Do you need Blackjack Strategy?

Do you need to use blackjack basic strategy to win money? The short answer: Yes. The long answer…well, keep reading.

First of all, I should tell you what blackjack basic strategy is. A long time ago, a bunch of mathematicians who are a lot smarter than me decided to calculate the odds for every decision you have to make in blackjack. These decisions include when to hit, when to stand, when to double down, when to split a pair, when to surrender and more. The basic strategy takes into account the number of cards in a deck, your likelihood of drawing a certain card, your chances of busting, the dealer’s chances of busting, your odds of outdrawing the dealer and more.

Basically, blackjack basic strategy is really complicated, but the good news is that it’s easy to learn. If you Google “blackjack basic strategy chart” you will find the industry-accepted strategy. Study the chart, learn it and follow it and you’re good.

If you use perfect basic strategy and stick to it, in the long run you will reduce the house edge to only 0.5%. That means that means that the casino will take 1 cent of your money for every $2 you wager, and you will get to keep the rest. You will not often find better odds than that at a casino. Most of the money that casinos make off of blackjack are from people who don’t use basic strategy, which is why you should use it.

Once you learn basic strategy, you need to have the discipline to stick to it. You will sometimes get into losing streaks and it can be easy to say “this isn’t working; I’m going to try something new.” That is a bad idea and will lead to you losing more money in the long run.

Also, sometimes what seems like common sense actually goes against basic strategy. For instance, sometimes players will look at their hand, think it’s too low and decide to take a hit. The mistake they made is not noticing the good odds of the dealer busting. Other times the opposite will happen, where they will decide to stand, afraid of busting, even though the dealer likely already has their hand beat.

So do you need to use blackjack basic strategy? If you want to keep as much of your money as possible, the answer is yes. If you feel like being charitable and giving the money away, feel free to contact me instead of giving it to a casino. :)