7 Quick Strategies for Winning Blackjack Play

More winning gamblers play blackjack than any other game in the casino. This alone should tell you that you should learn how to play blackjack, and you should learn to play it well.

If you learn how to find the blackjack tables with the right mix of rules and learn how to make the smart plays, you’re going to be playing the game that gives you the best chance to win.

Here are 7 quick strategies you can use for winning blackjack play. Every single 1 of these strategies is important, but you need to use all 7 of them together to have the best chance to win.

1 – 3 to 2 or Bust

If there’s a single thing that practically guarantees that you’re not going to win when you play blackjack it’s playing at a table that only pays 6 to 5 for a blackjack. This might not seem like a big deal at first, but if you run a few simple numbers you can easily see why you should never play blackjack unless it pays at least 3 to2.

If you wager $40 a hand and get 1,000 natural blackjacks over the course of a year, consider a couple numbers. When blackjack pays 6 to 5, you win $48,000. But if it pays 3 to 2 you win $60,000.

Over the course of a year, even if you are a fairly small gambler, it costs you $12,000 when you play with 6 to 5 instead of 3 to 2. This is $1,000 a month.

The bottom line is if the blackjack table doesn’t pay at least 3 to 2, don’t play. Don’t ever break this blackjack rule.

2 – Dealer Rules

Dealers in blackjack have a strict procedure they have to follow about playing their hand. The only thing that caries from blackjack table to table is if the dealer hits or stands on a soft 17.

Every other rule is the same for the dealers. They hit until they have more than 16 and they stand on anything 18 or over. They also always stand on a hard 17.


Why do you care if the blackjack dealer stand or hits a soft 17?

It doesn’t make a huge difference, but as you learned in the previous section, a small difference can add up to a lot of money over time. It’s slightly better mathematically for you when the dealer stands on a soft 17. Sometimes the rules say the dealer stands on a soft 17 and sometimes the rules simply say that the dealer stands a 17 and above.

If the other rules are good at the table, it’s acceptable to play when the dealer hits a soft 17. But look for tables without this rule first.

3 – Only 1 Strategy Is Best

You have to make 1 or more decisions every time you play a hand of blackjack. Every decision you make helps you win more in the long run or makes you lose more in the long run. Every decision is either positive or negative. No decision is neutral.

So how do you know what the best play is in every situation?

You have 2 choices. You can either run all of the math scenarios or use a strategy card. I’ve run most of the math scenarios, and I’m telling you that it’s much easier to just get a strategy card.

A blackjack strategy card has information about how to play every single hand you can receive at the table. All you need to do is find your hand and the dealer card and follow the instructions.

Using the single best blackjack strategy is the only way you can make sure that you have the best chance to win.

4 – Control the Speed of the Game

Even when you play blackjack on tables with the right rules and use the best strategy, you still are going to lose more than you win. You might be close to break even play, but you’re still going to lose if you play long enough.

This means that the more you risk when you bet, the more you’re losing. You can do 3 different things to combat this. The first thing is to learn some advantage methods. I cover this in the finals section on this page.

The second thing you can do is control how much you risk. You control this by how much you wager on each hand.

You should use the table minimum bet amount when you play blackjack. The minimums are smaller when you play online blackjack, but even if you play in a live casino you can stick with the table minimum.

The third thing you can do is control how many wagers you make every hour. In a live game this is harder to do, but you can slow things down a little by playing slower. Where you can really slow things down is when you play blackjack online.

When you play blackjack online you control how fast you play. Nobody cares if you play 5 hands and hour or 10 hands and hour.

5 – Use Coupons, Bonuses, and Promos

Another way you can fight the casino edge is when you use promotions, bonuses, coupons, and comps. Most blackjack players just sit down at a table and play without even looking at these types of options.

Look for coupons, comps, and promotions before you play in a land based casino. And look for bonuses, comps, and promotions before playing blackjack in an online or mobile casino.

When you’re playing against a small casino edge, every extra promo or bonus you can use helps you cut into the edge more. Even if it’s just a coupon for a free wager or a free ace it improves your chance to win.

Never play blackjack without looking at all of the available perks.

6 – Side Wagers Are Always Bad

If you’ve played blackjack for long you’ve been offered insurance by the dealer. Sometimes they call it even money, but it’s still the same as insurance.

Casinos and blackjack dealers act like insurance is a part of the base blackjack game, but it isn’t. Insurance is a side wager, and every time the casino or dealer gets a gambler to take insurance it increases the profits for the casino.

The sneaky thing that the casinos are doing is making insurance look like a good bet. They offer it as a chance to break even when the dealer has an ace, but the problem is that you have to risk more money. And the dealer has a card that’s not worth 10 points more often than they have a card worth 10 points in the hole.

When this happens you lose the second wager, and you still have to play the original wager hand with a disadvantage. You have a disadvantage because any hand with an ace is more likely to win than a hand without an ace.

Insurance is just like every other side wager the casino offers. It’s made so the casino makes more money. Side wagers are never for your good as a gambler. This is why you should never fall into the trap of taking side wagers when they’re available or offered.

7 – Learn Advantage Play Methods

Now you know everything you need to know about playing blackjack with a low casino edge. But there’s another step you can take that can give you an edge against the casino.

What I’m talking about is called advantage play methods. These methods include counting cards, ace sequencing, hole carding, and shuffle tracking.

Before you get too excited, you need to know that these are all advanced methods and they aren’t easy. And even if you become an expert in 1 or more of these methods you’re not going to be able to use them all of the time.

But once you master everything else on this page, you should start looking at these advantage methods. I recommend starting by reading about card counting. It’s not easy, but it’s easier than the other methods I mentioned.

Conclusion

Everything starts with playing blackjack games with good rules. A single bad rule, like 6 to 5 for a blackjack, can ruin the entire game.

Once you learn how to find the right tables, then you have to make the best play on every single hand. This is the only way to lower the casino edge.

Control the speed of the game as much as you can, use every promotion you can find, avoid all side wagers, and learn more about advantage blackjack methods. This is how you’re going to beat blackjack in the long run.