May we carry this to the next aniticipated question? How much is the House Edge?
Well, there are "engines" online that will compute this for you. One can be found on
www.wizardofodds.com
For comparrison to illustrate the need to seek out the best game to indulge in:
abbreviations commonly used:
DOA (Double on Anything)
D9+ (Double 9,10,11)
D10+ (Double 10,11)
DAS (Double after Splitting)
S17 (Dealer stands on soft 17)
H17 (Dealer hits soft 17)
SP? (Split to "?" hands such as SP2 means can split to only 2 hands)
All of these assume Blackjack pays 3:2 (NOT 6:5 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Single Deck where the dealer S17, DOA, DAS actually gives the player a .14% advantage. You'll probably never see a game with this great a set of rules any more.
Single Deck H17, SP2, D9+, gives the house a .35% advantage. Not so good.
Double Deck S17, DAS, SP4, DOA....House edge is .19%
6-Deck Shoe H17, DAS, SP4, DOA....House edge is .62%
Now exactly what does that all mean? Plug some numbers in!
Assume that you are betting $10 per hand. Assume that you are playing for 8 hours straight and that the dealer is dealing you 1 hand per minute. That's 480 hands.
Assume that you are playing Perfect Basic Strategy (making no mistakes and never deviating.) With your $10 bet, you can figure that you are going to be wagering a total of $4,800 during that time. Actually, you will be betting more than that because you will be doubling down and splitting on a lot of those hands, but keep it simple and just use $4,800 as a comparrison number.
If the house edge is .19% as with the Double Deck game described, then you have an expected loss looking at you of a whopping $9.12.
If you are playing the same length of time and betting the same amount on a 6-deck game as described...you will expect to loose $29.76.
Chances are, if you actually played these scenarios out, you would either loose a lot more than those figures or you would win, possibly a lot more. That's the variance factor. But if you played for years and years, kept track of all your bets and how much you won and lost per session, you would come out close to those percentages quoted.
Note that an experienced and accurate card counter might see anywhere from an additional 1% to possibly 2% advantage which would turn the negative expectation game into a positive expectation game.
However, to emphasise how badly someone NOT using basic strategy will fare:
The "average" Blackjack player making mistakes in BS would be playing at a disadvantage of an additional 1%. This is the occasional player who has some concept of Basic Strategy but who does not know the "power plays" such as when to double soft hands, when to split 4's, etc.
A "weak" Blackjack player playing by guts and bad intuition, using chicken entrals and other forms of Voodo, will be playing at an additional 2.5% disadvantage.
These two categories of Blackjack players are the ones the Casinos LOVE! At a bare minimum....LEARN BASIC STRATEGY!!!!!! Study it until you can play it in your sleep and NEVER make mistakes. You may not win a fortune, but you will at least loose a minimum!