Posts Tagged ‘card counters’

The Number Of Decks In Play

First consider the effect of the number of decks shuffled together. All other conditions being equal, single-deck games would be the most profitable for card counters.

The more decks being used, the less profitable the game becomes, not only for card counters, but for basic strategy players as well. A single-deck Vegas Strip game (blackjack pays 3 to 2, double down on any two cards, and dealer stands on soft 17), is pretty close to being a break even proposition for a basic strategy player. With four or more decks in play, and the same set of rules, the house has about a 1/2% edge. Use this chart to estimate your basic strategy (dis)advantage due to the number of decks in play:

# Decks Advantage
l +0.02%
2 -0.31%
3 -0.43%
4 -0.48%
5 -0.52%
6 -0.54%
7 -0.55%
8 -0.57%

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Tags: blackjack, card counters, online casino, vegas strip