Comparing US and European casinos there is one big difference in the game of roulette. The US wheel has a double 0 and the European wheel has a single 0. This is quite significant as the single 0 has a house edge of 2.7% whereas the double 0 has a much larger house edge of around 5.2%. This means that European players have a much better chance of winning when playing roulette. Because of this, roulette has grown a lot more widespread in Europe than it has in America.
Many people talk about roulette strategies, but when played over time they are often found to fail. Roulette is a game of luck and if you want to make a lot of money from it often the best way to do this is to be brave and bet all your money on an even-money event such as red or black so you double your money. Depending on the house edge, you have about a 47-to 48.5 chance of winning in this case. If you were to try and double your money by betting small amounts over a longer period of time, then the house edge would catch up with you and you would have a greater chance of losing your money before you doubled it.

The most popular of these is the hold feature. This lets you hold one or two reels, so in the case that you have two matching “fruits” you can hold them and spin again, but only affecting the third reel. This increases your chances of winning. This adds an extra edge to the game and introduces some tactics that you can use.

Another feature is the nudge button. This is advantageous when you have two matching “fruits” and you can see the third just above the third reel. You can then use the nudge button to “nudge” the third “fruit” down so that you have a winning combination.

Some fruit machines also have extra games available if you match a winning combination. The winning combination opens up a new game for you which has a much bigger jackpot up for grabs.

So for example if you started with £2 bets and then lost the next 7, your betting would go like this. £2 >> £4 >> £8 >> £16 >> £32 >> £64 >> £128 >>£256. If the 8th bet of £256 wins, then you would get back £512, making a £2 profit.

As you can see, as you double the money the numbers start to get quite large. However because most bettors see that all loses are always recouped using this system and you always get back into profit they think that it is a good system to use. Many sites on the Internet promote using it and some even sell ebooks with the system and guarantee big winnings.
There are several reasons however why it really is not a good system to use at all. Even if you do have the confidence to bet big and double your bets every time you lose you have to have a really big bank role to start with. Just to cover yourself to play 7 loses in a row you have to put down £510. Probability shows that it is still quite easy to lose 8 or 9 times in a row. 9 loses in a row with the example above would equal a massive £2040 that you would need to bet.

It is now that a few doubts start to arise. Firstly what if you have one loss too many and you haven’t got enough to double your money? Well, you have just lost big! Losing that much is a serious risk considering that when you are winning you only get £2 for every time you do so. Say you don’t win 9 in a row, but actually win them all. Your profit now would be £18. Is winning £18 really worth the risk of losing £2040 if all 9 bets go the other way and you lose? You could say that you will use bigger stakes so that when you do win you will win more. However this works the other way as well. When you play with these higher stakes the money you put down when you lose is going to get massive and you won’t be able to put down for so many losing bets and therefore increasing your chances of losing it all.

Besides all this a lot of casinos actually have a maximum bet allowance, so if you are losing, doubling your bet and reach this amount then you no longer have the ability to win back your loses on the next spin that you win.

Careful calculations show that with an equal betting pot, doubling the bet when you lose has no advantage over not doubling it, and it can actually increase the risk of you losing big.

If I follow the same rules as the dealer of hitting until I reach 17, then do I win more often? No, because if you both bust, then you both lose, so your edge is reduced, plus the dealer always goes last which gives them the greater house edge.

What is the chance of getting a blackjack? It depends on the number of decks, but it is around 4.7%

When basic strategy says to split cards, for example, two 8’s against a 10 or ace, does this not make my chances of losing double just as much as winning double? No. Calculations show that your net loss when splitting in that situation is less than when you continue with the hand.

So we hope that answers a few questions and keeps you playing blackjack at the top of your game.

Because of this, experts came up with a more difficult, but more effective strategy to follow. This strategy is card counting and takes advantage of probability again. As the blackjack game is played and cards are dealt from the deck, the deck is no longer complete, so the probability of a certain card being drawn changes. Knowing when the cards remaining are more advantageous to the player and enables different tactics and betting opportunities.

When there are more high cards like 10s and Aces, the player can make bigger initial bets because he will know that there is more chance of him getting a blackjack.

Another option is to double down during the game when there is a high possibility of good cards being dealt for you.

The system of card counting is not as hard as it seems. Rather than remembering which cards have been played, a point system is assigned to cards of different values as they are dealt from the dealer. The score tally will show when it is the best time to place bigger bets. If done correctly, this method can actually give the player an edge over the casino. It could range from between 0 and 2%.

Card counting is a very controversial strategy, but mental counting is not actually illegal. Only counting with electronic equipment is illegal. However, even mental card counting can be frowned upon by some casinos because it is losing them money!

To reduce / stop card counting, a lot of casinos have introduced more that one deck. This makes it harder to count and predict when it is the best time to bet.

There are variations of card counting that are more complex, but are designed to beat multiple decks. One of these methods is Shuffle tracking, which will not be discussed here.

The second factor is deciding to double your hand against particular dealer’s hands. A good example is that if you have a hand of 10 and the dealer has a 7 card. We will explain this further in this article, but the advantages of doubling can be huge, both when the player is instructed to stand on a low value of cards when the dealer is likely to bust, and when you have a big advantage in winning.

The third factor is splitting your cards. When you are dealt a matching pair of cards, you can either play that hand or split the hand. Different cards give different winning outcomes, but here we give one example of why splitting can be an advantage to you.

When you split your cards, you are in a situation where you don’t know what the 2nd card in each hand is going to be, so the probability of this has to be factored in. If the player is dealt 14 as two 7s and the dealer also gets a 7, then if the player plays this as one hand of 14 the following outcomes can occur: He will lose 54.42 percent, win 38.49 percent and tie 7.09 percent.

Splitting the 7s can give hands ranging from 9 to 18 once the second card is dealt. There are four 10s in each suit, so 17 is 4 times as likely to occur. The outcomes now are: The player will lose 40.68 percent, he will win 42.05 percent and he will tie 17.27 percent of the time. This instantly turns the game in favour of the player. Each hand has a 1.37 percent advantage over the dealer in this scenario.

You can now practise your basic strategy at our blackjack table for free.

3 Deck Basic Strategy Card

The system works by taking know factors (your two cards and the dealer’s up-card) then applying probability to see the likelihood of the dealers down (hole) card and each hit card. There are 13 different cards, so a 1 in 13 chance that any of these cards will be drawn.

If the dealer has a 9 as his up-card, then this is the possible outcome of his hand when the hole card is turned:

In this example, 7/13 hands have a value more than 17. If person playing the dealer sticks on any number under 17 then there is a 7/13 chance that he will lose straight away and 6/13 chance that he will win. That is more than 50% chance that he will lose, so that is why the player must hit on any number under 17 in this case (dealer 9).
On the basic strategy card this probability helps you decide when to hit and stick on a certain hand.

There is much more to consider than this though. The dealer will have to hit until his total reaches 17 or greater. This means that the initial value of the dealers hand will have to be hit to reach 17 if it doesn’t after turning their hole card.

Now using the example of the dealer having an up-card of 3, the possible values of the whole card are 5 to 14. There is just over 7 percent chance of each of these happening except the value 13, of which there is just over 30 percent because there are 4 cards of value 10 for each suit (10, J, Q, K). In all of the cases we have, the dealer would have to take a second hit because none of those values would equal 17. There are 169 outcomes after the first hit.

In 24, or 14.2 percent of those hits, the dealer will be bust.
In 65, or 38.46 percent of those hits, the dealer will have a hand of 17 or over to stand on.
In 80, or 47.34 percent of those hits, the dealer will still have a value of under 17 and will have to hit again.

The outcomes of the hits of the 47.34 percent of hands that are still under 17 will then have to be calculated. In a multi-deck game, the number of hits could be up to 9 if the lowest possible cards are drawn: Initial card 3 and hole card 2, then 2, 2, 2, A, A, A, A, A, A = 17. From each of these extra hits, the likely resulting value must be multiplied by the likelihood that the hit would need to be taken and then added to the original total.

As that looks, all that is very complicated, but the outcomes are as follows:

The hand of the player must also be calculated. This is done in the same way as the dealer’s hand above, accept that we already know the value of the 2nd card, so we do not need to calculate the first step. We need to know the outcomes of all possible hits to know if hitting is giving you or the dealer the advantage. If you have a three-ten 13, then these are the probabilities of your outcomes:

After this, when deciding if to hit or to stand, the outcome of the dealer’s and player’s hand has to be compared:

The dealer has a more likely chance of winning every hand, so the player would only win in the 37.64 percent of cases where the dealer busts.

So the possible outcomes of the player’s chances of winning are:

1) The dealer busts and the player doesn’t – 18.08%
2) The dealer draws a 17 from the deck and the player draws higher – 5.19%
3) The dealer draws a 18 from the deck and the player draws higher – 3.74%
4) The dealer draws a 19 from the deck and the player draws higher – 2.40%
5) The dealer draws a 20 from the deck and the player draws higher – 1.20%

This equals a 30.61% chance of beating the dealer’s hand. Comparing this to the 37.64% chance that the dealer will go bust, there is more chance of winning by sticking on a hand of 13.

Part 2 will explain the other factors in the game that Basic Strategy is based on.

1 Deck Basic Strategy Card

There are also several other side bets than can be made while a game of blackjack is in progress. These include: Insurance, Surrender, Even Money, Double Down and Split.

Insurance: This is when the dealer has an Ace as their face-up card. You can offer half your initial bet as insurance so that if the dealer’s face-down card is a 10 (which would be a blackjack), then you get 2-1 odds on your insurance – i.e. your initial bet back. This is often not a good bet to place because the odds are massively in favour of the dealer at around 8%.

Surrender: If you think that you are most likely going to lose your hand, then you can surrender it to get half your bet back.

Even money: This is very similar to insurance and works in this way. If you already have a blackjack and the dealer has an Ace as their face-up card, they will give you an offer to receive even money before he turns over his “hole” (2nd card). This means that if you bet £100, you would get back your stake + an extra £100 = £200. This means you double your money and safeguards against you getting back just your steak if the dealer has blackjack as well. If you choose not to accept even money you have a chance of getting your steak of £100 + £150 winnings = £250. It is advisable, like with the insurance, not to accept even money, because although the dealer can get blackjack sometimes, it is a low probability. Over time you will win more by choosing not to take even money.

Double down: Once your two cards are dealt, you can choose to “double down”. This means that if you think you have good enough cards, then you can double your steak, but with a rule of only being allowed to hit one more card. Some casinos will also allow for you to double down if you split your cards.

Although there are variations of Blackjack, there are basic rules that are followed. A player or number of players (up to 7), play against a dealer. Players don’t play each other. To win the game, a player must get cards valuing as close to 21 as possible without going over that value, but still beating the value of the dealer’s cards. If a player receives cards over the value of 21, they are considered bust and lose that particular hand. If they hit 21 on their first 2 cards drawn, it is called blackjack and they will automatically win that hand.

The dealer has slightly different rules to follow. On top of the same rules as the player, the dealer also has rules surrounding a card value of 17. If they have a value less than 17, then they must hit. If they have a value above 17, then they must stick. An exception is included in this. At some casinos, they have a rule that if the 17 is a “soft 17”, then the dealer must hit again. A soft 17 is considered when cards are dealt that equal 17 with an Ace valued as 11. For example: Ace and 6 =17 or Ace, 2, 4 =17. If a casino follows this rule, then hitting a soft 17 forces the dealer to hit (draw) again. This is actually a disadvantage to the player as it raises the house edge by 0.2%

As already mentioned, Aces can be counted as either 11 or 1. Because of this, it is a very important card in the deck. The cards 2 to 9 count as their numbered value and jack, queen, and king all count as 10.

When the game starts each player playing the dealer places a bet and is dealt two cards face up and the dealer is dealt two cards with only one facing up. If the player is dealt doubles, i.e. a pair of 2s, then they can split them if they like and play 2 separate hands.

Once the game starts each player gets to go in turn. They can stick on their initial two cards, or request more cards from the dealer in order to try and reach a total of 21. This continues through all the players at the table. Then the dealer turns over his face-down card and plays against all the people left who are not bust. The players who have higher than the dealer will win their bets, and the players who have lower than the dealer will lose their bets. If no one wins, then the bets are returned. If the dealer gets blackjack (21), then all the other players lose unless they too have blackjack. In this case, then it is a draw and their money is returned.

When playing Blackjack, you will get the best odds of winning when playing a one deck game. Once you have got the hang of how Blackjack works, you should get a basic strategy guide and stick to it when you play. This is the best way to keep winning.