To fully understand the process of playing blackjack, it is imperative that you understand all of its odds. It is critical to know how the casino gets its advantage and how it helps it win. Oh, and it's just interesting to know what the chances are that you will be dealt the right card or blackjack. Below is information about the probability of different situations in blackjack.
The average advantage a casino has in blackjack is believed to be up to eight percent. The fact is that the dealer is the last to draw cards when many players have already dropped out of the game by overcalling or dropping cards. We are talking, of course, about non-professional visitors who rely on their own experience and premonitions during the game.
Experienced players who act solely on basic strategy can reduce the casino's advantage to 0.5%.
If you successfully learn and practice one of the card counting systems, you may even be able to tilt the mathematical advantage in your favor. That's why card counters are usually banished from most casinos.
To better understand the principles behind basic blackjack strategy, let's look at the probability of some situations.
The Probability of Overcalling When You Reach
It's not unreasonable to realize how high the chances of overcalling twenty-one when you have a certain number of points in your hand are. The table below gives approximate figures that are valid for a situation in which the shooze has just been started. If, for example, during the first hand all the boxes have tens, then these figures are unlikely to be correct for the next hand, because there is an uneven number of cards of different values in the game.
Naturally, if you have eleven or less points in your hand, you will not be able to overcall by taking one card, so the chances are zero. Accordingly, if you have twenty-one, any card taken will result in an overcall.
Explore the following table.
Probability of overcalling when a card is dealt| Number of points on hand | Probability of overcalling when a card is dealt |
| 11 or less | 0% |
| 12 | 31% |
| 13 | 39% |
| 14 | 56% |
| 15 | 58% |
| 16 | 62% |
| 17 | 69% |
| 18 | 77% |
| 19 | 85% |
| 20 | 92% |
| 21 | 100% |
Frequency of dealing a certain amount of points on the first two cards
The statistics of dealing the first two cards a player receives can be quite curious. The table shows the probability of having blackjack, hard and soft combinations.
Note that blackjack is dealt only 4.8% of the time, and the cards that come up most often are the ones where you have to take some sort of active action.
It is not uncommon for a player to get seventeen to twenty points from a hand, which means a good chance of winning. It's also quite common to get cards that, if you add one more card to them, you won't get more than twenty-one points (e.g. "soft" combinations or "hard" ones up to eleven points).
| Number of points on the first two cards | Probability of hand |
| 21 (blackjack) | 4,8% |
| 17 - 20 (discontinue card set) | 30% |
| 12 - 16 (decision required) | 38,7% |
| Cards on which overshooting has been eliminated | 26,5% |
| Total | 100% |
The dealer's odds of overcalling and the player's odds of winning depending on the card revealed
The following table shows the dealer's odds of overcalling and the player's advantage depending on the card revealed.
- The first column indicates the cards that can be opened by the dealer,
- the second column indicates the dealer's odds of overcalling,
- the third column indicates the player's odds of winning in each situation.
As you can see, the dealer's best chance of overcalling occurs if his card is a five. Note also the fact that the dealer is more likely to win if his card is a ten. In this case, the player's chances of winning are minimal.
| Dealer Card | Dealer's chances of being outbid | The player's chances of winning |
| 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% |
| 10 | 21,43% | -16,9% |
| J | 21,43% | -16,9% |
| Q | 21,43% | -16,9% |
| K | 21,43% | -16,9% |
| A | 11,65% | -16,0% |
Casino advantage when playing with different number of decks
Blackjack is known to be played with a deck of fifty-two cards, but the number of decks in different varieties of the game can vary. Below is a table that tracks how much the mathematical advantage of a casino changes depending on the number of decks in play.
As you can see, it is most profitable to play single deck blackjack, and the hardest to play is the eight deck variant.
The difference between these numbers may seem very small, but any experienced blackjack player knows the value of every hundredth of a percent over a long period of time. Therefore, it is necessary to take into account the slightest advantage and be able to use it.
It is also worth noting that if the rules are different in different versions of the game, these figures will additionally change.
| Number of decks | Casino Advantage |
| One deck | 0,04% |
| Two decks | 0,42% |
| Four decks | 0,61% |
| Six decks | 0,67% |
| Eight decks | 0,70% |
Casino advantage changes with the rebound of certain cards
The following table shows how your chances of winning change after certain cards come out of the deck. As each card comes out of the rebound, your chances of winning and the casino advantage change in one direction or another.
This is a very important fact about card counting. If you aim to maximize your card counting efficiency, you must take into account the slightest changes in the odds that occur with each card coming out. As you can see from this table, your odds of winning increase as small cards come out.
This is the primary principle of card counting. When the big cards are dealt, however, the opposite happens. Your chances start to decrease. In the process, you will see that as the big cards come out, your score will get smaller.
You can only guess how difficult it is to keep these numbers in your head and keep score at the same time. Your brain has to be like a computer to do these two operations at the same time. However, there are some people who are capable of such miracles, and that makes them perfect counters. Of course, it is much easier to keep track of the odds when the game is played with only one deck.
For example, if you see several cards on the table, you have the ability to calculate how much your advantage is decreasing or increasing. If a lot of small cards have been dealt, the probability of you winning the next hand increases dramatically, and vice versa.
It goes without saying that such calculations must be done from the beginning of the deck or shuz, otherwise they are almost meaningless. In addition, these figures are generalized and averaged, and even a very high percentage of probability for the player does not guarantee victory in the next hand, because the variance also makes its own adjustments to the game.
| The card that came out | Impact on player's chances |
| 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% |
| J | -0,51% |
| Q | -0,51% |
| K | -0,51% |
| A | -0,59% |
The probability of the dealer's final combination
Now let's talk about the odds of the dealer forming a particular final combination of cards. As a general rule of thumb in blackjack, the dealer must draw a card at sixteen and stop at seventeen points. These rules can vary slightly in some varieties of the game, but we'll go with the classic version.
As you can see from the table, the dealer overcalls more than twenty-eight percent of the time. If it does not happen, then most often he has twenty points, and the chances of a blackjack are the same as the player - 4.8%.
| Dealer's Combination | The probability of this combination |
| Blackjack | 4,82% |
| 21 (of three or more cards) | 7,36% |
| 20 | 17,58% |
| 19 | 13,48% |
| 18 | 13,81% |
| 17 | 14,58% |
| Overshoot | 28,37% |
We hope that this information, if not even practically useful to you, will help you to understand more deeply and fully such a complex and exciting game as blackjack.
| Name | Soft | Return to player | ||
|
|
99.78% | ||
|
|
99.69% | ||
|
|
99.65% | ||
|
|
99.6% | ||
|
|
99.59% | ||
|
|
99.54% | ||
|
|
99.54% | ||
|
|
99.54% | ||
|
|
99.33% | ||
|
|
98.55% |
Closure
How well do you play blackjack? Do you know basic strategy? Do you use it in practice? Know how to count cards in blackjack? Do you know any other techniques for playing professionally?
Share your experiences with Casinoz readers. Tell us how to beat casinos at blackjack more often. Your feedback and opinions will be useful to other enthusiasts.
