Blackjack Overview
Blackjack is one of the great symbols of the casino. People always return from Vegas with wild stories and one of those stories often has something to do with blackjack. Today, blackjack is the most popular table game at both live casinos and online. A part of the game’s popularity is due to the fact that it has a tiny house advantage.
The history of blackjack wasn’t always so rosy, though. When it was first introduced to the public, the game had a hard time picking up. It was only after several changes to the rules and its growing reputation as a beatable game that blackjack began to pick up speed.
How to Play Blackjack
The goal of blackjack is fairly simple: try to get closer to 21 than the dealer without going over. Each card is worth a certain number of points (1 – 11) and the player may draw as many cards as he wishes to try to get as close to 21 as possible. If the player or dealer goes over, the hand is a “bust” and that person loses the bet.
Speaking of bet, each hand of blackjack begins with each player placing a wager on the outcome of the hand. As the hand progresses, players can add to their bets by splitting, doubling down and so on. You can find out more about the rules of blackjack on our blackjack rules page.
Internet Blackjack
People never thought it would happen, but internet blackjack has caught on in a big way. Casino fans can log on to virtual casinos and play blackjack for real money any time. These casinos offer the same rules and payouts as normal Vegas casinos. Internet blackjack bets range in size from just a few pennies up to more than a thousand dollars per hand.
Internet blackjack doesn’t offer the same experience as a major live casino but it does have several advantages over live blackjack. For one, you don’t have to do any traveling to play internet blackjack. Secondly, you don’t have to deal with the risk of carrying around large amounts of cash in and out of crowded casinos. Finally, internet blackjack casinos offer players special cash bonuses for signing up and playing.
Blackjack Strategy
With the right strategy, you can reduce the house advantage in blackjack to a minimum. Some players can even overcome the house advantage altogether by carefully tracking each card. For the average player, though, basic blackjack strategy is more than enough to reduce the house advantage to a minimum and make any trip to the casino a fun one.
Basic blackjack strategy is also fairly easy to learn and apply to the game. Casinos even give their players free strategy cards that they can use at the table. Sometimes correct blackjack strategy calls for you to make moves that seem counterintuitive but if you can get past that, the strategy is simple.
Blackjack Card Counting
Card counting became big news after the MIT blackjack team was revealed to have made millions of dollars in Vegas starting in 1979. Since then, blackjack has maintained a reputation of being the game with the best odds.
The actual method of card counting in blackjack is actually pretty simple. Anyone can learn how to count cards. The difficult part is learning how to do so in the middle of a noisy casino environment. On top of that, you have to know how to count cards without the casino catching on to what you’re doing.
There are two basic systems people use when card counting: