How to win at Blackjack

Card probability breakdowns

The following deck probability points explain why alot of the best blackjack strategy revolves around the value of 10(or 11).

• There are 4 cards out of 13 that have a value of 10. (10, J, Q, K)
  
  
• Furthermore, the Ace counts as 11 points as long as you have under 21 in total.
  
  
• That means, outside of card counting probabilities, everytime you draw a card you have a 38.4% chance of getting a card with a value of 10 or 11.

Card counting

When it comes to card counting, especially for online casino blackjack, our best advice is simple: Forget it. 

Completely leave it out. It’s not the best way to play blackjack because as we mentioned previously, we usually don’t know how many decks are being used (physically or not). Plus, if you apply the strategies below, you’ll be more than okay without it. 

And if you need further reason, it takes alot of mental focus which limits your playing time, may spike your emotional state when you get tired, and also removes a good amount of fun from the actual blackjack playing. Simply put, it’s not the best way to win money at blackjack like the movies or popular media show.

Always do

So how to win money at blackjack? Let’s start with always applying the following practices:

1. Since the maximum points from 1 single card is 10, always hit a card when you have less than 11 points from your first 2 cards.
   
   
2. On the other hand (haha), if you have 17 points and above, always stay, since there is an about 70% chance (9/13 cards with 5 points and above) that you will bust if you hit a card on 17. 

Best blackjack situations

TLDR; always stay when you have 17 points and above

You can probably already guess that a Blackjack (an Ace and any card with a value of 10), or 2 starting cards with a value of 20 are your most favourable situations to win money.

With 20 points on your starting hands, your chances of winning (or pushing) are a whopping 92%. In fact, as we said above, staying on a starting hand of 17 points and above is the most profitable because you are at least 70% to win or push. 

But these situations are easy to play. We need to look at the rest: when do we hit, stay/stand, double-down or split?

Good blackjack situations

TLDR; When the dealer has 4,5,6, you can afford to take more gambles

So now we’ve established that 10 is the most likely card value you will draw (30% without the Ace). 

That means, after accounting for all probabilities, the dealer’s worst positions (and hence your best) are when they are showing a 4, 5 or 6. 

This is because regardless of whatever card they draw, the highest possible value is 10, so they will still have under 17 points, and will have to draw another card.

So if the dealer has 4, 5 or 6, they will always have to draw 2 cards (if they draw an Ace on 6, they will have a soft 17. They may or may not stand on a soft 17 depending on the casino’s house rules).

If they have a 4, they will need to draw 2 cards that have a combined value of less than 18. 

If they are showing a 6, they need 2 cards with less than 16 points.

In terms of probabilities, it means that if the dealer has a 5 or 6, there is a 42% chance that they will go bust. 

See the full table of the dealer’s bust probability below.

So, when the dealer has 4, 5 or 6, you should take advantage and:

1. Stay on most poor hands (13 – 16 points).
   
   
2. Always double down on 9, 10 or 11.
   
   
3. Split pairs of 2, 3, or 4s
   • Since the dealer is weak, this is a good time to put more money on the table by playing 2 hands that
   • have smaller values and are unlikely to go bust

Of course, there is no such thing as guaranteed winning. These practices simply maximize your chances of winning and require consistency for long-term winning. 

There will be times when the dealer has a 6, you double down on a 10 and still lose. In those times, remember to be avoid emotional spikes and play consistently.

Bad blackjack situations

TLDR; when you have 12-16 points, hit if the dealer is strong (>7) and stay if the dealer is weak (4,5,6)

Now you know what to do when the dealer is in a tough spot. But what about those iffy situations in blackjack? How to win at blackjack then?

These situations usually come from when you have 12 to 16 points from your first 2 cards, including soft hands. This is because there is an at least 30% chance (4/13) to get busted by drawing a card with 10 points (12 + 10 = 22 points). 

See below for the full chart of your bust probability when you have 12 points and above from your first 2 cards.

So, when should you risk it? 

As we said, your actions should be based on not just your hand, but what the dealer has. 

Statistically, here are the best practices when you have between 12 to 16 points:

1. If the dealer is showing 7 and above, you should hit a card. 
   • This is because if they draw a 10, they will immediately beat you. 
   • Additionally, if you look at the chart on dealer bust probabilities, you can see that the dealer’s chances of busting when showing 7 and above is 26% and lower.
     
     
2. As we said previously, if the dealer is showing 4,5 or 6, you should stay on 12 points and above.
   
   
3. If the dealer is showing 2 or 3, you should hit only on 12.
   • This situation contains the widest gulf between your stats and the dealer’s:
   • You have a 70% chance of not busting.
   • The dealer has a 63-65% chance of not busting.
   • That means you have a higher chance of not busting, which although is the smallest disparity in most situations, will work in your favour in the long run if you are consistent. 
     
     
4. So, if the dealer is showing 2 or 3, you should stay if you have 13 points and above. 

Worst blackjack situations

TLDR; when the dealer is showing 9,10,11, hit if you have less than 17.

You can probably guess by now what those are: when the dealer is strongest, and when you are weakest. Don’t worry, you can still limit your losses and win at blackjack in the long run.

If you have 17 points and above, as we said, just stay, regardless of the dealer’s strength.

When to double down in blackjack

You can’t know the best way to play blackjack without look at the concept of doubling down and when it should be applied. 

Again, revolving around the 10 (and 11), you are usually offered the chance to double down when you have 9, 10 or 11 points on your starting hand.

In these situations, you will have a 30% chance of hitting a card with 10 points, which will give you 19 to 21 points. 
An outlying to this situation is when you have 11 points, and you hit an Ace. This is not favourable as it will actually bring your total to 12 points (e.g if you have a 5 and 6, 5 + 6 = 11. 11 + Ace (11) = 22 (Bust), so Ace becomes 1. Hence, 5 + 6 + Ace(1) = 12). 
If you have a 9 or 10, you have a 38% chance (5/13, 10, J, Q, K, Ace) of getting 19-21 points. 
See below for a full table of stats for doubling down:

From the table, you can see that your chances of hitting a good hand (17 and above) is as high as 62% with 10 or 11 points, and more importantly, you have a 0% chance of going bust.

The downside?
 
You only get one card.
 
As you can see, this is a very favorable situation for the player to win more money in blackjack, so why would the casino let you have it?
 
As we mentioned before, you do have to increase your bet money, and the chances of emotional spikes or tilting do increase if you lose. All things considered, the casino is targeting ‘bad’ players, the benefits of which outweigh letting the ‘good’ players have an edge.
 
So, the big question: When to double down in blackjack? Shouldn’t we always double down?

Almost! But no.
 
Statistically, there are situations where doubling down, as good as it sounds, is not the best way to play blackjack, namely, when adding more bet money to the table and only getting 1 card are not the best for your hand.
These situations typically arise when the dealer has a good chance of not going bust and is strong (has a good chance of making a good hand).

So, here is when to double down and try to win more money in blackjack hands:

1. Always double down when the dealer is weak, i.e. showing 2-6 points.
   
   
2. Never double down when the dealer is showing an Ace.
   • If the dealer hits a 10-point card on an Ace, they will get a blackjack, which is an automatic win for them, regardless of your points.
     
     
3. Always double down on 11 points, unless the dealer has an Ace.
   • See above; a blackjack still beats 21 points, so it doesn’t matter if you hit a 10-point card.
     
     
4. Always double down on 10 points, unless the dealer has 10 points or an Ace.
   • If you hit a single card and have less than 17 points (e.g. a 5), you’ll be in a very poor position against the dealer, since they have a 77% chance of having at least 17.
     
     
5. Do not double down on 9 points if the dealer is showing 7 or higher.
    
   
6. Do not double down on soft hands (Ace 8, Ace 9), unless the dealer has 4,5,6 points.
   • You are already in a great position. There is no need to add more bet money to the table.
     
     
7. Some casinos let you double down on any hand (not just 9, 10, 11). In this scenario, strike and double down when the dealer is weak (4,5,6). It’s a good strategy on how win at blackjack in the long run.

What blackjack hands to split/when to split in blackjack

The strategy and best practices for splitting in blackjack revolves around 3 familiar concepts:

1. Taking advantage of the dealer’s weak situations
   • Particularly when the dealer is showing 2 – 6 points
     
     
2. Neutralizing your (the player’s) weak situations
   • When you have a poor hand like 2 7s or 2 8s. 
     
     
3. Capitalizing on favourable positions
   • The best times to put more bet money on the table.
     
     

Unlike doubling down, you don’t just get 1 card each (in most casinos. Some casinos will only give one card each when you split, especially when splitting aces), you actually get 2 separate hands that you can draw multiple cards for each to play to completion. 

See here are the best way to play blackjack when splitting, or check out our graph:

1. Always split 2 Aces (12 points), unless the dealer has an Ace 
   • 12 points is a terrible hand. With each Ace, you have a 61.5%(8/13) chance of making a hand with at least 17 points. 
   • Even if you get a small card (5 and under), you can always safely hit a 3rd card with 0 chance of going bust. 
   • If you get another, depending on the casino, you can split again. 
   • In a traditional casino setting, you would split 2 Aces even if the dealer was showing an Ace. This is built on conventional card counting logic that you are taking more cards and hence reducing chances for the dealer to hit a 10 point card.
   • Outside of a traditional casino situation, if you have 2 Aces and the dealer has an Ace, don’t split, just hit.
     
     
2. Do not split if the dealer is showing 8 or higher, unless you have 2 Aces (point 1). 
   • If the dealer is strong, don’t put more bet money on the table!
     
     
3. Never split 2 10s. It’s 20 points! Don’t get greedy.
   
   
4. Split 2 9s unless the dealer has 7, 10 or Ace.
   • If the dealer is weak (7 and below), a 9 to start on each hand is a great advantage.
   • If the dealer has a 7, pulling a 10 will give them 17, which loses to your 2 9s (18 points). Remember, they have to stand on 17. 
   • If the dealer has 8 or 9, it’s still good to split 2 9s because if you hit a 10 point card to get at 19 points on either hand, you are likely to be safe against at least one hand (if the  dealer also hits a 10 to give them 18 or 19 points). 
   • If the dealer has 10 or Ace, they are strong, so don’t add more bet money onto the table. Hold fast and pray for a bust. 
     
     
5. (Almost) always split 2 8s (16 points).
   • This is not so much as capitalizing than it is avoiding a poor hand of 16 points. 
   • If the dealer is weak (4,5,6), you might take a chance on standing and hoping the dealer goes bust to play it safe. 
     
     
6. Do not split 2 5s. Treat it as 10 points and consider doubling down instead
    
   
7. Do not split 2 4s.
   • Just hit. You cannot go bust and the best case scenario is hitting an Ace for 19 points (4 + 4 + Ace(11) = 19). 
     
     
8. Only split 2s, 3s, 6s and 7s, when the dealer is weak (6 and below)
   • Simply put, a good time to put more table on the table.
   • If the dealer is strong, play the points and avoid adding more bet money

Bet Sizing in Blackjack

If you really want to win money at blackjack, especially in the long run, you have to apply bankroll control. We recommended 2 ways to do this: deciding on a percentage of your total bankroll and applying range control.

In short, deciding a percentage of your bankroll to play helps you keep things in check and to ride out variance swings (basically luck swings).

Applying range control is (usually) betting regularly with a small to medium amount (depending on the table betting minimum and maximum), and then tweaking it based on your run (how consecutively you are losing or winning).

Play only a percentage of your bankroll

How to win money in blackjack? Let’s start with not losing too much! As we mentioned in previously, we recommend allocating 5-10% of your overall bankroll per session. 

Which means if your full bankroll (the total amount you are willing to play for in the long term) is 5000 euros, we recommend keeping it to a maximum of 500 euros per session.

It’s important to decide this amount beforehand and STICKING TO IT. We cannot stress this enough. If casinos removed all of their odds-based advantage, they would still make money based on the fact that people naturally lose sight of their limits. 

If you decide on 5% (250 euros), and you lose 250 euros, DO NOT think: ‘ahh but luckgurus recommended up to 10% (500 euros), so i could probably just play for another 250 euros. I would be doing the same tomorrow anyway’.

While that is technically true, the key ingredient here is your state of mind. You are ‘in the hole’, and very prone to emotional spikes and getting desperate. That means you will most likely play worse than usual and are more likely to lose the money.

Winning Limit

If you only set a losing limit, guess what? You’ll only lose. 

Set a winning limit for when to walk away. We recommend the 2.5:1 rule(l). So if my session limit is 500 euros, my winning limit is 500 x 2.5 = 1250 euros. 

If you play by these limits and you only win 2 out of 5 days in a week, you’ll still come out on top pretty nicely (+1250 x 2 = +2500. -500 x 3 = -1500. You’ll come up +1000 in a week).

Time Limit

Like we mentioned in our other guide, all of this won’t work without a time limit. If you decide that you’re either going to win 2.5x your session limit or lose it all, you may be playing for way longer and probably not come out in the positive. 

So set a time limit. And walk away regardless of how much you are up or down when it hits.

We recommend 3 hours max.

Betting range control

This is a more complex theory and methodology when it comes to gambling, but essential for learning the best way to play blackjack. It can come in the form of a betting system, or a simple formula like below. 

This approach generally revolves around tweaking your bet sizes to take account for swings. A simple formula we like to use is the +3/-3 rule. Simply put, it means that if you win or lose 3 times consecutively, it’s time to change your bet size, based on the assumption that you are more likely to go the other way. 

So if you have won 3 hands in a row, you are statistically more likely to lose next, so you should downsize your bet and keep it low until you lose once or twice.

Let’s say your session limit is 500 euros, and the minimum bet is 5 euros. We recommend starting at a small to medium stake relative to the betting minimum and maximum. 

So let’s say we are placing our standard bets at 20 euros.

If your hand count is +3 (3 consecutive wins), we recommend downsizing your bet to 5 euros on the next hand. 

If your hand count is -3 (3 consecutive losses), we recommend increasing your next bet to 40-50 euros. 

However, we do need to warn that the increasing of bet amounts should always be lower (by multiplier) than decreasing. What we mean by this is that we would lower the bet from 20 to 5 (divided by 4) when your hand count is +3, but we would only increase the bet amount from 20 to 40 (multiplied by 2) when your hand count is -3. 

In other words, reducing the bet is much more important that increasing. 

The reason for this is that we don’t want to get desperate and try to recoup everything on one hand. We are just trying to take advantage of the swings when playing blackjack. At the end of the day, we are playing the long game, so it’s better to make smaller wins and incur smaller losses in the long run.

In fact, the safer approach is if you only apply bet range control for consecutive losses, meaning only downsizing your bet when you have several consecutive wins. This would let you would still come out on top, albeit slower.