Online blackjack is one of the most profitable gambling games. When you employ even the most basic blackjack strategy, you would be able to reduce the house edge to at least 2%, without the need to increase your bets. If you master this strategy, you could even reduce it to less than 0.5%!
Other online casino games do not offer this opportunity. For example, to reduce the house edge of online Asia188 Slot, you would need to increase your bet to gain access to multi-line options. Blackjack also gives you a large enough space for control.
Basic Blackjack strategy is all about comparing your hand to the dealer’s hand. Which actions of blackjack to perform according to the table’s present situation could be easily summarized. We offer these in the following tables.
The good thing about online blackjack is that you can easily look at this web page while playing. That means you don’t need to memorize at all!
When to Hit and to Stand
The most basic rule is to always look at the situation of the whole table and not just at your own hand. The dealer’s cards may be closer to busting than yours, but sometimes, standing at this point would be disadvantageous to you. Here are guides to help you decide when to hit and when to stand.
1. For a Hard Hand
A hard hand is one that does not contain an Ace. Taking hits with this hand is generally riskier.
Hit or Stand Probabilities for Hard Hands
2. For a Soft Hand
A soft hand is one that contains an Ace. Since the Ace could be valued either as 1 or 11, this makes taking hits somewhat easier.
Hit or Stand Probabilities for Soft Hands
When to Double Down
Doubling down increases your profit, but sometimes even seemingly strong hands are more prone to losses than they look. The following tables illustrate situations when you should double down and when you should not. Remember that different online casinos may have different rules on doubling down, as some limit it to hands of a certain value.
When to Split Pairs
Generally, splitting pairs increases your chances of winning, since you’re literally given two hands. As a general strategy, you should split all Aces and 8s, and you should retain pairs of 10s and 5s. Be sure to familiarize yourself with the rules of the online casino regarding splitting pairs – some online casinos only allow certain pairs to be split up. The following table illustrates which pairs to split and at what situation.
Y = Split, N = Don’t Split
A Note about Insurance Bets and Surrendering
It is against basic strategy and logic to place an insurance bet. All insurance bets will always be to your disadvantage: there are only sixteen cards with a value of 10 existing in a deck of 52 cards. That’s only a 31% chance of winning back your initial bet! You won’t even gain any profit if you win. Furthermore, the chances that the dealer would be gaining a blackjack would lessen once other cards with a value of 10 appear. This would be the same reason why surrendering (as rare as this option may be) is never advantageous to a player. By giving up the chance to beat the dealer, you are also giving up your money – you could have profited instead of lost.
