Different Odds in Blackjack
The first thing that comes to mind here that you will most likely want to know is the blackjack probability of the dealer's hand busting. This comes into play when deciding whether to hit or stay and also when your are deciding whether to split or double down.
The obvious goal of this strategy is not risking your bet and busting on a hit. If you have less than 17 you need the dealer to bust. The key to this is the Dealer's up card.
Here is the odds of the dealer's hand busting when they are showing a particular card:
- Dealer shows 2 - 35% chance of busting
- Dealer shows 3 - 37% chance of busting
- Dealer shows 4 - 40% chance of busting
- Dealer shows 5 - 42% chance of busting
- Dealer shows 6 - 42% chance of busting
- Dealer shows 7 - 26% chance of busting
- Dealer shows 8 - 24% chance of busting
- Dealer shows 9 - 23% chance of busting
- Dealer shows 10 - 23% chance of busting
- Dealer shows Ace - 17% chance of busting
Know these blackjack odds if you are ever thinking about doing something non-standard like doubling down with an ace in your hand or splitting 9's.
House Advantage
The house advantage will differ depending on the number of decks being used. The problem that you will sometimes come across is that not all of the online casinos will let you know how many decks they are using or whether they shuffle after each hand. Some do let you know, you just have to check the options or faqs to find out. In general, online casinos use 6 or 8 decks unless specifically noted otherwise.
To someone that is not paying attention to the overall cards played, this will not matter much because each hand is different and the house advantage is an accumulation of all the hands played by players at a casino. But if you play all those hands out the house will average winning 5 to 10 more hands than it loses over the course of 1000 hands.
The more decks used, 8 is the max, the higher the house advantage. The advantage is a little higher still when they "shuffle" after each hand. Here is the natural house advantage in blackjack according to the number of decks used.
- Single deck blackjack - 0.17% H/A
- Double deck blackjack - 0.46% H/A
- Four decks - 0.60% H/A
- Six decks - 0.64% H/A
- Eight decks - 0.66% H/A
Worst House Advantage Tactics
The are a lot of rules in blackjack that can give the casino a bigger house advantage. Here are the following things to watch out for while playing online:
- Dealer hits or stands on
soft 17? - If the dealer
has to hit on soft 17, the casino
gets an additional 0.21% house
advantage.
- Can the player
double down after a split?
- If you can't, the casino gets
an additional 0.14% house
advantage.
- What cards can you
double down on? - Being
able to double down on any two
cards gives the player the
biggest advantage. In
comparison, being able only to
double down on 9, 10 or 11 will
give the casino 0.095%
additional house advantage. If
you can only double down on 10
or 11, add another 0.095% to
that.
- Blackjack pays 3 to
2 or 6 to 5? - I would
strongly recommend not playing
if the casino is offering 6 to 5
payouts on blackjacks. Usually,
this will only be used in
variations of blackjack where
the player already has a
significant advantage in one way
or another. There is a
1.36% difference in
house advantage between the two.
- How many times can
you resplit your hand?
- The more times you can split,
the smaller the H/A for the
casino. The most allowed is
usually 4 hands. Because of the
small amount of times this will
be accomplished, there is only a
0.001% H/A difference between
that and allowing 3 hands (one
resplit). If the casino does not
allow you to resplit, they get
an additional 0.05% house
advantage.
- Can you resplit
Aces? - This is
obviously desirable to find.
Usually you won't find online
casinos that allow this. If they
do, they will give back 0.07%
H/A.
- Can you hit split
Aces? - There is a big
difference between being able to
hit after you split aces and not
being able to. Either way, you
will want to split your aces.
But if you can't hit after you
have split, the casino gets an
extra 0.18% H/A.
- If the dealer does
not check for blackjack, do you
only lose your original bet? -
If the answer is no, there is a
difference of 0.12% H/A.
- Are you allowed
allowed to late surrender? -
Late surrender is the ability to
surrender your hand after the
dealer has checked for
blackjack. There is a 0.08%
difference between late
surrendering and early
surrendering.
All that being said, the absolute coolest any online casino could possibly be with their regular blackjack game is to give themselves about a 0.2% house advantage. The absolute worst online casino will have a house advantage close to 1.0%.
