GamingTips

A disclaimer before I begin.  This is not necessarily mathematically a winning strategy, in fact I can almost guarantee you it’s not.  Yet, with casino gambling, no strategy is a mathematical winner.  This is a great way to have a little fun, and, using self control, hopefully win the big bucks.

My betting strategy when I play Let it Ride focuses on the bonus bet, even though it is statistically a very bad bet.  The great thing about Let It Ride is the great earning potential if you have a winning hand and the ability to minimize your losses if you don’t.  Let’s use a $5 table as an example.  You start with $16 out (3 $5 bets on the spots, and a $1 bet on the bonus).  If you have a pair or better right off the bat (to use one extreme), and wind up with a bonus winning hand, you can win on the full $15, plus the $1 bonus.  If, on the other hand, you have a losing hand, you can reduce your losses to $6.  This allows you to buy time waiting for a big hand.

My personal strategy is to do just that.  Play the table minimum according to the strategies I give in my other posts, plus the $1 bonus bet.  The key here is this:  once you hit a flush or better, color up and walk away from the table.  You are unlikely to get another bank-breaking hand.  And you just more than made up for your losses.  Even if you played very conservatively, you make 8:1 on $5, plus a bonus $50.  That’s $90.  If you pulled back one bet, that’s $130.  If you left all three out, that’s $170.

Again, playing the bonus is not a long-run mathematic winner.  BUT, the key to “beating the odds” in all but a few casino games lies in knowing when to walk away.

Blackjack is a game where the house edge is very small.  People often attribute that to the ability of the player to decide what to do with their cards, while the dealer has set rules to follow.  This is not true.

The reality is that the house advantage is narrowed (or eliminated by card counters) largely because of the “special” rules.  That is, the 3:2 payout on blackjack; splitting; and doubling down.

That being said, table choice becomes a major factor in winning blackjack strategy.

First, make sure  look at every operating blackjack table, or at least every table with an open seat, for the best rules before you sit down.  Often, the ones meant to attract a lot of attention (single or double deck pitch, very low or very high limits, and flashy side bets) often have the least friendly rules.  This is especially true of single and double deck pitch tables.  Because of the ease of card counting, they alter the rules so that anyone who knows the game well enough to count would not be dumb enough to play at those tables.

The most important factor is the payout on a blackjack.  The payout should always be 3:2.  Often, casinos will put a 6:5 payout on otherwise attractive games.  If you plan on winning money, don’t ever play these tables.  Here’s why.   This is possibly the largest   advantage a player has.  When you get 21 on your first two cards, you win an extra 50% of your bet.  When the house gets BJ, you don’t have to pay the extra 50%.

Second is doubling.  The ability to double down is  huge player advantage in blackjack.  I have never seen a table which outright banned doubling down.  BUT, a lot of tables only allow doubling on a 8,9,10,11;9,10,11; or even 10 and 11 only.  A huge money maker is doubling decent hands against a dealer bust card.  For instance, many players will double a soft 16 against a dealer 6, or certainly an 8 or 9 against a dealer 5 or 6.  Some bold player will double anything below a 12 against a 4, 5, or 6.  These hands are another way that the house advantage is dramatically cut.

In short, try to always play tables which pay 3:2 on blackjack and allow unrestricted splitting and doubling (other than the 1 card restriction when splitting Aces).  Other than that, table choice should not make a huge difference unless you are counting cards.

One final note.  While almost all casinos now limit players to one card when splitting Aces, a few do not.  If you find a table which meets the listed criteria which also allows a player to take unlimited cards after splitting Aces, by all means you should play it.

A lot of people (including myself) are tempted when they first see video blackjack to play.  If you’re a table games kind of person, why not play blackjack at the local bar, right?

Wrong!  Video blackjack has terrible odds, and tricks you so you don’t see this.

Whenever anything pays “X for Y, it means that if you collect the full X, they keep your original bet of Y.  So it’s really not a X to Y payout.  It’s an (X-Y) to Y payout.  For instance, if a bet pays 5 for 1, it pays 5, but they keep 1, so it’s really a 4:1 payout.

Video blackjack machines pay 2 for 1 on a blackjack.  So they really pay 1:1, just like on any other winning hand.  This is one of the major advantages at a real blackjack table, taken away.

Another thing which allows players at live BJ to get an edge is that they can double on any hand.  With video blackjack, most machines limit doubling to 10 and 11; 9, 10, and 11; or 8, 9 10, and 11.

So video blackjack is not a good game.

That being said, this applies to the video blackjack you find on the bar, sharing machines with keno and video poker.

Some casinos now have computerized versions of table games, which follow the same rules as the live games.  I know I’ve played an electronic game of blackjack at the Venetian, and I’m sure other casinos have the same.  These are fine, as long as you a) double check the payouts and rules, b) don’t mind a faster paced game, and c) won’t miss the social interaction of the dealer and other players.