How To Know When To Bet Big In Blackjack

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Math isn’t something that most gamblers want to think about when they’re gambling, but it can help in so many ways. Blackjack is a casino game that shows exactly how much knowing a little bit of math can improve results.

In fact, if you embrace the arithmetic behind the game, you can actually win more than you lose when you play blackjack.

  1. If you think you have an “information edge” in this game of imperfect information, and the edge is big enough to make you think you have a 90% chance of getting the bet correct and the risk/reward is appropriate for you based on the size of your bankroll (money management being another critical part of gambling mathematics) then you make your bet.
  2. A new shoe is just about to begin. You place your usual starting bet, hoping for that one 'big' shoe. The three other players are all dealt 20 while you get blackjack. The dealer turns over a pat 19. So far, so good. On the next hand you get your second blackjack in a row, the other three players are again dealt 20 and the dealer's got another pat 19.

The plain and simple truth is that no betting system on its own can help you beat the house, but some can help you improve your odds even more when combined with other blackjack strategies. For example, when using card counting and basic strategy, you can allow yourself to increase the bet amount when the count is high, as then the strategy cards are considered to be ‘more correct’ and your chances at winning are higher.

Here are seven mathematical facts that every blackjack player needs to know.

1 – Odds Based on a Specific Set of Cards

The best thing about playing blackjack for real money is that everything that happens when you play is controlled by a specific set of cards. Most blackjack players don’t think about the game this way, but there are only 52 cards in a deck.

Even if the game is using six or eight decks of cards, there are still only 52 possible cards. And the base game of blackjack really only uses 13 sets of cards. This is because the jack of diamonds and jack of spades are the same. And because there are 13 ranks of cards, there are only 13 sets of cards that matter, no matter how many decks are being used.

This might not seem like it matters much, but once you understand why this is important and how you can use it, it helps you make smart decisions at the blackjack table.

If you have a hard 16 and the dealer is showing a six, do you know what the correct play is? You’re going to learn more about strategy cards in a different section. But if you don’t have a strategy card, you can get a good idea of the correct play using the fact that there are only 13 possible card ranks in the deck.

If you hit and get any card of six through king, you bust. If you bust, it doesn’t matter what happens to the dealer hand. This means that eight cards will make you bust, and only five help your hand.

How To Know When To Bet Big In Blackjack Poker

You also know that the dealer has one of the 13 cards as his or her face down card. If the dealer has a 10 through king, they have a hard 16 and have the same chance to bust as you. You also know that if they have a six through nine, they have to hit and have a decent chance to bust. This means that eight out of 13 cards are bad for the dealer.

If these are the only things you know, it’s clear that the best play is to stand. This is why a specific set of cards is valuable to you when you play blackjack. You can use this information every time you play.

2 – Splitting Eights

Now, you can see some specific ways to use the information you learned about in the first section. Consider your hand if you start with a pair of eights.

If you had to play a pair of eights as a hard hand, you would start with a hard 16. A hard 16 is the worst hand you can have, but luckily in this case, you have the opportunity to split the pair.

You have to place another wager, but it’s worth it to avoid starting with a hard 16. You receive another card on each of your eights.

Here’s a list of cards that help you a great deal on an eight. A two, three, nine, 10, jack, queen, king, and ace all put you in a good spot. This is eight out of 13 cards. Even a four through seven is better than a hard 16. This means that, by splitting, you can’t possibly be in a worse spot than playing it as a hard hand.

If you get another eight, you can split again.

3 – Splitting Aces

When you start with a pair of aces, you have either two or 12. Neither of these is a good starting total. But when you split aces, you have an opportunity to improve by a large amount.

Any of the cards 10 through king give you a total of 21. A six through nine all give you a soft 17 or better. The only cards that don’t help you much are two through five, and you still have a soft hand with each of these. You still have a chance to win. This is another situation where eight out of the 13 possibilities improve your hand quite a bit.

You can see how the mathematics of blackjack help you improve your chances to win by the examples in these first three sections.

4 – Doubling Down

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The usefulness of mathematics in blackjack doesn’t stop with the examples above. It’s also useful in situations where you need to determine how to get more money in play when you have a good chance to win.

When you have a hard 11, 10, or nine, it’s often more profitable to double down than to hit. When you double down, you get twice as much money in play on the hand, and you receive one more card to complete your hand.

With an 11, you should double down every time except when the dealer has an ace showing. With a hard 10, doubling down is the most profitable play except when the dealer has an ace or 10 point card showing. And with a nine, you should double down when the dealer shows a three through six.

A few soft hands also are more profitable to double down with, and you can learn more about these hands by using a strategy card. You can learn more about strategy cards in the next section.

5 – Casino Strategy Cards

Now that you see how valuable it is to use math when gambling, you might be wondering if you need to do all of the math yourself. I’m going to put your mind at ease. Someone else has already done all the blackjack math for you and put it in an easy-to-use strategy card.

You can get a strategy card and use it every time you play blackjack. The card has all of the best possible plays, so you simply follow the card on every hand. It covers hard hands, pairs, and soft hands.

6 – Counting Cards

Even if you use a strategy card, you still are fighting a house edge. This means that you’re losing money playing blackjack, even though you’re playing with a small house edge.

But you can use math to help you turn this around and get a small edge against the casino. The way to do this is to use card counting.

Card counting may seem complicated at first, but it’s just a way to use math to play with an edge. You keep track of high and low cards that are played, then make larger wagers when you have an edge.

If you play blackjack, you should learn more about counting cards. It’s not as hard as you probably think, and once you learn how to use proper card counting systems, you can benefit every time you play.

7 – Sizing Your Bets

Math is also helpful when it comes to figuring out how much you need to bet when you play blackjack. And it’s actually pretty simple to figure this out.

When you play blackjack and the casino has an edge, you need to bet the lowest amount possible. This means that every time you play blackjack and aren’t counting cards, you need to make the table’s minimum wager.

Even when you’re using a strategy card, the casino has an edge. It isn’t a big edge, but it’s still an edge. This means that the bigger your bets are, the more you lose.

When you learn about card counting, you learn when you have an edge. When you have an edge, you bet more. This is the only time that you should ever bet more than the table minimum.

Depending on the size of your bankroll, you should bet as much as possible when you have an edge. In real life, it’s hard to always bet the least and the most possible depending on the situation. But you’re going to learn how to do this as you learn more about counting cards.

Conclusion

The power of blackjack math starts with the 13 ranks of cards in the deck. Once you understand how you can use this knowledge, your results are going to improve right away.

Use the math behind a blackjack strategy card to get started, then learn how to count cards. If you practice long enough, you can learn how to get an edge every time you play.

One of the most often asked questions from players about blackjack strategy, is 'how should I bet?' You've got severaloptions and I'll discuss them in this article and offer my recommendation.

Flat Bet Blackjack Strategy

This means betting the same amount all the time. Most players don't like to bet this way because they figure if the dealer wins more hands then them they'll never win any money. Also, playersfeel it's boring betting this way. They prefer the thrill of sometimes betting more in the hopes that when they do so, they will win the hand and make a nice profit.

Here are the facts on the flat betting blackjack strategy. If you bet say $5 on every hand in a standard multiple deck game the house will have an edge of 0.5% against theskilled basic strategy player. That means you will lose on average 0.5% of every wager you make. So if you bet $10 on every hand and average 80 hands per hour you will have made a total of $800worth of bets. The casino expects to earn 0.5% of the $800 or $4.00. Of course, the more likely result is that you'll win or lose much more than $4 after an hour of play. But on average you canexpect over time to lose at the rate of $4 per hour.

Let's take an example of a player flat betting $10 on every hand. It's is a conservative betting strategy that leads to a relatively low theoretical loss rate. The fluctuation in this player'sbankroll will also be low which means the likelihood he'll have a big winning or losing session is not great.

Watch 'Why You Should Never Make the Blackjack Insurance Bet with Blackjack Expert Henry Tamburin' (March 2016)

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In this video blackjack expert Henry Tamburin explains why a basic strategy player should never make an insurance bet. He gives details on three different situations that a player may encounterand why he considers blackjack insurance to always be a sucker bet.

Progressive Betting Blackjack Strategy

This is where things get interesting. The Progressive betting blackjack strategy is when players vary their bets in some way from one hand to the next rather than alwaysbetting the same amount on every hand. There are all different types of betting progressions but they all have one common denominator. You either decrease or increase your next bet dependingupon whether the hand you just played won or lose.

How To Know When To Bet Big In Blackjack Card Game

Win progressions encourage you to increase your bet size after a winning hand. For example, you make a minimum bet of $10 and if you win, you raise your next stakes on the hand to $20.

There are all different kinds of win progressions. The most common is a 1-2-3-5 progression. This means you increase your bet by the above multiples after each winning hand butas soon as you experience a loss, you start the progression over with a 1 unit bet.

Proponents of win progressions will tell you that you'll win more money if you win 5 consecutive hands compared to the amount you lose if you lose 5 consecutive hands. Of course, what theydon't tell you is that you never know when that 5 consecutive winning hand streak will occur.

How To Know When To Bet Big In Blackjack Real Money

There are also betting progressions in which you increase your bet following a loss. These Martingale type betting progressions are dangerous and you should never consider using them.

There are also hybrid betting progressions, which have you increase your bets following a win, but after two or three success wins you lock up some profit and gradually regress your bets. Thecreativity of progressive bettors is never-ending.

First of all, the blackjack strategy for betting progressions does not change the 0.5% house edge one iota. There has never been a correlation between the hand just won (orlost) and your chance of winning the next hand. In other words, using the criteria of the result of one hand (W/L) to base how you bet on the next hand has no scientific validity. So bettingprogressions, in the long run, don't work in the sense that they won't improve your long-term chances of winning.

But here's what betting progressions will do. First off they increase the fluctuation in your session bankroll compared to flat betting. This means you can win more using abetting progression compared to flat betting but you can also lose more. Secondly, betting progressions will increase the amount of money you wager per hour compared to flat betting. If a $10bettor uses a 1-2-3-5 betting progression, his average bet will $20. Over an hour he will average $20 times 80 hands or $1600 worth of bets. The casino's expected win is 0.5% of $1600 or $8. Inother words, a $10 progressive bettor stands to lose twice as much per hour as a $10 flat bettor.

Here's a tip to save you some money in the long run if you insist on using a betting progression. Instead of starting your progression at $10, start at a lower amount (ie. $5). This will reduceyour average bet to $10 per hour and cut your hourly theoretical loss rate in half.

But in the long run flat betting and betting progressions don't work in the sense they won't change the house edge against you and you will lose in the long run. So what betting system works?That, my friends, is card counting.

Betting When You Have The Edge (Card Counting)

With card counting, you know when you have the edge based on the change in the composition of the decks and therefore you'll know when it's the right time to bet more. Sounlike betting progressions that are based on whether you win or lose the previous hands, card counting is based on the mix of cards that were played on previous hands. If more small valuecards were played in previous rounds, there are more big value cards left in the unplayed cards, and the edge shifts from dealer to the player. This would be the best time to bet more.

But I'm a realist. Not a whole lot of average blackjack players have the time or mental concentration during play that is required to master one of the popular point count cardcounting systems. These are readily available in blackjack books. But even though millions of blackjack books have been sold since Ed Thorp's classic book, Beat The Dealer (circa 1962) firstrevealed card counting to the masses, the number of players who can successfully win money in the long run at blackjack number in the hundreds and thousands.

So what's the answer to betting at blackjack for the average player? I asked Don Pronovost that same question about four years ago. Don is a software developer that markets blackjack trainingsoftware. He spent the better part of two years and a trillion computer simulated hands looking for the solution to this dilemma. What he developed is Speed Count.

Speed Count is unlike any conventional card counting system. It's much simpler to master and requires much less concentration when you play. And unlike progressive betting systems, Speed Countwill give you a verifiable advantage over the casino You can read about Speed Count in Frank Scoblete’s book, Golden Touch Blackjack Revolution.

Now that you know the scoop on betting at blackjack, I wish you many aces and faces the next time you play.

Henry Tamburin has been a respected casino gambling writer for the past 50 years. He is the author of theUltimate Blackjack Strategy Guide and was editor of theBlackjack Insider newsletter. You can read his latest articles on blackjack, video poker, and his personal playing experiences at https://www.888casino.com/blog/writers/henry-tamburin

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