How To Win Blackjack At Casino
Aug 01, 2019 I get very happy when I win at Blackjack and very aggravated when I lose, is that good? There is a new variant of Blackjack that is offered at a casino nearby, should I give it a try? A 17 is a solid combination at Blackjack, should I stand on a soft 17? Will I lose my focus if I make a break and come back to play Blackjack after a while? Key to winning at blackjack is to stay focused on your own game. Whether you are playing in person at a casino or online, it can be easy to get distracted by decisions from other players. Try not to allow what others are doing at the table to influence your decisions. Bill Kaplan, co-founder of the MIT blackjack team that took Vegas for millions, has a few tricks up his sleeve. You may not bring down the house, but here are 11 of his tips that will give amateur.
- Every gambler wants to know how to win at Blackjack
- The basic strategy and some math can help you get better odds
- There are 11.2 million articles on 'how not to lose at Blackjack' on the internet
Knowing how to play blackjack to win is more about knowing when and how to bet. Knowing the odds of winning blackjack will help you make well-informed decisions while playing blackjack online or in a land-based casino. If you have an awareness of basic blackjack probability, you can adjust your play to an optimal state.
Playing Blackjack can be a frustrating experience.
On the one hand, Blackjack is known to be the Casino game with the best odds of winning. But on the other one…it's impossible to win at Blackjack every time you play.
Experienced players say you only need to apply the 'optimal basic strategy' to get a better ROI and improve your chances to win at Blackjack but -
It's not that easy when you are at the table, is it?
Blackjack is an exciting game. But to keep playing, you need to know how to battle the dealer and finish your session with more chips than you begin with.
In other words, you need to know how not to lose at Blackjack.
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Blackjack is not Slots.
Unless you don't play one of those crazy (and unusually weird) variants that online Casinos offer you, you don't need to base your strategy to improve your odds entirely on luck.
In the long term, the only way for you to improve your chances to win at Blackjack is to rely on your skills and on your ability to focus. You need to know how to do the right thing every time you get your cards.
This is the only way to minimize the impact of luck — a factor the doesn't depend on you and that you'll never be able to control.
If you want to improve your chances to win, you need to know exactly what to do - every single time you are dealt your cards.
Some combinations are more helpful than others, that's true. But if it's safe to assume that you are not going to get 21 every time, you need to know how to play your cards to get more winning chances.
This article tells you how to do just that.
You are going to learn how to use whatever cards you receive to beat the Dealer and win money at Blackjack.
I can't guarantee that you will win at Blackjack every time. But if you follow the pieces of advice I included in this strategy article and use all of them in your next games, you will have improved your winning chances.
Let's begin.
Basic Strategy to Improve Your Chances to Win at Blackjack
Blackjack is a game based on luck and mathematical probability.
Like it happens for all the games that are based on mathematics and probability, there are some systems you can use to increase your chances to win at the Blackjack table.
None of these systems is easy, nor they guarantee a 100% success rate.
Unless this the first article on how to win at Blackjack you read in your life, you should know by now that the Blackjack basic strategy ought to be your starting point.
As a beginner, you have just one way not to throw your money away, and that is to learn and use the basic Blackjack strategy.
Online Casinos might do anything to push you to fire up a new Blackjack game and play the way your guts tell you, perhaps with the most beautiful-looking dealer you have ever see in your life.
Don't do it.
That's not how you win at Blackjack. That's the gambling equivalent of Russian roulette. And you know how that ends.
You hit a lucky streak; you win a few hands…and things suddenly get worse.
There's nothing more dangerous than to feel in control when you aren't. You think you know what you are doing and you think you need to continue because 'Luck favours the brave'…until it's too late to quit while you are ahead.
And if you don't know when to stop - you stand no chance to win at Blackjack.
Luckily for you, it's not too hard to learn the best Blackjack strategy, even if you are a complete newbie.
Read the article I linked above and memorise the right way to play every single hand.
Then, open an account on this site to practice for free.
Continue to play for free until you are 100 percent sure that you know how to play each combination of cards. Again, Blackjack is not a game of improvisation - there are rules you need to respect.
Don't Practice at a Casino - Stay Online
Most brick-and-mortar casinos will not allow you to bring a Blackjack cheat-sheet with you at the table.
It is against their rules and, let's face it: it would make you the most ridiculous nerd in the room. And even if you want to win at Blackjack - you don't want to be that guy.
This is to say that you won't be able to check how to win your Blackjack hands. You will have no external help besides that of your brain.
If you don't remember exactly how you are supposed to play - you are doomed.
That's why you need to play online. Until practice will have made you perfect.
Follow these steps to play free games where you can apply the basic strategy:
- Open this page (opens in a different tab)
- Register an account
- Launch the free Blackjack games and practice
Once you are all set, split your screen and keep the basic strategy chart open right next to the table. That will help you to know how to play and how to take your decision fast.
Because the next time you'll play with a real dealer, they will not let you much time to decide whether to hit or stand.
Attention: from here on, I am going to assume that you know the game's basic strategy. All the next tips to improve your chances to win at Blackjack are based on the fact that you know how to play.
If you don't, go back and practice Blackjack online over and over again.
Do that, and you'll be ready to continue.
Do Blackjack Online Courses Work?
There are 15,100,000 pages dedicated to Blackjack courses on Google. That's three times the population of Denmark.
The problem is - over 90 percent of those courses come from people who never won anything at the table. The only money they make comes from their courses, not from their skills.
As a longtime LinkedIn aficionado, I once took one of the courses to win at Blackjack they host on their learning platform Lynda.com.
What a boatload of c*ap that was.
Do you know what the most painful part of the course was? To discover that more than 6,000 people wasted their money on that.
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Mixing impossible calculations with Captain Obvious-like revelations, the whole aim of the course was to convince you to buy another course where you would finally find the secrets you missed to win at Blackjack.
How's that for upselling?
The truth is that winning at Blackjack is much easier than you think.
You just need to play cum grano salis, as my professor of Ancient Latin and Greek used to say.
And that's because the first secret to becoming a winning Blackjack player has nothing to do with hitting or folding.
If you want to be a winner, you need to behave like one.
Don't Try to Predict Patterns
You don't have to be a genius to know that you can't beat a casino.
That's how the gambling business works. The house has an advantage over the players - so the longer you play, the higher are the chances that the house will win.
Do hot and cold streaks exist? Probably.
Can you plan or control them? You wish.
Flip a coin 100 times, and it won't come up in a pattern of heads-tails-heads-tails-heads-tails all the way to 100.
There will be streaks of heads and streaks of tails.
How to predict that? Perhaps only Fibonacci knew that. Too bad it's a little too late to ask him now.
As a gambler, your job is not to force faith and find impossible ways to guess what will happen. It's to win as much as possible and leave before your winnings are gone.
And it all starts from picking the right Blackjack table.
Fewer Decks Can Make You Win More
Single deck games are rare in most casino these days. But remember this: the fewer the decks are, the easier it is to keep track of the face cards.
As you are going to see very soon, that's a key factor to win at Blackjack online and live.
While 'card counting' is not allowed, there's nothing wrong with keeping a general count of how many face cards have come out.
Be smart about that and this will be enough for you to get a little more adventurous with your play when you know that a lot of them have yet to appear.
Read the Rules of Your Game
Everything you see on a Blackjack table tells a story.
Everything is a piece of a puzzle you have to complete before you put your money on the line.
Here's an example?
A table that pays Blackjack at 3-to-2 odds will make you more money than one that pays at 6-to-5.
Even better:
Did you know that a table where the dealer has to hit on a soft 17 makes the house more money?
And guess where does that money come from...
That's why you should never sit to play at a table you know nothing about.
Table selection is essential to win at Blackjack and you can choose the right table only if you have the information you need.
Choose where you sit down based on the table's rules – not on whether the dealer is pretty or plain out-of-this-world-sexy.
You are there to win money, not to pick up a dealer.
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The Oscar System
Do you remember how alleged Blackjack experts make money online?
They sell 'systems to win at Blackjack' to people who would spend a fortune to find an easy way to win.
Too bad none of those revolutionary and proven Blackjack winning system work, though.
The game of Blackjack is based on probability, meaning most of those systems are just plain nonsense.
The only real Blackjack system that works does not deal with cards – it deals with money management.
It's called Oscar System, and here's how it works.
The key to improving your winning chances at Blackjack is to approach the game with the right mindset.
Don't look at a night of Blackjack as one long game with endless swings. See it as a long series of individual sessions.
Why?
Because the goal in each session is to win at least one chip (whatever denomination you may be playing).
As soon as you are a 'winner' and you have scored that one chip, the session ends and you start fresh.
If you want to use the Oscar System to win at Blackjack, you need to follow four basic rules:
- Whenever you win, increase your bet by one chip
- Whenever you lose, play the same amount you just be
- If you made any money in the session, pocket your winnings and start the progression again.
- Never try to come out ahead more than one unit – in other words, if you're down by one chip, your maximum bet would be two chips (which would still make you a winner).
Let's see this strategy in action.
In this example, we start with a one-chip bet.
I will use the symbols (-1), (+1) and so on to indicate where you stand in the game.
Example 1:
Bet | Result | Standing | Comment |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Lose | (-1) | We lost, so we repeat the same bet |
1 | Win | (0) | We won, so we 2x the bet |
2 | Win | (+2) | We made money. The session ends with a two-chip profit |
Example 2:
Bet | Result | Standing | Comment |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Lose | (-1) | We lost, so we repeat the same bet |
1 | Lose | (-2) | We lost, so we repeat the same bet |
1 | Lose | (-3) | We lost, so we repeat the same bet |
1 | Win | (-2) | We won, so we 2x the bet |
2 | Win | (0) | Since we never try to come out more than one unit ahead, we just bet one chip |
1 | Win | (+1) | We made money. The session ends with a one-chip profit |
By limiting your losses and by controlling your bets you increase the chances to stay ahead and to keep all the money you win on Blackjack intact.
The Oscar System is structured in a way that your winnings are always safe.
You only play with the initial capital, the bankroll you set before you started to play your first mini session.
This way it only takes a few wins in a row to recover any losses. That's because you only 2x your bets after the first win.
Sure, it could happen that you will have to dig deep to build back to a winning session, but experiments with this system show it's your best chance to win money at Blackjack.
That's all there is to it.
Follow the optimal strategy, choose the right Blackjack table, and use the Oscar System to break your play up into a lot of small sessions.
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Disclaimer: Gambling is a game of chance and there's no sure-fire formula that guarantee winnings. You can improve your winning chances by using the right in-game strategies but there is no way to predict when a machine or a Casino game is going to pay. Also, this page contains affiliate links. If you click through and play, we might earn a commission. That’s what allow us to keep CasinoSmash free and bring you the best online Casino bonuses!
Online Casino Bonus Play
By Arnold Snyder© 2015 Arnold Snyder
Introduction
Unlike casinos in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, the best online casinos give generous bonuses. These casino bonuses are literally free money, and can be very valuable to players.
They have this value even though they often come with strings attached. What are the strings? If you accept a bonus, you must usually give an online casino a specified amount of action on its tables or slots to cash out your bonus and/or winnings. This action is called the wagering requirement (wr).
Some Internet casinos and bonuses are better for one type of player than another (professional gamblers learn to play every type of game, so they can make money on every kind of bonus). Be sure to look for special offers and the best online casinos for your preferred game, including real money blackjack sites.
A recently-passed law will be changing the best ways for players to deposit and withdraw money from online casinos and poker rooms. Because the options are changing rapidly, please see our deposit and withdrawal recommendations for up-to-date information.
For more information on how to win in online casinos, read below.
Is Online Gambling Legal?
Online gambling and poker are legal in most countries. In the U.S., recent administrations have beenvery hostile to online gambling and poker. (Harrah's spent a lot of money lobbying Congress to kill online casinos, which they saw as competition for their brick and mortar casinos.) However, though the Congress recently passed a law that may make transferring funds to and from online casinos and poker rooms temporarily less convenient, it did not pass a law that makes playing in online casinos and poker rooms illegal in the U.S.
According to gambling attorney I. Nelson Rose, the 1961 Federal Wire Act made betting over the telephone wires on races and sporting events illegal in the U.S., but federal courts have repeatedly ruled that the 1961 Wire Act applies only to sports and race betting, not online casino or poker play. The new law does nothing to change that.
Some online casinos and poker rooms have decided to stop accepting U.S. players for now, while they figure out the best ways to handle deposits and withdrawals for U.S. players. A number of others have decided to continue accepting U.S. players, and will work out new deposit and withdrawal methods as needed.
We will report on further developments.
U.S. players should also check their local state law before playing online. There's a lot of legal debate on whether state law applies to online gambling and poker, since the actual betting occurs outside of the state. We don't really know the answer to that, since no player has ever been charged. For players' information, the states that have passed anti-online-gambling laws are: Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Washington, Indiana, Nevada, Oregon, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York and South Dakota.
Free games are available at every casino and poker room we list for any players restricted by law from playing with real money.
The Online Casino Bonus Play
The basic premise is simple: You deposit money in an online casino account. Let’s say it’s $100. Because you are a new customer, the casino adds a “bonus” of an extra $100, so your account now reads $200. Hey, that’s great! Let’s cash out now!
Yeah, right... It’s not quite that simple...
You can’t withdraw your funds yet. If it was that easy to make $100, the online casinos would have all gone broke long ago. The casino requires you play a certain amount before you can withdraw your funds. We call this the wagering requirement.
How much do they require you to wager? You look at the casino’s Terms and Conditions, which you’ll find from a link on their home page or promotions page, and you see that at this particular casino you have to wager five times the amount of your deposit and the bonus money combined. Then you can withdraw any amount of your deposit and bonus that’s left, plus any winnings from your play.
That wagering requirement will be strictly enforced. If you withdraw any funds prior to meeting this requirement, the Terms and Conditions may specify that you will lose the full amount of the bonus and any winnings from your play. (Some Internet casinos won’t allow any withdrawal of funds before meeting your wagering requirement—not even of your original deposit.)
So, you multiply your $200 (your deposit plus bonus) times five, and you realize that you must wager $1000 before you get to keep any amount of the bonus that’s left after this gambling, plus any winnings you have during this play. You may wager this $1000 any way you want. You may place ten $100 bets, or two hundred $5 bets, or a thousand $1 bets, whatever you prefer, so long as you put a total of $1000 into action.
Is This A Good Deal?
Yes, it’s a very good deal since this casino allows you to play their 6-deck blackjack games, where the house advantage is only one-half of one percent (0.50%) over a basic strategy player. And you know basic strategy.
How To Win At Blackjack At Casinos
(If you don't know basic strategy, you can follow the Correct Blackjack Basic Strategy on a Wagering Requirement Chart available at Blackjack Forum Online.)
Or they let you play video poker or Pontoon, with a similarly low house edge. Or the bonus is big enough to cover the house edge on whatever game the casino requires you to play.
You pull out your calculator and quickly determine that one-half of one percent of $1000 is only $5. That means that if you play perfect basic strategy until you’ve given them a total of $1000 of action, you would expect to still have $195 remaining, for a $95 profit on your $100 investment. Not bad!
So, you play through your $1000 in action at their blackjack tables, but unfortunately, you have a bad run of cards, and you wind up with only $165 in your account at the end of your play session. Well, a $65 profit is at least a profit, and you know that in the next casino you may have a good run of cards, leaving you with more than your $95 expectation. In the long run, you’ll sometimes win more than your expectation, and sometimes less, but for every time you play a bonus like this, you’ll average a $95 profit.
That, in a nutshell, is how it works. The bonus money that the online casinos give to new players is worth more than the cost of meeting their wagering requirements.
Let’s get familiar with some of the terminology used by professional gamblers who specialize in online casino play.
Definition: The deposit is the amount of real money you deposit with the casino or poker room cashier for the purpose of wagering on their games.
Definition: The bonus is the amount of funds the casino or poker room adds to your deposit that you may also use for wagering.
Definition: The wagering requirement is the total amount of money you must bet in the casino before you are allowed to withdraw either the bonus funds, or winnings from using the bonus funds, or both. (Poker rooms may have slightly different requirements, such as a minimum number of raked hands.) You’ll find the details of the wagering requirement in the casino or poker room’s Terms and Conditions.
For convenience, we abbreviate all of these terms. The Terms and Conditions are the T & C. The wagering requirement is the WR. The deposit is D, and the bonus is B. If our WR is five times the deposit plus bonus, we would say that the WR is 5DB. Some casinos state their wagering requirement as a multiple of the deposit alone. If a WR is ten times the deposit, we would say the WR is 10D. Get used to these abbreviations because you will use them for every online casino you visit.
How to Win in Online Casinos: The Process in a Nutshell
Here’s the basic process for making money playing in online casinos, from getting in to getting out:
1) Open a Neteller or Ecocard account by following the simple instructions at Neteller's web site or Ecocard's web site.
2) Gather information about what bonuses online casinos are offering.
3) If you see one that looks good, you click on it to get the details.
4) If the details still sound good, you go to the Terms & Conditions page to find all of the terms you must adhere to in order to meet the wagering requirement.
5) You then multiply the deposit and/or bonus by whatever factor the T & C specify as the WR to find the total amount you must wager.
6) You then check the T & C to see if any of the casino’s games are disallowed from qualifying for the WR. After you find what games are allowed, you multiply the WR times the house percentage against you, to find the cost of playing the game to meet the WR.
7) If the profit looks reasonable based on the amount of time you estimate it will take you to meet the WR, you check the T & C to see if the bonus is automatically entered into your account, or if you have to jump through any other hoops to get that bonus.
For example, some casinos specify that you must enter a “code” to apply for the bonus either before or after depositing your funds. Others may require you to email a request for the bonus. Or you may be required to bet a small amount of your own money before the bonus funds are added. Some may state that the bonus will automatically be added to your account, but that it will not appear in your account for some number of hours.
8) After ascertaining the hoops you must jump through, you make a record of all the details.
9) You now deposit funds with the casino cashier via your Neteller account or Ecocard account, and proceed to jump through any hoops necessary to get your bonus credited to your account.
10) Finally, you enter the casino and play your game of choice, keeping track of the total amount of money you bet, so that you know when you have met the WR.
11) You withdraw your funds and celebrate (but only after recording all the details. Always keep a record of details and withdrawals until you've gotten paid.)
12) You can make a lot of money playing in online casinos, and it's fun. Just be sure to follow the advice above and play only in reputable online casinos with good bonuses.
13) For more information on how to win in online casinos, read the articles in the Win Online Table of Contents, at the left of this page.♠
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