-5 payoff rule increases the house edge by almost 1.4 percent. If you’re a $10 bettor, playing a 6-5 game will cost you $3 each time you get a blackjack (and you’ll average roughly four blackjacks per hour), which comes to $12 that you are forking over to the casino bosses every hour.

This month, my column is going to accomplish four things:

1. Provide you with a convenient list of casinos that offer a single-deck blackjack game that pays 3-2 for a blackjack (also known as a “natural”)
2. Give you an accurate single-deck basic playing strategy that you can use to play this terrific game
3. Summarize the casinos in and around Las Vegas that offer the abominable 6-5 single-deck games (so you can avoid them)
4. Give you some advice on how you can help eradicate the awful 6-5 games, which have been spreading like a cancer in casinos throughout the U.S.

Does any of you know such a betting simulator: 1) Allow me to select any house rules. 2) Allow me to enter any betting size. 3) Allow me to enter any betting sequence (betting strategy). 4) Allow me to enter any betting limit (win, loss and time limit) I am interested to use such a simulator to test and compare a few betting strategies.

Note: The information on which casinos offer single-deck games and the corresponding rules and house edges mentioned in this article were obtained from Current Blackjack News (CBJN), with their permission (www.bj21.com). Casinos can change the rules at any time, so check CBJN for the latest rules and playing conditions in casinos across the country.

In the March 2008 issue of Casino Player magazine, I wrote a detailed column about why the 6-5 single-deck game is bad news for players. Without rehashing all the points that I made back then, let me briefly summarize why this game should be avoided like the plague. The 6-5 payoff rule increases the house edge by almost 1.4 percent (no, that’s not a typo). If you’re a $10 bettor, playing a 6-5 game will cost you $3 each time you get a blackjack (and you’ll average roughly four blackjacks per hour), which comes to $12 that you are forking over to the casino bosses every hour.

That is an atrocity, which is why a smart blackjack player would never play this game.

If you talk to casino bosses about their 6-5 games (which I‘ve done), you get this sort of universal response from them: we know players don’t like the 6-5 games, but as long as they keep playing them, we’d be crazy not to offer them. In a moment, I will give you some tips on how you can help us eradicate the 6-5 games from casinos everywhere. But first, let me discuss the single-deck game that I am encouraging you to play; namely, the game that pays the traditional 3-2 for a natural. It’s available, and I’ll show you where.

The house edge against a basic strategy player in a 3-2 single-deck game is a function of the mix of playing rules. The best single-deck games have h17 (dealer hits soft 17), and allow players to resplit aces. The house edge in this game is a meager 0.13%. Second best is an h17 game without resplit aces (house edge: only 0.18%).

The following chart summarizes the relationship of the rules and the house edge for a basic strategy player in a 3-2 single-deck game. You’d be hard-pressed to find a multi-deck game with these low house edges.

Where would you guess is the most likely place to find a 3-2 single-deck game? If you said Las Vegas, you’d be dead wrong. According to CBJN, there are only four casinos that offer a 3-2 single-deck game in Las Vegas (and unfortunately, 44 casinos in and around Vegas that offer the dastardly 6-5 single-deck games, making Las Vegas the #1 gambling destination with the most 6-5 games).

Table 1 lists the casinos in Las Vegas that offer 3-2 single-deck games. Table 2 is the list of Las Vegas casinos that offer the 6-5 game. Be smart—on your next trip to Vegas, play the juicy 3-2 single-deck game and avoid the terrible 6-5 game in the casinos listed in Table 2.

The areas of the country where the concentration of 3-2 single-deck games is the greatest are Tunica and Vicksburg, MS, and Reno/Lake Tahoe/Wendover, in Nevada. You’ll be delighted to find many casinos in these cities that offer the fair 3-2 single-deck game. (See Table 3 for the list of these casinos.)

Now that you know where to find 3-2 single-deck games, you need to learn the basic playing strategy for them. Table 4 summarizes the strategy where the dealer hits soft 17 (which is the case in the majority of casinos that offer a single-deck game). You should become familiar with this playing strategy, because it’s slightly different than the basic strategy for multi-deck games. If this is your first time playing a single-deck game, I would also recommend that you bring a strategy card with you to avoid making playing mistakes. It’s perfectly legal to refer to a card before you play your hand.

Table 1

Las Vegas Casinos That Offer

3-2 Single-Deck Games

h17 = dealer hits soft 17

d10 = double down only on two-card ten or eleven

rsa = aces may be resplit

Note: I’ve had friends in the past play the single-deck games at Binion’s and Four Queens, and they claimed they had a good time. However, Al Rogers, manager at bj21.com, had this to say about the single-deck games at both casinos: “Anyone showing the slightest degree of brain usage at reasonable stakes will not be allowed to play the 3-2 single-deck games at either casino.”

Table 2

The Hall Of Shame:

Las Vegas Area Casinos That Offer

6-5 Single-Deck Games

*Binion’s and Four Queens offer 3-2 and 6-5 single-deck games, which is why they appear in both Tables 1 and 2.

Table 3

MS and Laughlin/Reno/Wendover, NV Casinos

With 3-2 Single-Deck Games

Note: The Isle Casino in Biloxi, MS, and L’Auberge du Lac casino in Lake Charles, LA also offer 3-2 single-deck blackjack games.

Table 4

Single-Deck Basic Strategy

Dealer Hits Soft 17, No DAS

Note: Hard hands are hands that either don’t contain an ace, or if one (or more) aces are present in the hand, they count as 1 (e.g., 10-7; 8-4-Ace-4; 3-Ace-Ace-10).

Soft hands are hands that contain an ace counted as 11 (e.g., Ace-7; 3-4-Ace; Ace-7-Ace).

If the rules do not allow doubling on soft hands, then you should always hit soft hands from 13 through 17, and always stand with soft 19 through 21. Likewise, if you are not allowed to double down on hard 8 through 11, then hit.

stand if dealer has 2, 7, or 8A-8Double if dealer has 6; otherwise standA-9; A-10Always stand Pairs 2sSplit if dealer has 3 through 7; otherwise hit3sSplit if dealer has 4 through 7; otherwise hit4sNever split; double if dealer has 5 or 6; otherwise hit5sNever split; double if dealer has 9 or less; otherwise hit6sSplit if dealer has 2 through 6; otherwise hit7sSplit if dealer has 2 through 7; stand if dealer has a 10; hit if dealer has 8, 9, or ace8sAlways split9sSplit if dealer has 2 through 6, and 8 or 9; stand if dealer has 7, 10, or ace.10sNever split; always standAcesAlways split

If the 6-5 game continues to proliferate, it will ultimately ruin blackjack. Here’s what you can do to help eradicate this game.

1. Refuse to play any 6-5 blackjack games. Instead, only play blackjack games that pay 3-2 for a natural.
2. If you come across a 6-5 game, voice your displeasure to a casino supervisor, your casino host, and even the casino manager (better yet, email the casino manager). Be sure to also tell them you are taking your business to casinos that don’t offer this wretched game.
3. Warn your friends and family members who play blackjack about this outrageous game, and do not play it.

I can promise you this: If enough players say NO to 6-5 blackjack games, casinos will eliminate them. Collectively, we can make a difference.

Tamburin’s Tip of the Month

The 6-5 rule isn’t just confined to single-deck games. For example, as I was writing this article, the Las Vegas Advisor reported that the new Margaritaville casino (located inside the Flamingo casino in Las Vegas) opened with eight-deck games with h17, and almost all of them pay 6-5 for a natural. Even though the rules allow you to double down after pair splitting, resplit aces, and surrender, collectively these player-friendly rules are not nearly enough to offset the dreaded 6-5 rule, resulting in a ridiculously high house edge of 1.85% against a basic strategy player. Therefore, even if you play a multi-deck game, it pays to double-check the payout for a natural to be sure it’s 3-2.

—————————————————————————————————————————–

Henry Tamburin is the editor of Blackjack Insider Newsletter (www.bjinsider.com), Lead Instructor for the Golden Touch Blackjack Course (www.goldentouchblackjack.com), and host of www.smartgaming.com. For a free three-month subscription to his blackjack newsletter, go to www.bjinsider.com/freetrial.com. To receive his free Casino Gambling Catalog, call 1-888-353-3234 or visit www.smartgaming.com.

Have you ever thought that you could get an advantage over the house just by altering your bet sizes or what you bet on at the right times? Many betting strategies exist that claim to be able to do just that. They claim that by changing your bets based on recent results, you can gain an edge over the house in a game (like blackjack) that normally has a house edge for the casino.

Are these systems for real? Well, that depends. It might be best to divide betting strategies into two categories, just to separate the effective methods from those that are ineffective (and sometimes sold as scams). Any betting strategy that claims to be able to structure bets that all have a house edge and somehow make you a winner is bound to disappoint you, because it simply isn’t possible to take multiple bets with negative expectations and come out with an overall positive expectation. We’ll call these betting systems. On the other hand, betting strategies that offer you ways to maximize your advantage or limit your risk of going broke when you already have the edge can be an important part of a professional blackjack player’s overall strategy.

Editor’s Picks for Best Online Blackjack in 2020

• Multiple blackjack games
• Publicly traded company
• Multi award winner

• RTG Blackjack
• ViG Live Blackjack
• BTC Bonuses

• Live Dealer Blackjack
• 24/7 Live Support
• Trusted since 2007

• Online and mobile blackjack
• Great for U.S. based players
• New and fresh

Betting Systems

Over the years, many people have tried to come up with betting systems that could beat various casino games. They appeal to a lot of players, especially those who don’t understand the math behind gambling. Often, they make some sort of intuitive sense, which leads people to come up with reasons to believe that their system must work. However, as we said earlier, no betting system can turn a series of bets with a house edge into a system that has an edge for the player.

Martingale System

Let’s take a look at one common betting system and see how it works – and why it doesn’t work.

The Martingale System is probably the best known casino gambling system in the world, and also the most popular. It is incredibly simple to use, and seems to offer a “can’t lose” way of playing games that offer bets that are around 50/50 propositions.

In the Martingale System, the player begins by making a small bet – usually the table minimum. If the player wins, they make that same small bet again. If they lose, they instead double their bet. If the player loses again, they double their bet again. The player continues doubling their bet until they win, at which point they revert to their original small bet size.

This means that in each iteration of the Martingale, the player will win the minimum bet size. For instance, a player might win their original $5 bet, thus profiting $5. Or they might have the following sequence:

Lose $5

Lose $10

Lose $20

Win $40

Meaning they would lose $35 but then win $40, thus coming out $5 ahead yet again.

So, why doesn’t this work? Eventually, you will hit a string of losses that will be catastrophic, wiping out your bankroll and any small profits you’ve made so far. Many players believe a long string of losses like that is unlikely, and they’re right; however, it will happen often enough that the casino retains the house edge they had at the beginning of the game. Table limits make this occur even faster, meaning you’ll quickly hit a point where you simply can’t double your bet anymore.

Best Betting System For Blackjack

For instance, take a table with a minimum bet of $5 and a maximum bet of $500. The player can double six times:

$5

$10

$20

$40

$80

$160

$320

After that, the player cannot double to $640. For the moment, let’s do an example with single-zero roulette, since the math is easier. If the player makes a bet on one of the even money bets – say, betting on black – they have 18 ways to win, and 19 ways to lose. This means the player will lose 51.3% of the time. This also means that at any given time, there’s about a 0.94% chance that they’ll run into a 7-spin losing streak, putting them in the position of not being able to double. That’s only one time in 106 (we’re rounding a bit, but that’s roughly accurate), but that’s still not good enough to make the Martingale work! The player will make $525 in the 105 times they win, but they’ll lose $635 the one time they hit a 7-spin losing streak.

The math for blackjack is a bit more complicated, since not all bets pay even money, you’ll sometimes have to spend extra money to double down or split, and the player wins fan less than half of the hands (especially when taking pushes into account). However, the principle remains the same – the player cannot overcome a series of bets that have a house edge simply by creatively structuring their bets.

Betting Strategies and the Kelly Criterion

On the other hand, can betting strategies help you when you already have an advantage? The answer is emphatically yes! In fact, betting strategy is critical for anyone who wants to be a profitable blackjack player. For instance, card counting relies heavily on betting strategy, as the player must bet more when he has the advantage, and less (or not at all) when things swing in the dealer’s favor.

But betting strategy can be much more complex than that. While it’s obvious that players should bet more when they have an edge, it’s harder to figure out how much they should bet on a typical hand. Figuring that out requires the player to take into account the size of their bankroll, as well as the size of their edge over the house.

One method of figuring out the optimal bet size is to use the Kelly Criterion. The Kelly Criterion is an attempt to maximize the rate at which a player can make money when they have an edge without having a significant risk of ruin. The formula is basically as follows:

f = (bp-q)/b

f = the portion of the player’s bankroll they should wager on each bet.

Blackjack Betting Chart

b = the odds the player is receiving on each wager (b to 1).

Blackjack Betting Strategy Cards

p = the probability of winning the wager.

q = the probability of losing the wager.

For instance, imagine a game where the player receives even money odds (1-1), but feels as though they have a 55% chance of winning each hand. This would make the formula look like this:

f = (1*.55 – .45)/1

f = .1

In this case, the Kelly Criterion suggests betting .1, or 10% of the player’s bankroll, on each bet in order to maximize the growth-rate of the player’s bankroll. Of course, players rarely have such a huge edge, and blackjack is a bit more complex since the player sometimes wins differing amounts, and sometimes is forced to wager additional money on a hand. We’ll go into more detail on how to use the Kelly Criterion when playing blackjack in our article on Bankroll Management.

Related News

Blackjack Betting Strategy 1 3 2 6