Any given game of blackjack is based on randomness, with the cards dealt to you and the dealer being completely random as a result of the number of decks shuffled into the shoe. However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some key strategies that blackjack players can deploy to help their game.
One of the most important elements of blackjack for many beginners is conserving and subsequently building up the bankroll. It makes sense as the whole reason why people gamble is that they want to leave with more money than they arrived with in the first place. Furthermore, a lot of blackjack skill comes with experience and learning the game first hand, so beginners want to stay at the table for as long as possible.
There are, of course, in-depth strategy boards to memorise for each and every hand in blackjack, but there are also some much simpler blackjack strategies to deploy that help to extend your blackjack playing time and make sense within the game.
When insurance is no longer a financially smart move
Pretty much every single adult has some form of insurance to their name, be it for their house, car, or mobile phone. Insurance is always billed as smart and often necessary, but in blackjack, there are very few occasions –which you won’t be able to see coming – when insurance is actually the smart bet.
At most blackjack tables, you can take insurance as a side bet if the dealer’s exposed card is an ace. If the dealer then reveals that they have blackjack, you get odds of 2:1 on the insurance side bet – thus covering the loss from your standard bet. However, when the exposed card is an ace, theoretically, the dealer will only have blackjack less than one-third of the time.
Insurance is, the vast majority of the time, a bad bet. Most people take the side bet when they have a good hand like a 19 or a 20 that they want to make a return on if the dealer has blackjack. Here, however, insurance becomes a far worse bet as the player has already reduced the odds of the dealer getting blackjack simply by having a card valued at ten in hand.
Embrace mathematical theory and player suspicions
Many people who play blackjack or any gambling game believe in hot streaks and, on the flip side, many gamblers who see a continued streak will bet against the streak continuing. These are known as the hot hand fallacy and the Monte Carlo fallacy, with the latter being billed as such due to a roulette table in 1913 at the Casino de Monte-Carlo inexplicably hitting black 26 times in a row, losing those who continued to bet that the streak would end millions.
While probability theory dictates that the randomness of blackjack means that it’s impossible to foresee a winning streak, streaks still occur, be they losing or winning streaks. To embrace both sides of the argument while also keeping your bankroll in check, simply raise your bet each time you beat the dealer’s hand at casino blackjack.
This may seem like a regimented strategy that flies in the face of probability theory, but it actually embraces the randomness of the game, as you’re effectively raising your bet randomly and just using the random occurrence of a win as an indicator to do so. Furthermore, as streaks do occur at some point in most games – regardless of how hard they are to predict – it will allow you to capitalise on multiple wins if they arise.