You can boost your winnings by doubling down if the situation is in your favor. The player has an advantage, however, in the decisions you are allowed to make. You can bust before the dealer does anything with his hand, so even if the dealer were to also bust, you already lost. Though the house always has the advantage in blackjack, that edge exists entirely because you, the player, must act first. Positive values increase the house edge in blackjack, while negative values decrease the house edge. The table below lists just a few that you might see and how they affect the edge. There are dozens of rules variations at different casinos, all of which also change the blackjack house edge.

Most land-based resorts and reputable online casinos use six to eight decks for blackjack. Double deck games have a considerably low edge at 0.46%. Single deck blackjack has the lowest casino edge of 0.16%, which gives the player better odds.

When it comes to blackjack’s house edge, one thing to keep in mind is that the number of decks used will alter the house advantage. The probabilities are for giant, long-term samples. This doesn’t mean that you will never have a winning session, nor does it mean that you won’t have a terrible session sometimes. Thus, over an infinite number of hands, the house will win just 4 cents for every $10 you initially bet. Here, we are assuming the deck is shuffled after every hand. If we assume a standard game in which is a 6-deck shoe is used, dealer stands on soft 17, the player may double on any first two cards, the player may split up to four times, and the player may double after splitting, the house edge with basic strategy is only 0.4062%. The house has an advantage in every single game – that is how casinos make their money – but not all games are created equal.įortunately, blackjack has one of the lowest house edges of any casino game. Flip it around, and it is the amount you would expect to lose. The house advantage, or house edge, is the percent of a player’s initial bet that the casino will expect to make in the long run.

Blackjack buster odds