Whether played online or in a neon-lit casino, blackjack is about math.
One of the many things that made Blackjack one of the most popular casino games in the world is that sometimes, depending on what cards remain in the shoe, blackjack can actually be in the player’s favor. That is all that card counting is, after all: varying bets and play depending on what cards remain.
But the odds on online blackjack are so low, below 1% and often below 0.5%, that if we play exactly the way the math dictates, we can be so close to even that when we consider casino bonuses, comp, free play and reward points, we can come out ahead without counting cards.
Math being math, there is an exact way you should play every hand depending on the rules and number of decks of the blackjack game you are playing. This is called basic strategy.
Fortunately, we can condense all of the possible hands and the decisions we should make into a straightforward, basic blackjack strategy chart. This is the so-called book when people say, “Well, the book says hit”.
We will walk you through the basic strategy blackjack chart and try to convince you why you should never play blackjack again without one.
Following in the footsteps of the explosion of legalized brick-and-mortar casinos nationwide in the 90s, legal online casinos are coming soon to a state near you. The epicenter of the growth at this time is the Northeast. You can legally play blackjack online in New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, with Rhode Island coming soon. Online casino play is also currently live in Michigan out in the midwest.
If you are geographically present in one of these states, you can play legal online blackjack, and increasingly you can even play against a live dealer on a live table streamed to your phone or desktop. As in brick-and-mortar casinos, blackjack has proven very popular, so we must ensure we play the game at the lowest possible house advantage.
With a lower house edge, we can take advantage of all the great welcome bonuses, promos, and comps that these casinos are giving out not just to win over new players but because they’ve been able to reduce their overhead on dealers, billion-dollar glitzy casinos, and free drinks.
Before we go further, let’s talk about the basics of blackjack and how to play it. Each player and the dealer are dealt two cards. The dealer turns one of his cards over, and the players take turns acting against the dealer from left to right. If you go over 21, you lose; if the dealer comes closer to 21 than you, you also lose.
The card values are their face values, except all jacks, queens and kings are all worth 10. The ace is worth either one or 11, which can be confusing, but we have to live with it. So, an ace and a six could be either seven or 17. This is called a soft hand, meaning we could hit it without breaking it.
The dealer will always draw until they have at least 17; if the dealer busts, you win, and if you are closer to 21 than the dealer, you win. Any 10-value card dealt with any ace is a natural, or blackjack, and in any game that can legitimately be called blackjack, pays 3/2. None of this “our shareholders want dividends” 6/5 nonsense.
If you have a pair, you can split them; if you have any 10-value cards, such as a jack and a queen, you may split but don’t.
You may double if you have a good hand, like 10 or 11, but remember you must draw one card and one card only. Don’t go double-breaking hands (hands over 12). Soft hands (two cards containing an ace) can also be doubled safely.
Some casinos may allow you to double after you have split, allowing you to double more than once, take only one card if you split aces, and many other such rules, which we will need to know to use the proper blackjack strategy charts for that particular rule set.
Blackjack can also be played with a single, double, or up to eight decks. We will need this information to determine which strategy table we need for which blackjack game.
We can use our basic strategy chart at any brick-and-mortar casino or anywhere people play blackjack. Still, folks can be a little shy about being seen consulting blackjack strategies when playing with other people.
But if we are playing online, there is no reason not to use the perfect blackjack strategy for the rules and number of decks we play against. Simply pull it up and print it out, or keep it on a split screen as you play.
Generally, we will look at our hand and then consult the chart. H is for hit, S is for stand, D is for double, and P is for split. We may occasionally see things like DA, meaning double if the rules allow, or DS, meaning only use if you can double after splitting at this table.
If the dealer has a bust card (a two through six) as their upcard, we generally want to stay and let them bust. Otherwise, we need to hit. Hitting is just taking a card. We would hit if we have 12 and the dealer has a seven as their up card, for instance.
Stand means we don’t want any more cards. We can stand when we have at least 17, no matter what the dealer has, or when the dealer has a bust card, and hitting might bust us.
Since we must take a card when doubling, we want to do this only when the dealer has a feeble hand, or we have one that we can likely improve. We can double for less than our original bet, but the math doesn’t suggest it, nor does our basic strategy chart. In looking at our chart, we will notice most doubles are when we have a nine, 10, or 11.
Also, notice the many soft doubles against a dealer’s bust card. These are all opportunities to double our bet because we have the advantage, so we need to take it.
We can not split it for less; we must match our original bet exactly. Looking at our basic strategy chart, we will notice that we often split pairs. In particular, we always split aces and eights. We also split nines against every upcard except a seven, 10, or ace.
We never split fives, choosing instead whether to double or not, with our point total of 10. Many Splits of lower-value cards are determined by whether we can double after splits, so make sure you know if this is the case before consulting your basic strategy chart. It should be in the game’s rules, usually marked on the screen with an “I” for info.
Some casinos, especially those online, have a surrender option available on their blackjack games. This means that you can surrender your hand and only lose half your bet after your first two cards have been dealt but before the dealer checks for blackjack.
This is called late surrender because it happens after checking for the dealer natural; if you run across a game that lets you surrender before that, it’s called early surrender, and you should probably just drop me a line so we can go in halfsies.
We typically only see surrender on our basic strategy charts with 14s, 15s and 16s against a 10 or an ace up.
If the dealer turns over an ace when playing blackjack, they will ask for insurance bets. The insurance bet allows you to put up to half your bet, and if the dealer has blackjack and our original bet loses, our insurance bet will get us back to even.
The problem is that we know that the dealer will only have a 10 under that ace four out of 13 times. So, only getting paid two for one is just a bad bet. This goes for even money as well. Even money is just a shortcut for taking insurance if you have a blackjack and the dealer has an ace up.
If you take insurance, you will win your original bet whether the dealer has blackjack or not; even money speeds up the process by paying you your initial bet without all the moving of chips around. But it still needs to be a better bet because there are only four 10s in each suit or 16 in every deck. So, taking only even money when you are much more likely to get paid 3/2 isn’t the way to go.
A basic blackjack strategy chart is just a way to convert our blackjack strategies into an easier-to-use form. To have the perfect blackjack strategy chart, we need to know how many decks are in use and rules like double after a split or splitting aces. Once we have that info, we can find the chart that fits our game and keep the house edge as low as mathematically possible.
Most strategy charts have the dealer’s upcard across the top, our hand total along the side, and then the mathematically correct way to play that hand denoted with either H, S, P, or D and other letters like R for surrender. Sometimes, other letters follow those four, denoting a particular rule set, which is explained in the chart key at the bottom. Our hands are further broken down, with the play to make if we have a soft hand or pairs.
When you hear a blackjack strategy card referenced, it’s just a hardier, reinforced version of our blackjack strategy chart. Because these are often used at a brick-and-mortar casino, they can be laminated or made of hard plastic that withstands wear and tear and spills.
Some blackjack rule changes barely scratch the surface, like late surrender and its tiny .05% to 1% effect on house advantage, while others can make the game 5x worse for the player. It’s essential to look for and know how these changes impact our disadvantage. In the same vein, we need to understand the difference between single-deck blackjack, double-deck games, and even eight-deck shoes, all other rules being equal.
The No. 1 rule killer is 6/5 on blackjack. Even if we’re only betting $10, we only get $12 on a blackjack instead of $15? Come on! And while it’s hard to believe, players get, on average, a blackjack every 20 hands. That means in the course of 100 hands or about an hour of play, we make $15 less than we would have.
In a game where we talk about blackjack strategies to shave off tenths or even a few hundredths of a percentage, this rule adds 1.4% to the house edge. Just say no, and don’t play it.
The following rule we would like to see when we play online blackjack is the dealer standing on all 17s. This means the dealer doesn’t hit if they have a hand with a soft ace. The most prominent example is an ace and a six.
If the casino allows the dealer to try improving this hand, the house advantage increases by 0.22%. The house already isn’t paying for our drinks when we gamble online, so fair is fair.
If we can split hands and then double, we get a 0.14% bump due to occasionally getting split hands, which will pay off more mathematically when we can then double. It’s not a huge amount, but a tenth of a percent here, a tenth of a percent there, and pretty soon, you are talking about real money.
All else being equal, the lower the number of decks, the more significant the house advantage. Without getting into too many details, we will see slightly more blackjacks in single-deck games and much better results when doubling with single decks, and this is due to the effects of the removal of cards impacting fewer decks.
The difference between eight decks and a single deck is 0.56%, so fewer decks are preferred if everything else stays the same.
When it comes to blackjack, not all games are created equal. Some might have strict rules like 6/5 on blackjack or dealer hits soft seventeen, and some might have weird rules like blackjack switch or double exposure that don’t appeal to most players. In the case of online games, some might have crappy graphics or awkward gameplay.
Conversely, to be a popular online blackjack game, you will need to meet all three requirements: low house advantage, crisp and clean graphics, and rules that people understand and enjoy playing.
Here are a few games that meet the criteria:
Live dealer games are the hot new thing at the moment, and that is particularly true of live dealer blackjack. Instead of playing against a random number generator on an arcade-like screen, you can play against live dealers, dealing real cards, live-streamed in high definition.
Over half of online table game revenue in many states comes from live dealer games. Check out these games to see why.
It’s best to take late surrender in context. Yes, it only reduces the house edge by less than one-tenth of one percent. But in games where the house advantage is a minuscule .2 to .4 percent, we are talking about another 25-50 percent reduction in the house advantage. Here are some of our favorite blackjack games offering surrender.
As discussed previously, we would like to play games with smaller numbers of decks, but this has the unintended effect of casinos tightening other rules that make the house edge larger. While single and double decks can be found, they are not always worth the trade-off. Many casinos then try to slip in only double 10 and 11, or the dealer hits soft 17, or the absolute mockery that is 6/5 “blackjack”.
Blackjack Touch-Single Deck: This is a single-deck blackjack game from NetEnt; it trades off the single deck for the dealer hitting soft 17, but it is specifically designed for mobile devices, is crisp and clean, and is a joy to play on your phone. The Return to Player is 99.6%
Vegas Downtown Blackjack Gold: Microgaming has had a version of this game for well over a decade. The dealer hits a soft 17, but only two decks are in play. Some versions allow you to play up to five spots multi-hand. A retro, chill soundtrack and updated graphics make this another great game.
When it comes time to look for a great online casino to play blackjack, we want a ton of blackjack games with a house advantage of under 1%. It’s also nice to have a great welcome bonus and reward points that we can use for things like comped dinners and free hotel nights. And we will need free play, promotions, and tournaments to round all that out. Here are a few of the best real money online casinos to play blackjack:
Caesars checks all our boxes with over 30 great blackjack games, including over a dozen live dealer games, plus a welcome bonus match of 100% up to $2500 with the code NYPCASINO2500.
You also get 2500 Caesar’s Reward Points just for making your first $25 in wagers. You then earn more Caesar’s rewards on every dollar you play and can spend them at more than 55 land-based casinos around the country.
They offer great bounce-back free play offers and ongoing daily, weekly, and monthly promotions.
BetMGM has more than two dozen blackjack games in their library, including the top Live Dealer games from Evolution and Ezugi. They have many blackjack variations and side bets like 21+3 and Blackjack Switch. The site also offers a demo mode for free blackjack.
You can use the BetMGM Casino bonus code NYP2500 to get a 100% Deposit Match up to $2500 + $50 on the House.
While not as quick to give away their MGM reward points, you still earn them on every wager and you can use them at any of their properties, including their more than a dozen ultra-luxury resorts in Las Vegas like Bellagio or Aria or in Atlantic City at Borgata. Again, there are more promotions, tournaments, and events in a week than you can keep track of here.
FanDuel offers 28 blackjack games, including Blazing Seven’s Blackjack, Zappit, and the more traditional Poker and Pairs Blackjack.
FanDuel Online Casino offers a $1,000 Play It Again Bonus + 200 Bonus Spins bonus. No code is required to take advantage of this offer.
FanDuel does not have a rewards points program, as its real appeal is the constant promotions, giveaways, and drawings. These are great ways to pick up free play or cash to augment your welcome bonus and help keep the house edge low.
Suppose we use blackjack basic strategy charts every time we play. In that case, we are guaranteed to play the perfect blackjack strategy, giving us the lowest house edge possible, which in the case of online casinos is never much more than 0.5% if we choose our blackjack game wisely.
By using this basic strategy chart in combination with welcome bonuses, bounce-back offers, email offers, giveaways, promotions, and tournament entries, we can reduce this house edge even more, allowing us to play longer and more confidently.
You’ve got questions about using your basic strategy chart to play blackjack, and we’ve got answers:
The best basic blackjack strategy will change depending on the number of decks you are playing against and the particular rules of the game. Make sure you know the answers to these questions, then print out the exact blackjack basic strategy for that number of decks and rule set.
Generally, you want to hit until you have at least seventeen when the dealer has a seven through 11-card or an ace-up. Otherwise, you should hit until you have at least a twelve.
Insurance can be considered a bad bet unless the true count exceeds +4, which is very unlikely when playing online. Taking insurance on a high count in Atlantic City will be the first thing a pit boss checks when evaluating your play.
Yes! You can use your basic blackjack strategy chart while you play online, at the casino in Las Vegas, or even at the casino on a cruise ship. You can play the perfect basic strategy every time, anywhere.
Online blackjack is not rigged at the legal online casinos in the USA. While casino managers down in the islands have been known to cut a corner or two, here in the States, the CEOs who are licensed and run some of the biggest online gambling companies in the world are a bit more risk-averse.
Each state has a robust and well-funded gaming agency that takes its job of protecting the public extremely seriously. They even have their own computer labs and independent labs to verify and test the software.