How to Win in Online Blackjack

A deck of cards used for blackjack is not the same online.

Your odds of winning (or losing) at online blackjack are the same as in live blackjack. The rules are the same, and assuming you are playing at a reputable casino, you will be playing with a legitimate simulation of a 52-card deck.

Online Blackjack should be played just like live blackjack, keeping in mind it is a computer simulation and does not truly reflect the randomness of a deck(s) of cards in live blackjack. Almost all of the gambling game software used by online casinos shuffles cards using a pseudo-random number generator.

Things You'll Need

• Computer
• Internet connection
• Browser (preferably java enabled)

Instructions

1. Do your research and choose the right casino before you play online blackjack. If you choose a legitimate casino, then you have very little risk of being cheated. But if you are playing at a shady casino, unlike live blackjack with real cards with risks involved for both sides, the software providing the online blackjack experience, despite purporting to be random, can be programmed so that the online casino owner can set a "rake" percentage that he is guaranteed to make per so many hands of blackjack.

   Always play at well-known, established casinos, preferably one verified by the OSGA (Off Shore Gaming Association) or a similar watchdog organization. And while bonuses are nice, and a good start towards long-term profits, don't fall for the 150% bonus at a fly-by-night casino vs. the 25% bonus at a reputable casino - better to fight legit odds with a little smaller bankroll than be cheated with a bigger initial bankroll.

2. Select a casino that has blackjack rules that give the player the best shot at winning. In terms of specific rules, try to find single-deck games in which the dealer stands on soft 17, doubling is allowed on any two cards, multiple splits are allowed, doubling after splitting is allowed, and surrender is allowed. Finding an online casino with generous rules can mean the difference between a house edge as small as 1.5% to as large as 6%.

3. The strategy for online blackjack mirrors the strategy for live blackjack, except that card counting is out due to the deck being shuffled between each deal. The optimum strategy of whether to hit, stand, double down or surrender is based on your chance of drawing a card to improve your hand vs. the dealer's likely hand based on his up card. An in-depth discussion of both basic and advanced blackjack strategies can be found in the book "Best Blackjack" by Frank Scoblete and many other places on the internet.

Tips & Warnings

• Always double down with 10 or 11 regardless of dealer's card.

• Legitimate and useful software programs that help you to remember and use the optimum strategy for blackjack do exist, and should not be confused with the "crack the algorithm" or "see the order of the cards" scams that abound on the internet.

• An online blackjack pseudo-random number generator is only simulating random number generation using complicated mathematical algorithms. Now, the sheer complexity of these algorithms makes the order of the cards very hard to predict, and thus relatively secure, but not truly random.

• However, an algorithm can always be decoded, and there have been several publicized cases of sophisticated players "cracking the algorithm" at various online casinos and thus being able to see the order of the cards in the deck after the shuffle and thus able to beat the house. That said, the huge industry that has popped up to supply "software" to win by seeing the dealer's cards at online blackjack is 99% bogus and fraudulent as the very few software developers who have developed these cheats generally do not want to advertise what they have done.

• Please gamble only for fun and stay within your personal budget.

References

• Off Shore Gaming Association
• "Best Blackjack"; Frank Scoblete; April 1996

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish