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- Odds Of Blackjack
- Odds Of Winning Blackjack
- Odds Of Winning Blackjack Against Dealer Las Vegas
- Winning Blackjack
Blackjack Insurance. If the Dealer shows an Ace as their face-up card, all Players have the option of Insurance. If you choose to take Insurance, you will place a bet equal to half your initial bet. If the Dealer then gets Blackjack, so the 2nd card has a value of 10, you will get Double your bet, if not you lose the Insurance bet. The game ends. Jun 14, 2017 Blackjack is a game that may look simple on the outside, but beneath the surface you’ll find that it’s all about odds and making the correct mathematical decisions. It’s easy to let your intuition take over and base your decisions at the table on that. To be able to play perfectly and master blackjack, it is however crucial to understand what the odds are for every scenario you face.
Blackjack Probability and Blackjack Odds
To fully understand the game of blackjack, you must understand and master blackjack odds. It's crucial to know how the casino gains its edge and how it helps them win. It's also important to understand blackjack odds such as the odds of hitting a 10 or the odds of being dealt a blackjack. You can read over these blackjack odds charts to help understand the logistics behind blackjack.
Casino and Dealer Advantage in Blackjack
In most casino games of blackjack, the house advantage (the dealer advantage) is ~ 8%. The house gets this advantage by the dealer being the last player to act. By acting last, all other players have already made their decisions and could quite possibly bust before the dealer has his turn.
By using correct blackjack basic strategy, you can turn the casino edge in blackjack from 7%-8% down to 0.5%. If you correctly use advanced card counting techniques, you can often change blackjack odds and give yourself the advantage over the casino. Manipulating the house odds to your favor is the reason most casinos don't allow card counters to play blackjack.
Probability of Busting on a Hit
It's very important to know the probability of your hand busting when you are holding any total in the game of blackjack. The following odds chart shows the blackjack odds of busting, depending on your current hand value:
| Hand Value | % Bust If You Hit |
|---|---|
| 21 | 100% |
| 20 | 92% |
| 19 | 85% |
| 18 | 77% |
| 17 | 69% |
| 16 | 62% |
| 15 | 58% |
| 14 | 56% |
| 13 | 39% |
| 12 | 31% |
| 11 or Less | 0% |
Two-Card Count Frequencies
This interesting blackjack odds chart is the two card count frequency chart. This chart shows the percentage chance that you will be dealt a hand in each given value range. The most important frequencey to note is the chance of being dealt a natural blackjack (natural 21 value. The odds of being dealt a natural blackjack are merely 4.8%. Following this chart you will see that the most common two card hand, at 38.7%, is a hand totaling 1-16, which is considered a decision hand.
| Two Card Count | % Frequency |
|---|---|
| Natural 21 | 4.8% |
| Hard Standing (17-20) | 30.0 % |
| Decision Hands (1-16) | 38.7% |
| No Bust | 26.5% |
| TOTAL | 100.0% |
Dealer Final Hand Probabilities
This blackjack odds chart shows the dealer final hand probability. These are the percentages that the dealer will end up with a hand totaling each corresponding value (up to 16). Read over this chart to understand the odds that the dealer has to make his final hand.
| Dealer Final Hand Value | % | Cumulative % Total |
|---|---|---|
| Natural 21 | 4.82% | 4.83% |
| 21 (3 or More Cards) | 7.36% | 12.19% |
| 20 | 17.58% | 29.77% |
| 19 | 13.48% | 43.25% |
| 18 | 13.81% | 57.06% |
| 17 | 14.58% | 71.64% |
| 16 | 28.36% | 100.00% |
Player Advantage vs. Dealer Up Card
The first two columns in this odds chart explain the dealer's chance of busting, depending on the up card that he is showing. You should note that the dealer has the highest chance of busting when he is showing a 5. The third column in this chart shows the player advantage of using basic strategy, compared to each up card the dealer is showing. You can see that the player has the highest advantage of 23.9%, when the dealer is showing a 5. When the dealer is showing any card that is 9 value or higher, the player is in the negative advantage range.
| Dealer Up Card | Dealer Bust % | Player Advantage % with Basic Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 35.30% | 9.8% |
| 3 | 37.56% | 13.4% |
| 4 | 40.28% | 18.0% |
| 5 | 42.89% | 23.2% |
| 6 | 42.08% | 23.9% |
| 7 | 25.99% | 14.3% |
| 8 | 23.86% | 5.4% |
| 9 | 23.34% | -4.3% |
| J,Q,K | 21.43% | -16.9% |
| A | 11.65% | -16.0% |
Effects of Removing Cards from a Deck
When looking at the odds of removing certain cards from a 52-card deck, some cards have a much greater effect on blackjack odds. To create the strongest card counting system ever invented, you would have to incorporate all of these slight and subtle differences into the numbers to be a completely accurate system.
Removing every 5 from a deck cards would make the largest impact of improving your blackjack odds, as a player. On the other hand, removing every Ace from a deck of cards would make the largest impact on improving the odds for the casino.
| Card | % Effect of Removal |
|---|---|
| 2 | 0.40% |
| 3 | 0.43% |
| 4 | 0.52% |
| 5 | 0.67% |
| 6 | 0.45% |
| 7 | 0.30% |
| 8 | 0.01% |
| 9 | -0.15% |
| 10 | -0.51% |
| A | -0.59% |
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Odds are everywhere you look. Seriously. Odds are in a casino, your workplace, your day-to-day live and habits, your marriage and where in the world you live.
Don’t believe me? Take a look for yourself:
Odds Of Blackjack
- Odds of having twins (21st century) – 3 in 100 or 3%
- Odds of getting a divorce – 40 to 50%
- Odds of being stuck by lightning – 1 in 5,000 or 1 in 700,000 in any given year
- Odds of being audited by the IRS – .4% if you make less than $200,000 / year
- Odds of being dealt a blackjack – About 4.83%
Odds are just the likelihood that something will happen. As a blackjack player you deal with this all the time.
Lets look at a couple real examples to show you what I mean.
Here are the odds of you busting your hand, depending on what you were dealt:
- 21 – 100%
- 20 – 92%
- 19 – 85%
- 18 – 77%
- 17 – 69%
- 16 – 62%
- 15 – 58%
- 14 – 56%
- 13 – 39%
- 12 – 31%
- <11 – 0%
Odds of Being Dealt Specific Hands
Here are the probabilities for being dealt a specific hand:
Odds Of Winning Blackjack
- Blackjack – 4.8%
- Standing Hand (17-20) – 30%
- Decision Hand – (1-16) – 38.7%
- No Bust – 26.5%
Here are the odds for the final hands that the dealer will make:
- Natural 21 – 4.82%
- 21 (3+ cards) – 7.36%
- 20 – 17.58%
- 19 – 13.48%
- 18 – 13.81%
- 17 – 14.58%
- 16 – 28.36%
Dealer vs. Player Odds
Finally, here are the odds of the dealer busting based on their up card:
Odds Of Winning Blackjack Against Dealer Las Vegas
- 2 – 35.30%
- 3 – 37.56%
- 4 – 40.28%
- 5 – 42.89%
- 6 – 42.08%
- 7 – 25.99%
- 8 – 23.86%
- 9 – 23.34%
- J,Q,K – 21.43%
- A – 11.65%
Of these examples, this is the most useful. Notice what hands the dealer is most likely to bust with. The dealer will most often bust with 4, 5 or 6, followed by 2 and 3.
The odds above are static. There’s nothing you can do to change them. However, you can find ways to improve your odds so that you lose fewer hands and less money. And the less money you lose, the more you can keep to play more blackjack.
Here’s what you can do to improve your odds in blackjack:
- Use basic blackjack strategy. Without basic strategy you’re playing at an 8% disadvantage. With strategy, however, the odds increase significantly. You’ll be playing at only .5 to 1.5% disadvantage.
- Find the best games. The rules make all the difference. For example, if you play a 6:5 blackjack game you’re adding a 1.39% disadvantage. If the dealer hits soft 17 that’s another .18%. However, it’s possible to find games where the player is paid 3:2 for blackjacks and the dealer stands on soft 17. So find those games. Also be careful about which blackjack variation you play. The best games to play are blackjack, Spanish 21, Vegas Strip BJ and Blackjack Switch.
- Avoid side bets. Side bets look exciting, because for a nominal amount you could possibly win a huge jackpot — worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars. The problem is that the odds against winning can be anywhere from 2-40%.
- Avoid wives tales. There are a lot of bad strategies like never busting (never hit a 12+), mimicking the dealer and assume that the dealer has a 10 in the whole (with ace up). The problem with using any of these strategies is that they increase the house edge from 3 to 10 percent.
You can do other things, too, like count cards or read books (usually a mix of basic strategy, card counting and general how-to’s for casino blackjack). However, you’ll improve your odds at winning at blackjack just by following my suggestions above.
Understanding the Long Run – Sample Size and Variance
Winning Blackjack
I wanted to finish up this article with a brief explanation of odds, and how they work over the long run. You see, I think a lot of people will see the numbers above and get confused when they don’t match their own stats. In other words, someone might go to the casino play 500 hands of blackjack, and wonder why they didn’t get 24 natural blackjacks, or the other way around, why they got 42.
The thing is, odds and statistics are all about the long run. Long run usually meaning sample size, or the total number of hands (or games) played.
What that means is that over a significant sample size, hundreds of thousands or even millions of hands, the number of times you’ll receive a blackjack is about 4.82%. The more hands you play the truer this will become.
The reason why odds don’t match up in smaller sessions, say over 500 hands, is because of variance. There’s a technical term and definition for variance, but I’ll just give you my version; variance is the ups and downs you experience on your way to the long term (expected) results.
Mike Caro, a poker player and author, puts it this way:
A measure of the spread of statistical distribution about its mean or centre.
That means in a short time frame, it’s possible to experience more drastic odds. You might win or lose more than you’re supposed to. It also explains why people can go into a casino, not use basic strategy and win 3x as much as what they walked in with. The cards ran in their favor — they experienced a positive streak of variance.
So that’s the gist of it. So the next time you walk into the casino and have a wild swing one way or another, you know that that’s not normal, and that in the long run you’ll be closer to break-even so long as you stick to basic strategy — the plan with the best odds.