Which Blackjack Games Are For You?

I found a great tutorial on which blackjack games are the ones to actually play in the casinos. I actually jumped in and learned a bunch doing this research.

At any casino you walk into, the blackjack games will look about the same. But when it comes down to the nuts and bolts, each casino has its own little personalized set of sub-rules. How many decks do they use? Can you double down after splits? Does the dealer stand or hit on soft 17? Can you re-split a pair of Aces if you catch a third Ace? Do they allow Surrender?

It’s generally said that the house has a ½% advantage over a perfect basic strategy player at blackjack, but this is just a rule of thumb. Actually, it can vary from about 0.20% to 0.75% for standard blackjack games, depending upon the exact rules in force.

If you’re a bad player, it won’t matter that much which game you play because you’ll be giving away a couple full extra percentage points to the house on top of their basic ½% advantage anyway. But if you know your correct basic plays, your actual net disadvantage can cut up to half of that away if you stick to the good games. For a $25 bettor who plays once a week for three hours per session, that’s likely to make a $1000 difference at the end of the year. Let’s review the blackjack games you might run into at your local casino.