Blackjack Card Counting – Is It Worth It?

Blackjack Card Counting – Is It Worth It?

Article by Sacha Tarkovsky

Can you make a lot of money using basic strategy and blackjack card counting?

If you think about it, the odds are not as good as they may seem.

Here's why..

Basic Strategy

The house edge can be diminished to just less than 1%, if the player uses basic strategy.

Blackjack card counting is then supposed to put the odds really in favor of the player, but does it do it enough to make it worthwhile?

You can play with a small advantage with basic strategy, now lets look how much better we can make the odds with blackjack card counting.

The Myth Of Card Counting

Blackjack card counting was introduced by an IBM computer scientist, Edward O. Thorp who published “Beat the Dealer” in 1962.

The book introduced card counting to a global audience and many were attracted to its logic and method.

Essentially the blackjack card counting Thorpe introduced considered the ten-valued cards and the Aces as “positive”, and the cards 2 to 6 as “negative”. If the net result in the remaining deck was positive, the player must increase the bet size.

The method had visible results when only one deck was used and very few cards remained in the deck.

You won’t get rich card counting!

The casinos now use multiple deck blackjack decks which make the number of cards coming out more and the odds of card counting working decline.

Let’s make an assumption

That blackjack card counting, realistically CAN give a 1.5 - 2% advantage to the player over, with the advantage of a single deck, so things can only get worse on games with more decks or unfavorable rules.

1.5 - 2% is a narrow margin if you are trying to make a good income out of it, for the effort involved!

Card counting is NOT a predictive theory

The fact is, blackjack card counting is not a predictive theory as many novices believe; it simply tries to crudely calculate the odds of cards coming out of the pack.

There are huge number of permutations of cards coming out, so even if the odds are in your favor, doesn’t mean you are going to win! You need to play for a long time for the odds to even themselves out.

Of course, over a long period of time (and I mean long) things will even themselves out, but there will be a lot of ups and downs in between of equity to smooth out.

If you think about it, when the best advantage you can get is up to 2% in a best case scenario, are you going to make enough money to make the effort you put in worthwhile?

Do the maths and figure it out for yourself.

There is not enough room in this article to cover all the mathematics, but it's a lot of effort for a very small return overtime.

Don’t waste your time blackjack card counting

If you want to make big money in relation to effort, you need another game where you can increase your advantage to a level where you can earn BIG money and this means competing directly against other players

A better return for the effort

So forget blackjack card counting and learn poker.

Why?

Not only can you calculate odds and have a strategy, you also have a lot of ways to get the better of your opponent through psychological strategy and win big.

keep in mind, you don’t even have to have the best hand to win!

Poker presents a better challenge and a better opportunity to win Big Money.

How many rich card counters have you heard of?

If you believe that there are blackjack card counters who have made huge money, search the net and see how many you find with substantiated winnings.

Next, try a search against poker players who have made a fortune and you will see for yourself.

Find out more about casino games and getting a playing edge...