I love playing blackjack against the casino, either one on one, or with other players. The aim of blackjack is to get as near to 21, or 21 itself, without busting. Whilst there was originally just one variety of blackjack, there are now many varieties of blackjack available in land based casinos and online. These varieties include downtown Vegas blackjack, Atlantic City blackjack, face up blackjack, UK Rules blackjack, blackjack switch and others. Every online casino offers blackjack of some form or another. Many online casinos also offer live dealer blackjack, and often with very wide betting spreads.

There are two main ways to win at blackjack: a) basic strategy, a scoring blackjack methodology, and stick to it; and b) be very lucky. You should always now how many decks are in the game you are playing against, and when the house will shuffle the cards in the deck(s). Single deck games allow for possible card counting, and double deck games too – but card counting on large shoes of cards is more tricky. Most land based casinos use 4 or more decks and shuffle after every hand – so you can’t shuffle track / count cards. Online casinos potentially allow counting as you can see all cards and just enter for a bet when you feel the count is favourable to you. But this only works on largely full blackjack tables.

Discipline is essential to win on blackjack. Your betting strategy and game strategy must be strong, and you should not deviate from it at all. Avoid playing blackjack when you’re drunk, angry, or tired.

Be careful in any land based casino if you’re attempting to count cards in blackjack. It’s important that you always look relaxed, be chatty, and don’t appear to be concentrating too deeply on the cards – you might get unnecessary attention and be told not to play. I’ve seen it happen to players. One player I sat near won about 20 hands in a row which is not normal, and made a good amount of money because he was doubling his bets after a while (so winning more with every hand) up to the house table limit. He was allowed to gather his chips from the table, but on route to the cashier’s cage he was taken into a side room by security and talked to.

Scary stuff. The casino did allow him to cash out upon presentation of his identification (they believed he was not a counter and had just had some amazing luck), but it scared him off playing in that casino for a couple of years. I’m sure there are some players who get into even worse situations.

If you’re not a card counter, then basic strategy is your best mathematical chance to win on blackjack. Use basic strategy with your other techniques to reduce with the house edge on blackjack. This should give you a better chance to beat the house each time you play. Good luck with your blackjack career!