Whether you’re a veteran blackjack player or a novice player, you’ve likely heard about one of these ideas below. They are some of the most frequent ideas or tips for new players. But are they real?
While the answer can sometimes be more complicated than a yes or no answer, in some of these myths the answer is simple. After playing long-term blackjack and basic blackjack strategy, let’s see if some of the blackjack myths can be refuted and disproved.
Putting you to a blackjack
This is one of the most common myths in the blackjack world. The idea is that your placement whether it is the third rule or the first rule is important in terms of the outcome of the game. this is not true. Since blackjack is based solely on math and chance, your placement at the blackjack table makes absolutely no difference to the odds and outcome of the game.
Furthermore, there is a question as to when a third base player makes a suboptimal play it affects the entire table. This is also incorrect due to similar reasons as described above. Blackjack is indeed a game of skill, but your level or the skill level of other players does not affect anyone’s odds. The crucial thing for the quality of the payouts and the outcome of the game is your skill alone. Your results will not affect other players or vice versa.
Players should always take insurance
Insurance bets in blackjack have always been a controversial topic. Its benefit essentially allows the player to tie when the dealer scores a blackjack by paying the player 2:1 up to half of their original bet. However, novice players usually fail to notice that blackjack insurance bets have a huge 7.7% house edge to the casino.
This means that if you were to insure every bet throughout a long casino night of blackjack, you would always leave the blackjack table every night with less money than you started with.
Unless you are proficient in card counting strategies and the rest of the deck is rich in ten-value cards, you generally shouldn’t take the insurance bet. It is simply an unprofitable bet on the course of countless computer simulation games.
The continuous variable should always be avoided
This one is a bit tricky as it has its advantages and disadvantages. There are continuous shufflers to make the dealer’s job easier as they can simply pull out all the cards after the game and put them into the machine to switch. This means that after each game discarded cards are randomly placed in the shoe with the chance that those same cards will reappear in the following rounds. This makes card counting strategies more difficult to implement as you can never correctly predict the outcome of a deck.
On the other hand, a large variance in the game significantly increases the mathematical probabilities of positive outcomes. This is of course for players who don’t just count cards. Moreover, since the distributor does not have to shuffle, it reduces the setup time for games. This allows more hands to be played. This can of course be beneficial and unfavorable for players depending on their playing style.
The single deck game is always the best for the player
Taking into account the basic blackjack strategy and different card counting methods, the number of decks in any blackjack game is very important. The general idea is that the fewer decks in blackjack the more advantage the player has. This is due to the fact that it is much easier to use card counting strategies when there are fewer cards to count. Thus, single deck blackjack is easier to track than eight deck blackjack.
However, various casino establishments have been hosting blackjack games for decades. They are aware of this and have implemented methods like a single deck table but with different payout possibilities to offset this player’s advantage. The most common are the 6:5 single deck blackjack payout tables. This can fool the player into a false sense of security because the 6:5 ratio is much less profitable than the standard 3:2 ratio.
Therefore, the returns of a blackjack table are much more important than the number of decks the table plays.
Players should always use progressive betting systems
Finally, we have the infamous progressive betting systems. One of the most popular is Martingale where you double your bet every time you lose. This means that as long as you win in the end, you’ll come away with a positive budget of at least $1 in theory. This may sound great but progressive betting systems like Martingale have their downsides.
The problem is that in the long run, you will realistically reach a certain point in your gaming budget. You simply will not be able to double your bet after a long losing streak. In this case, you will lose all your previously doubled bets. This is why the Martingale system is so unreliable over the course of longer gaming careers.
The best option is to stick to the traditional tried and true options such as the basic blackjack strategy chart guides.
