House Odds In Blackjack
Blackjack players are always looking for an advantage. The easiest way is to find a game that pays 3:2 when a player is dealt a natural blackjack. The 6:5 blackjack game has a much higher house edge.
The house edge is even larger when a player doesn’t play with perfectbasic strategy. Casinos allow players to use a basic strategy card at the table. Unfortunately, not many players that could use the help from a blackjack card carry one.
May 21, 2020 Blackjack Dealer Bust: Software to Calculate Probability, Odds, House Edge, Advantage HA. Keep this new figure in mind: The odds for a blackjack Dealer's bust are at least 33%. The bust probability is calculated by dividing the number of Dealer's busted hands to the total possible blackjack actions. What the House Edge in Blackjack Means. Let’s start with some simple definitions and illustrations of the house edge in blackjack. What the house edge boils down to is the percentage of bets that the house wins on average. The size of the house edge has a direct impact on the ability of a blackjack player to win money. House Edge Calculator The easiest way for you to calculate the odds in blackjack is by using our free House Edge Calculator.This tool will help you to count player odds and the probabilities of dealer going bust on various dealer's up cards. Blackjack Odds FAQ The House Advantage in Blackjack The house advantage, or house edge, is the percent of a player’s initial bet that the casino will expect to make in the long run. Flip it around, and it is the amount you would expect to lose.
There’s another way to find an edge when playing blackjack that’s often overlooked. It’s actually one of the easiest ways to decrease the house edge in a blackjack game. The fewer decks in play during a blackjack game, the lower the house edge. It’s that simple.
Blackjack House Edge By Number Of Decks
Playing a blackjack game with fewer decks single-handedly lower the house edge. This isn’t the only way to lower the house edge. There are plenty of blackjack rules that can make a game more player-friendly. If all rules are the same, the house edge in a blackjack game will be lower whether the casino pays 3:2, 6:5, or even money when a player is dealt a natural blackjack.
We’ll use the same blackjack game rules to show the difference in house edge depending on the number of decks being played.
- Dealer hits on soft 17
- Player can double after splitting
- Player can double on any two cards dealt
- A player can resplit up to four (4) times
- Player cannot resplit aces
- Player cannot hit split aces
- No surrender
- Blackjack pays 3:2
Here are the different advantages for the casino using the blackjack house edge calculator from Wizard of Odds. Remember, the house edge is based on perfect basic strategy. Every misplayed hand increases the house edge for the casino.
- 1 Deck: 0.16%
- 2 Decks: 0.46%
- 4 Decks: 0.60%
- 6 Decks: 0.64%
- 8 Decks: 0.66%
As you can see the house edge for the casino increases when there are more cards in play. The same holds true for a game that pays 6:5 on a natural blackjack. Here’s the house edge for the same game with the adjusted payout for blackjack:
- 1 Deck: 1.55%
- 2 Decks: 1.83%
- 4 Decks: 1.96%
- 6 Decks: 1.99% (2% rounded up)
- 8 Decks: 2.019%
As you probably expected, the house edge is higher playing a 6:5 blackjack game. This example shows that the house edge is lower when the game has fewer decks in play.
Differences In Gameplay Depending On Deck Size
Single deck and double deck blackjack are often played differently than six and eight deck blackjack. The latter two games are the blackjack games players see most often in a casino. These games are dealt from a shoe or a continuous shuffle machine. Cards are dealt face up and the player uses hand signals to show the eye in the sky what play they want t make.
Single and double deck blackjack are considered “pitch” blackjack games. The dealer holds the cards and flings (or pitches) them face down to the players. That’s not the only difference from traditional blackjack games.
The player swipes the cards towards themselves to hit. If a player is dealt a blackjack, they flip the cards over to show the dealer. A player that wants to double or split they will flip the cards over and place the additional money next to the original wager.
When the player is ready to stay, the cards are placed under the wager. Don’t touch the money. Just slide the cards under the wager. The eye in the sky doesn’t like when you touch the money after placing a wager.
Blackjack players have different preferences. While most players seem to dislike any game with a continuous shuffle machine, others seem to have a preference for a shoe or pitch game.
Personally, I prefer the pitch blackjack games. The lower house edge is an obvious positive but that’s not the only reason. While I can’t really count cards, playing a game with fewer decks makes tracking cards a little easier. Lastly, the game is slower because the dealer has to shuffle or pick up a new deck every few games.
Insurance in blackjack should be classified as a sucker bet. It is also classified as a side bet, available in most games of 21. It is offered when the dealer holds an Ace as their up-card. The bet is only open before the dealer checks or draws the hole card. For players not holding a natural blackjack, if insurance is taken, they must place an additional wager equal to half of their original wager. If the dealer goes on to draw a card valued at 10 to make blackjack, the insurance bet is paid out at 2:1.
For players who are holding a natural blackjack, they may also take insurance (called maximum insurance). Here the player forfeits the 3:2 payout for a winning blackjack hand in place for a guaranteed even-money (1:1) payout, regardless of what the dealer has.
The reasoning behind insurance bets is when dealers have a visible Ace card, chances of them drawing a ten-valued card is just less than one in three, so this side bet ‘insures’ against the possibility of such an outcome, to make up for the inevitable loss/push.
Insurance Is A Bad Wager
Picture this: the dealer is showing an Ace. Your hand, in comparison, is terrible. You’ve already had a few hard losses and don’t fancy losing another round. Suddenly, the dealer asks you if you’d like to insure your bet. You already have a good hunch he/she is going to draw a 10 or face-card to make blackjack, so this sounds like a good way out. Or this: the dealer has a face-up Ace but you have a two-card natural blackjack. The 3:2 payout for your blackjack is mighty tempting, but if the dealer also draws a 10 and makes blackjack as well, taking a guaranteed win with maximum insurance, rather than risking a push, sounds like the best move.
Wrong and wrong.
At first glance, insurance bets do seem like good side wagers. They sound like a safe back-up plan in an intense game of blackjack, where a dealer two-card natural seems likely. And the way many blackjack dealers describe the bet makes it seem the best and most logical move you can make in the dreaded situation of a dealer face-up Ace. Unfortunately, this is an illusion and the casino is the only party who will ever make money from such a bet in the long run.
Don’t let yourself be fooled by the way casinos word it or how other players may recommend it, whatever reason they try to offer: place your bets elsewhere. “Insuring weak hands is necessary,” or “it is only half of your original bet;” such rationale is based on the wrong sort of game-play logic. If you are relying too heavily on intuition or superstition to govern your hands, it’s likely you won’t be winning in the long-term.
From one blackjack enthusiast to another, steer clear of insurance bets: it’s almost always a wasteful bet. We are going to explain to you what insurance bets really are, show you the odds behind the bet, and analyse a typical game of 21 to illustrate why it is a sucker’s bet.
How Insurance Bets Work
As a side bet, insurance bets have nothing to do with the cards we have. While an insurance bet is commonly thought of as a wager which ‘protects’ us in the case of a dealer blackjack, in actuality, it is simply a side wager on the dealer having/drawing a natural blackjack, and nothing more. Taking insurance while your own hand is a two-card natural (maximum insurance), or a crappy 15, makes no difference, because it has no bearing on it.
Let us assume we put down a $10 bet, are not dealt blackjack, and the dealer shows an Ace. If we take insurance, half of our original bet ($5) is put on the table to be used as insurance. Now we can’t win both bets, so already we know one of them is going to be a loss. If the dealer’s shows/draws a King as his/her second card, they have blackjack. This means we win $10 (get back a total of $15) from our insurance bet. But we’ve also lost our original wager of $10 because the dealer beats us with blackjack. So we have broken even in the end.
Examining the alternate outcome of the dealer’s hand, let’s say the dealer does not hit blackjack. This means we lose our insurance bet of $5, and play out our initial hand of $10. If we win, we make a $5 profit, is we lose, we lose $15 for the round. but it is essentially a wasteful side-bet in the long-run.
So the possible outcomes when taking insurance, using the above as an example, are as follows:
- A $5 win.
- Break even
- A $15 loss.
The possible outcomes when not taking insurance, using the above as an example, are as follows:
Odds Of House Winning In Blackjack
- A $10 win.
- A $10 loss.
Looking at the outcomes this way, you’d rather opt for a $10 win or $10 loss when the dealer holds an Ace, as opposed to a maximum win of $5 and a potential loss of $15, not just in the long run, but in the short-term too.
Additionally, in every full 52-deck of cards, four out of every 13 cards are worth 10 points (in blackjack); the cards which would lead to a dealer blackjack after showing an Ace. If you hypothetically wagered $10 as an insurance bet every time the dealer showed an Ace to ‘insure’ yourself against the worst possible outcome (let’s say 13 times), on average, you would win four of the bets (a profit of $80 with a 2:1 payout), and lose the other nine bets (loss of $90). The house gains $10, and you lose more money in the long-run.
This demonstrates the basic explanation as to why, in the long run, insurance is wasteful and you’d be much better served not taking it. The following sections drill further to explain the high house edge of insurance bets.
Insurance Bet Payout, Odds & House Edge
House Odds In Blackjack
While no casino bets have payouts which are true reflections of their exact winning odds, as that would eliminate the house edge, it is important to note the differential between the payout and the actual winning odds (which is the number of ways of winning against the number of ways of losing), as this accounts for the house’s advantage.
The payout of a regular insurance bet (when the player is not holding blackjack) is 2:1. A typical 52-card deck on an insurance bet play (only one player v dealer) has 49 unseen cards and three seen cards at the start of the game (dealer’s Ace, and player’s two cards). If we begin with the assumption our hand does not contain a 10-value card, then there are 16 cards worth 10 points in the deck, and 33 other cards.
Let us examine three possible scenarios, with an original initial wager of $20, and an insurance side bet of $10, to determine the true odds of the dealer hitting blackjack by drawing a 10-valued card:
1/ We have no 10-value cards in our hand: there are 16 ten-value cards in the deck, and 33 other cards. So to get the actual odds of winning the insurance bet, we divide 33 by 16, which equates to 2.0625 to 1. So if all was fair in the casino world, we’d actually receive a 2.0625 to 1 payout, or approximately $20.60 from our $10 bet. But as the house needs to profit, this is not possible.
2/ We have one 10-value card and a card that is not worth 10: there are only 15 ten-valued cards remaining, and 34 others. 34/15 works out to be actual winning odds (chances) of around 2.2666/1; so ideally we’d like a 2.2666 to 1 payout, or approximately $22.60 from our $10 bet.
3/ We have two ten value cards in our hand: This means there are only 14 ten-value cards remaining and 35 others. Divide 35 by 14, and we get odds of 2.5 to 1; so ideally, $25 we would like to receive from our $10 bet. This is thus the worst possible hand to take the insurance bet (even though you should not take it at all), because the odds are so out of our favour.
Only with one deck and when the player is holding no 10s, is the house edge for insurance below 3%. It sky-rockets after that.
Insurance May Seem Ideal, But It Isn’t
Many players argue on other sites, books and forums that when the shoe has more ten-valued cards than usual, insurance is a great way to make sure you cover potential loses and quite possibly earn a healthy payout. Yes, ultimately this would make sense if we knew when to take it, but the only way any player can know when such an ideal situation occurs is if you know how to count cards.
Best Odds In Blackjack
Essentially, while many players fall for insurance bets, they aren’t profitable or wise, and have no bearing on our hand. Many players will also take maximum insurance with a two-card natural hand, rather than risk a push, but this is more disadvantageous in the long run, since the Ten in the player’s blackjack means it is less likely the dealer has blackjack.
Insurance is taken far too often. Remain informed about its lack of tactical advantage or logic before playing. And besides, if you take insurance every now and then just because you have a hunch, you are playing on instinct, which is a dangerous method of play in blackjack, as you are abandoning basic blackjack strategy. We can play our hand based on the assumption the dealer has blackjack, but don’t insure, as the odds are very much against us.