Online Blackjack

The number of decks used has a major effect on the player’s chance of winning, because it affects the house advantage. All things being equal, fewer decks are always more favorable for the basic strategy player. One cause of this is that player blackjack is slightly more likely in single deck blackjack (because blackjack requires two different cards, by removing a card of one type (e.g., a Ten), getting one of a different type (e.g., an Ace) is more likely – and the effect is much greater in a single deck game than in a multi-deck game), and if the player does have blackjack, the dealer is significantly less likely to have blackjack as well (which is a push), meaning that statistically the player should get paid at 3:2 more often in the single deck game.

When single deck blackjack is offered, it is generally offered with more restrictive rules that favor the house. For illustrative purposes, the statistics below all use the same rules: double after split, resplit to four hands, one card to split Aces, no surrender, double on any two cards, original bets only lost on dealer blackjack, dealer hits soft 17, and cut-card used. The single deck game is much better than double deck, which is significantly better than four decks, while from six decks and up there is very little difference.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.