Every casino game has it and every gambler has heard it: a 'strategy' or a 'system' a fellow patron, friend or expert swears by or recommends wholeheartedly. Devised plans and tactical preparations are natural things to expect when you're out at the tables with players who love the game or live by it.
If you are using the basic blackjack strategy, you should not be thinking of taking insurance. In the case of card counting, however, players know when it is the right moment to make an insurance bet. If you are dealt a blackjack and the face-up card of the dealer is an Ace, you will simply have to take your chances. At the Lucky Ladies side bet players are betting that their first two cards total 20, ideally with two queens. The top payoff is 1,000 to 1 if you get two queens of hearts and the dealer has a blackjack.
Blackjack is the most popular game in the world because we, as players, have agency and control over our bets. Decision-making and smart-thinking is not just an option; it's necessary to play and win the game, and unlike games like Roulette where a win is 100% determined by chance and luck, the game of 21 can be won with brains.
In the simplest terms, blackjack betting systems are ways of using money management to maximise our winnings and to walk away with profits. You can be the luckiest blackjack player around, but if you don't follow basic money management at all, you're going to eventually walk away in the red. Unlike basic, universal blackjack strategies or basic strategy, betting systems are constructed more out of following patterns rather basing moves on mathematical probability.
Before we examine the most popular blackjack betting strategies, there are two main types of blackjack betting systems which each strategy can be defined by.
Blackjack sites for online players
What is a Negative Progressive System in Blackjack?
A negative progressive system involves increasing or doubling your bets after each loss. Strategies which revolve around this system are based on the high probability that you will recoup your losses over time and gain a profit after a win down the track.
Negative progressive systems are popular but not for the weak-hearted or those with smaller bankrolls. The most prominent example, the Martingale strategy, can drain even the most generous bankroll within a few consecutive losses. Along with influencing factors such as imposed maximum table limits, these sorts of systems can be unwise for players who are uneducated or not careful when employing such tactics.
What is a Positive Progressive System in Blackjack?
A positive progressive system involves increasing your bets after each win and decreasing your bets after each loss. Strategies which revolve around this system are based more around maximising winning streaks rather than chasing losses and knowing when to go for the big bets.
Positive progressive systems are slower in structure but a lot more friendlier to newbies. A strategy such as the Paroli is perfect for players who do not have a big bankroll or who aren't willing to risk a large amount after each loss.
The Martingale
The Martingale strategy is one of the oldest devised betting systems in the world and the most alluring. Lightning link casino app. It's mostly associated with roulette, but it's also a prominent strategy employed by many blackjack players for 'can't fail' premise and widespread popularity.
The Martingale is probably the best known example of a negative progression system, one where the core principle is based on increasing your bets after each loss by doubling and recouping losses.
The whole point of the strategy is to increase your shot at the big bucks in the short-term. The only problem is we have to have the cojones to follow through, as the risk is considerable.
Martingale in Play
When we make a standard bet of $5, every time we win that hand, we make the same amount of our original bet in the next bet. Should we lose — which is, of course, always a high possibility — we counter this by doubling our wagers on the next hand following the loss. Whenever we eventually win, we revert back to our original $5 starting bet.
For example: if we placed a $5 wager on a hard hand of 19 and win, we make a profit of $5 and continue to bet $5 on the next bet. If happened to lose that hand, though, we proceed to place a $10 wager for the next game — double our original $5 bet. If we lose again and again:
We bet $20 and lose ($35 in total losses).
Wet bet $40 and lose ($75 in total losses).
We bet $80 and lose ($155 in total losses).
We bet $160 and lose ($315 in total losses).
Wet bet $320 and lose ($635 in total losses).
We bet $640 and lose ($1,275 in total losses).
We bet $1,280 and lose ($2,555 in total losses).
Final Verdict
In essence, players who follow the Martingale rely on the eventual long-term win to pull them through, even after huge losses along the way. After a series of losing hands, the probability of a continuous streak of losses theoretically lessens every hand until we win, and when we eventually have a winning hand once more, our net gain will be up by $10, along with the return of our past losses. But would you risk another $2,560 to win such a measly amount of profit?
The problem with the Martingale strategy is even with starting bets as small as $5, we're in danger of losing a lot of money very quickly. Add in the fact most blackjack tables enforce maximum betting limits and it's entirely possible we'll be unable to continue betting to win back such massive losses — otherwise, we could just as easily wipe ourselves out. For this reason, we strongly advise using the Martingale strategy to avoid serious losses — employ it for fun, not if you're expecting actual profit.
Parlay Strategy
The Parlay betting strategy is another extremely risky system followed by many blackjack players who are not fans of the more common Martingale.
The origin of the strategy comes from the same premise banks used to compound interest, establishing it as one of the oldest methods of wagering. Despite its origins, it is one of the easiest tactics to understand given there is minimal mathematical background.
In comparison to the Martingale, the Parlay is a positive progression betting system that revolves around 'letting it ride' and knowing when to use hot streaks effectively. We double our bets after each win rather than chasing losses; for some, this makes up for the fallacies of the Martingale system.
Parlay in Play
Before practicing the Parlay strategy in a game, we must set up a Win Limit and a Loss Limit to know when we are to keep our profits rather than continue to stack it atop our wins, and when we've lost enough to stop playing. These are crucial to the strategy because we can't win anything if we keep wagering our profits on the line.
Setting an appropriate Win and Loss Limit is essential if we actually expect any sizeable returns. For instance, if we're betting $10 per hand and set a Win Limit of $2,000, it's unrealistic as we will most likely lose at least once on the way there. However, if we set a Win Limit of $150, it's entirely possible.
We bet $10 bet and win $10 in profit.
We bet $20 and win $30 in profit.
We bet $40 and win $70 in profit.
We bet $80 and win $150 in profit.
Within four hands, we've reached our Win Limit and we walk away with $150. From there, if we opt to continue playing, we begin from our designated starting wager once more. A losing streak is entirely possible, but at least a hot streak is too.
A Loss Limit, too, is important. If we're decided on betting $10 per hand, a good loss limit to abide by might be $200, but it all depends on your personal bankroll.
Final Verdict
The Parlay is only effective if we know how to set Win Limits and know how to follow them accordingly. It's hard to keep profits and know when we're winning when we're letting every single wager ride on the table.
Self-imposed boundaries and restraint is absolutely necessary to even think of making an actual profit when playing by the Parlay strategy.
The D'Alembert Strategy
The D'Alembert strategy suits players who don't want to base all of their bets on a ‘high risk, high reward'-based structure.
The strategy is named after the 18th-century mathematician Jean le Rond D'Alembert, whose theory was based on balancing out wins and losses in the long-term — his work was then translated by blackjack gamblers, even though it was never intended for the game.
D'Alembert in Play
The D'Alembert is a strategy based on a negative progression system, but with lighter consequences compared to the Martingale. We increase our bets following losses, but we do so by a strict pattern: when we lose, we increase the bet by one unit and if we win, we decrease our bet by one unit.
A $5 bet which loses at the minimum blackjack table would mean we increase our bet by one unit — this would be $10 in total. If we lost twice more, we would increase the following wagers by $15 and $20, respectively. If we eventually won the following hand, our next bet would revert back to three units at $15 total.
Compared to other strategies, the D'Alembert is easy to apply and easy to understand, with little memorisation beyond how much our last wager was.
Final Verdict
The D'Alembert strategy will carry its value depending on the individual player. It's obviously more likeable as it doesn't call for huge risks like the Martingale, but it can also be perceived as a ‘slower' structure to win.
No strategy will ever win us a massive chunk of money after a few games, and they're mostly designed and applied to make the game more fun or otherwise change our usual bets up to experiment other ways of making profits. Therefore, use the D'Alembert more as a way to restrict yourself from losing too much by abiding to a system, rather than as a tool to expect massive gains.
Paroli Strategy
The Paroli strategy is the exact opposite to the Martingale; it's called the Anti-Martingale strategy, or the Reverse Martingale for a reason! If you're already familiar with the Martingale, you'll have no trouble learning the ropes of the Paroli.
Paroli in Play
The Paroli is based on a positive progression system where we increase our bets by doubling following each win. Before we employ the strategy, we need to set a Win Limit to know when we eventually stop doubling down after every win to collect our profits.
If we set a Win Limit of $160 and wager $5 on a hand and win:
Our next wager is $10; if we won again, the next would be $20.
If we won again, the next would be $40.
If we won again, the next would be $80.
If we won again, the next would be $160.
Because our Win Limit was $160, we refrain from doubling down again and take our profit. If we want to continue playing, we simply start at our pre-determined starting wager once more; in this instance, it's $5.
Conclusion
The Paroli strategy is an easy one to understand, but it's also just as prone to losses as every other strategy out there. There's no doubt we'll face a loss in between our Win Limit, so set one you feel comfortable with and that is also realistic for your bankroll.
Like all blackjack betting strategies, the Paroli needs to be followed in the long-term. Instant wins aren't going to happen and the Paroli is more about the excitement than anything: riding a winning hot streak while we still can, and maybe make a lot more money while we're at it.
I analyze all sorts of blackjack strategies and rank them for your fun and profit.
In every single movie about Las Vegas and the gangsters that run it, some character says to another character, 'The house always wins.'
Yet that doesn't stop all of us from trying to beat the casino. Specifically blackjack. We all think we're better than blackjack.
We're not, of course. But we think we are. I compiled this list of 11 popular strategies for beating blackjack and ranked them here, starting with the least effective and building toward the most effective.
11 | Superstitions
I've seen tons of blackjack superstitions. None of these actually do anything — but either do lucky shirts, avoiding black cats, turning off the light switch three times to keep Charlie from dying, or any of the other day-to-day superstitions people swear by.
So it's not going to change your blackjack fortunes if you violate your superstitions — even if you let new players enter during a shoe… you don't bother saying 'Nice hit' to someone who gets a six on a 15… you wish yourself good luck on your first-card ace… you tap twice instead of scratching the felt to hit… or forget your lucky cowboy hat. Gamblor is immune to superstition.
10 | Gut feelings
It seems that most people who sit down at a blackjack table have a rough understanding of textbook blackjack strategy. At least on the most basic level. The 'gut feelings' strategy is a mix of playing with basic blackjack strategy but also having feelings. For example: 'I'm going to stay on this 16, I just know the next card is a 10.' (I've seen my friend Bruce almost attack people for that statement. More than once.)
The problem here, from a mathematical perspective — aka my favorite perspective — is that blackjack strategy is constructed to give you an edge if you adhere to it without deviation and play for a long, long time. It's like a thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters — eventually they're going to write A Tale of Two Cities. But as soon as you deviate from the strategy for a gut feeling, that's like telling your monkeys that they're now trying to accidentally write Sarah Palin's Going Rogue: An American Life.
9 | Easy card counting
I have three different levels of card counting on this list, because not all card counting is created equal. Some methods are so basic that you can learn them in 15 minutes. Some take months or years of practice.
Easy card counting might give you a small bump. One strategy like this is called ace/five — that's where you start with the number zero, add one for every five dealt and subtract one for every ace. If the count is more than two, you double your previous bet. If the count is less than two, you bet the minimum. It's simple, and marginally effective across a large data set.
What Is The Best Betting Strategy For Blackjack
Another easy card counting style is the famed 'I feel like I've seen a lot of big cards' strategy. This is the one where you're paying like 80 percent attention, but you feel like you've seen a lot of big cards come out already so you scale back your bets. This somewhat resembles wearing shorts outside in February because you feel like there have been so many snowy days that some sun is due.
8 | Avoiding elderly female Korean dealers
This isn't necessarily a winning strategy but more of an 'avoid losing' strategy. Simply put: If you stand up and walk away every time there's a dealer switch and an elderly female Korean assassin takes over your table, it will probably save you thousands of dollars in your lifetime.
7 | Bet incrementing
Bet incrementing is like card counting without the card counting. It's more like streak counting. There are different systems but they all basically come down to this: If you're winning, keep increasing your bet; if you're losing, don't increase your bet.
This certainly helps avoid the break-even rut that blackjack can fall into — where you sit there for hours and never swing more than 25 percent or so from your buy-in. With incrementing, you're either blowing money quickly or raking it in quickly.
But it's not really a system to beat the house… just one to help you channel your luck. Incrementing coupled with counting can actually increase your winning percentage (or, more accurately, shave a small amount off the house edge). But incrementing without counting is like having sexual relations with multiple people and eschewing condoms until you catch an STD, then going back to condoms again.
6 | Cheating
I put this in the middle of the list because it can go either way. If you spend hours going from casino to casino searching for a rookie dealer who might occasionally expose the very bottom burn card, that's ineffective and inefficient cheating.
If you hide cards in your sleeve or try to subtlety double your bet when you get a good hand, those are more effective cheating strategies. Sure, you'll end up getting dragged into a windowless room in the bowels of the casino and getting beat — fittingly — with a blackjack. But you'll win some serious cash in the process.
5 | Shuffle Tracking
In most of the big Vegas casinos you can't do this anymore — the dealer doesn't shuffle, he just puts the cards in a machine that automatically shuffles them. (Or, if you're more of a conspiracy theorist, that sequences them to make sure you all get screwed.)
But if you're playing blackjack and the dealer is manually shuffling, this actually can be moderately effective. You have to pay detailed attention to the sequence that the cards come out, because you're looking for clusters. Maybe you try to remember the number and suit of the two cards that lead up to every ace. You expect that, during a human shuffle, some of those clusters will stay together — and you might have a little edge in knowing when the aces are coming.
It requires a lot of concentration, but might actually help you make a better decision on one or two hands every two or three shoes. It's a long-term play. Continuing the analogy motif of this list, it's like getting three green shells on the first lap in Mario Kart 64 and holding them indefinitely, hoping that you'll be in a situation eventually where they'll benefit you.
4 | Basic strategy and time
Basic strategy is the calling card of blackjack — if you play with proper strategy, blackjack gives you the best odds in the casino over time. (People forget the 'over time' aspect. We're a culture that freaks out over small sample sizes. They're the only thing keeping Around the Horn on the air.)
The Paroli is based on a positive progression system where we increase our bets by doubling following each win. Before we employ the strategy, we need to set a Win Limit to know when we eventually stop doubling down after every win to collect our profits.
If we set a Win Limit of $160 and wager $5 on a hand and win:
Our next wager is $10; if we won again, the next would be $20.
If we won again, the next would be $40.
If we won again, the next would be $80.
If we won again, the next would be $160.
Because our Win Limit was $160, we refrain from doubling down again and take our profit. If we want to continue playing, we simply start at our pre-determined starting wager once more; in this instance, it's $5.
Conclusion
The Paroli strategy is an easy one to understand, but it's also just as prone to losses as every other strategy out there. There's no doubt we'll face a loss in between our Win Limit, so set one you feel comfortable with and that is also realistic for your bankroll.
Like all blackjack betting strategies, the Paroli needs to be followed in the long-term. Instant wins aren't going to happen and the Paroli is more about the excitement than anything: riding a winning hot streak while we still can, and maybe make a lot more money while we're at it.
I analyze all sorts of blackjack strategies and rank them for your fun and profit.
In every single movie about Las Vegas and the gangsters that run it, some character says to another character, 'The house always wins.'
Yet that doesn't stop all of us from trying to beat the casino. Specifically blackjack. We all think we're better than blackjack.
We're not, of course. But we think we are. I compiled this list of 11 popular strategies for beating blackjack and ranked them here, starting with the least effective and building toward the most effective.
11 | Superstitions
I've seen tons of blackjack superstitions. None of these actually do anything — but either do lucky shirts, avoiding black cats, turning off the light switch three times to keep Charlie from dying, or any of the other day-to-day superstitions people swear by.
So it's not going to change your blackjack fortunes if you violate your superstitions — even if you let new players enter during a shoe… you don't bother saying 'Nice hit' to someone who gets a six on a 15… you wish yourself good luck on your first-card ace… you tap twice instead of scratching the felt to hit… or forget your lucky cowboy hat. Gamblor is immune to superstition.
10 | Gut feelings
It seems that most people who sit down at a blackjack table have a rough understanding of textbook blackjack strategy. At least on the most basic level. The 'gut feelings' strategy is a mix of playing with basic blackjack strategy but also having feelings. For example: 'I'm going to stay on this 16, I just know the next card is a 10.' (I've seen my friend Bruce almost attack people for that statement. More than once.)
The problem here, from a mathematical perspective — aka my favorite perspective — is that blackjack strategy is constructed to give you an edge if you adhere to it without deviation and play for a long, long time. It's like a thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters — eventually they're going to write A Tale of Two Cities. But as soon as you deviate from the strategy for a gut feeling, that's like telling your monkeys that they're now trying to accidentally write Sarah Palin's Going Rogue: An American Life.
9 | Easy card counting
I have three different levels of card counting on this list, because not all card counting is created equal. Some methods are so basic that you can learn them in 15 minutes. Some take months or years of practice.
Easy card counting might give you a small bump. One strategy like this is called ace/five — that's where you start with the number zero, add one for every five dealt and subtract one for every ace. If the count is more than two, you double your previous bet. If the count is less than two, you bet the minimum. It's simple, and marginally effective across a large data set.
What Is The Best Betting Strategy For Blackjack
Another easy card counting style is the famed 'I feel like I've seen a lot of big cards' strategy. This is the one where you're paying like 80 percent attention, but you feel like you've seen a lot of big cards come out already so you scale back your bets. This somewhat resembles wearing shorts outside in February because you feel like there have been so many snowy days that some sun is due.
8 | Avoiding elderly female Korean dealers
This isn't necessarily a winning strategy but more of an 'avoid losing' strategy. Simply put: If you stand up and walk away every time there's a dealer switch and an elderly female Korean assassin takes over your table, it will probably save you thousands of dollars in your lifetime.
7 | Bet incrementing
Bet incrementing is like card counting without the card counting. It's more like streak counting. There are different systems but they all basically come down to this: If you're winning, keep increasing your bet; if you're losing, don't increase your bet.
This certainly helps avoid the break-even rut that blackjack can fall into — where you sit there for hours and never swing more than 25 percent or so from your buy-in. With incrementing, you're either blowing money quickly or raking it in quickly.
But it's not really a system to beat the house… just one to help you channel your luck. Incrementing coupled with counting can actually increase your winning percentage (or, more accurately, shave a small amount off the house edge). But incrementing without counting is like having sexual relations with multiple people and eschewing condoms until you catch an STD, then going back to condoms again.
6 | Cheating
I put this in the middle of the list because it can go either way. If you spend hours going from casino to casino searching for a rookie dealer who might occasionally expose the very bottom burn card, that's ineffective and inefficient cheating.
If you hide cards in your sleeve or try to subtlety double your bet when you get a good hand, those are more effective cheating strategies. Sure, you'll end up getting dragged into a windowless room in the bowels of the casino and getting beat — fittingly — with a blackjack. But you'll win some serious cash in the process.
5 | Shuffle Tracking
In most of the big Vegas casinos you can't do this anymore — the dealer doesn't shuffle, he just puts the cards in a machine that automatically shuffles them. (Or, if you're more of a conspiracy theorist, that sequences them to make sure you all get screwed.)
But if you're playing blackjack and the dealer is manually shuffling, this actually can be moderately effective. You have to pay detailed attention to the sequence that the cards come out, because you're looking for clusters. Maybe you try to remember the number and suit of the two cards that lead up to every ace. You expect that, during a human shuffle, some of those clusters will stay together — and you might have a little edge in knowing when the aces are coming.
It requires a lot of concentration, but might actually help you make a better decision on one or two hands every two or three shoes. It's a long-term play. Continuing the analogy motif of this list, it's like getting three green shells on the first lap in Mario Kart 64 and holding them indefinitely, hoping that you'll be in a situation eventually where they'll benefit you.
4 | Basic strategy and time
Basic strategy is the calling card of blackjack — if you play with proper strategy, blackjack gives you the best odds in the casino over time. (People forget the 'over time' aspect. We're a culture that freaks out over small sample sizes. They're the only thing keeping Around the Horn on the air.)
And over time, basic strategy really can make a difference — infinite computer simulations have proven it. But you need to have the discipline to hit 12 and 13 against a 2… hit soft 18 against a 9, 10 or ace… split 8s against a 10 even if you're on a cold streak… and refuse to take even money for blackjacks. Every single time you play, with no exceptions, for your entire life.
3 | Medium-difficulty card counting
This is the kind of card counting that the common man can learn and try to employ. You don't need an entire team of MIT-educated math geniuses to work as spotters and helpers and trainers to make it work. Besten casino bonus 2019. (It'd be hard to get that team together anyway, what with them knowing they'd be whitewashed if a movie was made about your adventures.)
These medium strategies are more advanced than the counting strategies I talked about earlier. Here you might try something like the current 'hot' counting style, called the Zen Count. (You subtract one for an ace; add one for a 2, 3 or 7; add two for a 4, 5 or 6; and subtract two for a ten.) This requires practice and concentration, *might* get you kicked out of a casino but probably not, and will give you more of an advantage than you're used to.
Of course, if you're doing this, you can't really drink — so that's a $6-$32 per hour loss, depending on the efficiency of your waitress and your willingness to consume Long Island iced teas in the middle of the afternoon. So make sure to factor that in.
Best Betting Strategy For Blackjack
2 | Hard card counting team effort
These are the card counting systems you would see in movies like 21 and others. (No, I can't actually name others, I just assume there are others.) Basically, you and your genius friends develop an advanced card counting strategy. Then you all watch and card count different tables and signal each other when a table is about to start paying off. The money guy goes to that table, bets a ton, then gets the hell out as soon as the pit bosses start whispering to each other and casting furtive glances in your direction.
Best Betting Strategy For Blackjack
On the downside, this is the kind of thing that casinos are on the lookout for and that might only exist in fantasy at this point. On the upside, if you do choose this method, you get to wear cool disguises and play different characters at the table! So if you and your friends from differential calculus class started an improv troupe, you were born for this.
(Side note: I bet that improv troupe would have a kitschy name like 'RDRR' or 'Nothing Derivative' or 'Kristen Cavalieri's Principle.')
1 | Autistic brother
Best Betting Strategy For Online Blackjack
Show me the money! Feel the need for speed! I want the truth! You're glib!
—