One of the most often asked questions from players about blackjack strategy, is 'how should I bet?' You've got severaloptions and I'll discuss them in this article and offer my recommendation.

Flat Bet Blackjack Strategy

Pick the Right Casino. Players often ignore this all-important step, so I decided to start precisely with.

They sell 'systems to win at Blackjack' to people who would spend a fortune to find an easy way to win. Too bad none of those revolutionary and proven Blackjack winning system work, though. The game of Blackjack is based on probability, meaning most of those systems are just plain nonsense. Steve Bourie, author of the American Casino Guide, interviews Michael 'Wizard of Odds' Shackleford about blackjack. Mike answers some of the most common ques. Blackjack is considered to be one of the most popular as well as the most complicated game of skill. The modern casinos offer a great variety of games to play but blackjack is always on the top. How to 'Beat the Dealer'? Blackjack card game attracts players who want to win big and prove to themselves that they are smart and able to 'beat the.

This means betting the same amount all the time. Most players don't like to bet this way because they figure if the dealer wins more hands then them they'll never win any money. Also, playersfeel it's boring betting this way. They prefer the thrill of sometimes betting more in the hopes that when they do so, they will win the hand and make a nice profit.

Here are the facts on the flat betting blackjack strategy. If you bet say $5 on every hand in a standard multiple deck game the house will have an edge of 0.5% against theskilled basic strategy player. That means you will lose on average 0.5% of every wager you make. So if you bet $10 on every hand and average 80 hands per hour you will have made a total of $800worth of bets. The casino expects to earn 0.5% of the $800 or $4.00. Of course, the more likely result is that you'll win or lose much more than $4 after an hour of play. But on average you canexpect over time to lose at the rate of $4 per hour.

Let's take an example of a player flat betting $10 on every hand. It's is a conservative betting strategy that leads to a relatively low theoretical loss rate. The fluctuation in this player'sbankroll will also be low which means the likelihood he'll have a big winning or losing session is not great.

Watch 'Why You Should Never Make the Blackjack Insurance Bet with Blackjack Expert Henry Tamburin' (March 2016)

In this video blackjack expert Henry Tamburin explains why a basic strategy player should never make an insurance bet. He gives details on three different situations that a player may encounterand why he considers blackjack insurance to always be a sucker bet.

Progressive Betting Blackjack Strategy

This is where things get interesting. The Progressive betting blackjack strategy is when players vary their bets in some way from one hand to the next rather than alwaysbetting the same amount on every hand. There are all different types of betting progressions but they all have one common denominator. You either decrease or increase your next bet dependingupon whether the hand you just played won or lose.

Win progressions encourage you to increase your bet size after a winning hand. For example, you make a minimum bet of $10 and if you win, you raise your next stakes on the hand to $20.

There are all different kinds of win progressions. The most common is a 1-2-3-5 progression. This means you increase your bet by the above multiples after each winning hand butas soon as you experience a loss, you start the progression over with a 1 unit bet.

Proponents of win progressions will tell you that you'll win more money if you win 5 consecutive hands compared to the amount you lose if you lose 5 consecutive hands. Of course, what theydon't tell you is that you never know when that 5 consecutive winning hand streak will occur.

There are also betting progressions in which you increase your bet following a loss. These Martingale type betting progressions are dangerous and you should never consider using them.

There are also hybrid betting progressions, which have you increase your bets following a win, but after two or three success wins you lock up some profit and gradually regress your bets. Thecreativity of progressive bettors is never-ending.

First of all, the blackjack strategy for betting progressions does not change the 0.5% house edge one iota. There has never been a correlation between the hand just won (orlost) and your chance of winning the next hand. In other words, using the criteria of the result of one hand (W/L) to base how you bet on the next hand has no scientific validity. So bettingprogressions, in the long run, don't work in the sense that they won't improve your long-term chances of winning.

But here's what betting progressions will do. First off they increase the fluctuation in your session bankroll compared to flat betting. This means you can win more using abetting progression compared to flat betting but you can also lose more. Secondly, betting progressions will increase the amount of money you wager per hour compared to flat betting. If a $10bettor uses a 1-2-3-5 betting progression, his average bet will $20. Over an hour he will average $20 times 80 hands or $1600 worth of bets. The casino's expected win is 0.5% of $1600 or $8. Inother words, a $10 progressive bettor stands to lose twice as much per hour as a $10 flat bettor.

Here's a tip to save you some money in the long run if you insist on using a betting progression. Instead of starting your progression at $10, start at a lower amount (ie. $5). This will reduceyour average bet to $10 per hour and cut your hourly theoretical loss rate in half.

But in the long run flat betting and betting progressions don't work in the sense they won't change the house edge against you and you will lose in the long run. So what betting system works?That, my friends, is card counting.

Betting When You Have The Edge (Card Counting)

With card counting, you know when you have the edge based on the change in the composition of the decks and therefore you'll know when it's the right time to bet more. Sounlike betting progressions that are based on whether you win or lose the previous hands, card counting is based on the mix of cards that were played on previous hands. If more small valuecards were played in previous rounds, there are more big value cards left in the unplayed cards, and the edge shifts from dealer to the player. This would be the best time to bet more.

But I'm a realist. Not a whole lot of average blackjack players have the time or mental concentration during play that is required to master one of the popular point count cardcounting systems. These are readily available in blackjack books. But even though millions of blackjack books have been sold since Ed Thorp's classic book, Beat The Dealer (circa 1962) firstrevealed card counting to the masses, the number of players who can successfully win money in the long run at blackjack number in the hundreds and thousands.

How To Win At Blackjack Table

So what's the answer to betting at blackjack for the average player? I asked Don Pronovost that same question about four years ago. Don is a software developer that markets blackjack trainingsoftware. He spent the better part of two years and a trillion computer simulated hands looking for the solution to this dilemma. What he developed is Speed Count.

Speed Count is unlike any conventional card counting system. It's much simpler to master and requires much less concentration when you play. And unlike progressive betting systems, Speed Countwill give you a verifiable advantage over the casino You can read about Speed Count in Frank Scoblete’s book, Golden Touch Blackjack Revolution.

Now that you know the scoop on betting at blackjack, I wish you many aces and faces the next time you play.

Henry Tamburin has been a respected casino gambling writer for the past 50 years. He is the author of theUltimate Blackjack Strategy Guide and was editor of theBlackjack Insider newsletter. You can read his latest articles on blackjack, video poker, and his personal playing experiences at https://www.888casino.com/blog/writers/henry-tamburin

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• Every gambler wants to know how to win at Blackjack
• The basic strategy and some math can help you get better odds
• There are 11.2 million articles on 'how not to lose at Blackjack' on the internet

Playing Blackjack can be a frustrating experience.

On the one hand, Blackjack is known to be the Casino game with the best odds of winning. But on the other one…it's impossible to win at Blackjack every time you play.

Experienced players say you only need to apply the 'optimal basic strategy' to get a better ROI and improve your chances to win at Blackjack but -

It's not that easy when you are at the table, is it?

Blackjack is an exciting game. But to keep playing, you need to know how to battle the dealer and finish your session with more chips than you begin with.

In other words, you need to know how not to lose at Blackjack.

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Blackjack is not Slots.

Unless you don't play one of those crazy (and unusually weird) variants that online Casinos offer you, you don't need to base your strategy to improve your odds entirely on luck.

In the long term, the only way for you to improve your chances to win at Blackjack is to rely on your skills and on your ability to focus. You need to know how to do the right thing every time you get your cards.

This is the only way to minimize the impact of luck — a factor the doesn't depend on you and that you'll never be able to control.

If you want to improve your chances to win, you need to know exactly what to do - every single time you are dealt your cards.

Some combinations are more helpful than others, that's true. But if it's safe to assume that you are not going to get 21 every time, you need to know how to play your cards to get more winning chances.

This article tells you how to do just that.

You are going to learn how to use whatever cards you receive to beat the Dealer and win money at Blackjack.

I can't guarantee that you will win at Blackjack every time. But if you follow the pieces of advice I included in this strategy article and use all of them in your next games, you will have improved your winning chances.

Let's begin.

Basic Strategy to Improve Your Chances to Win at Blackjack

Blackjack is a game based on luck and mathematical probability.

Like it happens for all the games that are based on mathematics and probability, there are some systems you can use to increase your chances to win at the Blackjack table.

None of these systems is easy, nor they guarantee a 100% success rate.

Unless this the first article on how to win at Blackjack you read in your life, you should know by now that the Blackjack basic strategy ought to be your starting point.

As a beginner, you have just one way not to throw your money away, and that is to learn and use the basic Blackjack strategy.

Online Casinos might do anything to push you to fire up a new Blackjack game and play the way your guts tell you, perhaps with the most beautiful-looking dealer you have ever see in your life.

Don't do it.

That's not how you win at Blackjack. That's the gambling equivalent of Russian roulette. And you know how that ends.

You hit a lucky streak; you win a few hands…and things suddenly get worse.

There's nothing more dangerous than to feel in control when you aren't. You think you know what you are doing and you think you need to continue because 'Luck favours the brave'…until it's too late to quit while you are ahead.

And if you don't know when to stop - you stand no chance to win at Blackjack.

Luckily for you, it's not too hard to learn the best Blackjack strategy, even if you are a complete newbie.

Read the article I linked above and memorise the right way to play every single hand.

Then, open an account on this site to practice for free.

Continue to play for free until you are 100 percent sure that you know how to play each combination of cards. Again, Blackjack is not a game of improvisation - there are rules you need to respect.

Don't Practice at a Casino - Stay Online

Most brick-and-mortar casinos will not allow you to bring a Blackjack cheat-sheet with you at the table.

It is against their rules and, let's face it: it would make you the most ridiculous nerd in the room. And even if you want to win at Blackjack - you don't want to be that guy.

This is to say that you won't be able to check how to win your Blackjack hands. You will have no external help besides that of your brain.

If you don't remember exactly how you are supposed to play - you are doomed.

That's why you need to play online. Until practice will have made you perfect.

Follow these steps to play free games where you can apply the basic strategy:

• Open this page (opens in a different tab)
• Register an account
• Launch the free Blackjack games and practice

Once you are all set, split your screen and keep the basic strategy chart open right next to the table. That will help you to know how to play and how to take your decision fast.

Because the next time you'll play with a real dealer, they will not let you much time to decide whether to hit or stand.

Attention: from here on, I am going to assume that you know the game's basic strategy. All the next tips to improve your chances to win at Blackjack are based on the fact that you know how to play.

If you don't, go back and practice Blackjack online over and over again.

Do that, and you'll be ready to continue.

Do Blackjack Online Courses Work?

There are 15,100,000 pages dedicated to Blackjack courses on Google. That's three times the population of Denmark.

The problem is - over 90 percent of those courses come from people who never won anything at the table. The only money they make comes from their courses, not from their skills.

As a longtime LinkedIn aficionado, I once took one of the courses to win at Blackjack they host on their learning platform Lynda.com.

What a boatload of c*ap that was.

Do you know what the most painful part of the course was? To discover that more than 6,000 people wasted their money on that.

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Mixing impossible calculations with Captain Obvious-like revelations, the whole aim of the course was to convince you to buy another course where you would finally find the secrets you missed to win at Blackjack.

How's that for upselling?

The truth is that winning at Blackjack is much easier than you think.

You just need to play cum grano salis, as my professor of Ancient Latin and Greek used to say.

And that's because the first secret to becoming a winning Blackjack player has nothing to do with hitting or folding.

If you want to be a winner, you need to behave like one.

Don't Try to Predict Patterns

You don't have to be a genius to know that you can't beat a casino.

That's how the gambling business works. The house has an advantage over the players - so the longer you play, the higher are the chances that the house will win.

Do hot and cold streaks exist? Probably.

Can you plan or control them? You wish.

Flip a coin 100 times, and it won't come up in a pattern of heads-tails-heads-tails-heads-tails all the way to 100.

There will be streaks of heads and streaks of tails.

How to predict that? Perhaps only Fibonacci knew that. Too bad it's a little too late to ask him now.

As a gambler, your job is not to force faith and find impossible ways to guess what will happen. It's to win as much as possible and leave before your winnings are gone.

And it all starts from picking the right Blackjack table.

Fewer Decks Can Make You Win More

Single deck games are rare in most casino these days. But remember this: the fewer the decks are, the easier it is to keep track of the face cards.

As you are going to see very soon, that's a key factor to win at Blackjack online and live.

While 'card counting' is not allowed, there's nothing wrong with keeping a general count of how many face cards have come out.

Be smart about that and this will be enough for you to get a little more adventurous with your play when you know that a lot of them have yet to appear.

Read the Rules of Your Game

Everything you see on a Blackjack table tells a story.

Everything is a piece of a puzzle you have to complete before you put your money on the line.

Here's an example?

A table that pays Blackjack at 3-to-2 odds will make you more money than one that pays at 6-to-5.

Even better:

Did you know that a table where the dealer has to hit on a soft 17 makes the house more money?

And guess where does that money come from...

That's why you should never sit to play at a table you know nothing about.

Table selection is essential to win at Blackjack and you can choose the right table only if you have the information you need.

Choose where you sit down based on the table's rules – not on whether the dealer is pretty or plain out-of-this-world-sexy.

You are there to win money, not to pick up a dealer.

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The Oscar System

How To Win Big At Blackjack In Vegas

Do you remember how alleged Blackjack experts make money online?

They sell 'systems to win at Blackjack' to people who would spend a fortune to find an easy way to win.

Too bad none of those revolutionary and proven Blackjack winning system work, though.

The game of Blackjack is based on probability, meaning most of those systems are just plain nonsense.

The only real Blackjack system that works does not deal with cards – it deals with money management.

It's called Oscar System, and here's how it works.

The key to improving your winning chances at Blackjack is to approach the game with the right mindset.

Don't look at a night of Blackjack as one long game with endless swings. See it as a long series of individual sessions.

Why?

Because the goal in each session is to win at least one chip (whatever denomination you may be playing).

As soon as you are a 'winner' and you have scored that one chip, the session ends and you start fresh.

If you want to use the Oscar System to win at Blackjack, you need to follow four basic rules:

• Whenever you win, increase your bet by one chip
• Whenever you lose, play the same amount you just be
• If you made any money in the session, pocket your winnings and start the progression again.
• Never try to come out ahead more than one unit – in other words, if you're down by one chip, your maximum bet would be two chips (which would still make you a winner).

Let's see this strategy in action.

In this example, we start with a one-chip bet.

I will use the symbols (-1), (+1) and so on to indicate where you stand in the game.

Example 1:

Bet	Result	Standing	Comment
1	Lose	(-1)	We lost, so we repeat the same bet
1	Win	(0)	We won, so we 2x the bet
2	Win	(+2)	We made money. The session ends with a two-chip profit

Example 2:

Bet	Result	Standing	Comment
1	Lose	(-1)	We lost, so we repeat the same bet
1	Lose	(-2)	We lost, so we repeat the same bet
1	Lose	(-3)	We lost, so we repeat the same bet
1	Win	(-2)	We won, so we 2x the bet
2	Win	(0)	Since we never try to come out more than one unit ahead, we just bet one chip
1	Win	(+1)	We made money. The session ends with a one-chip profit

By limiting your losses and by controlling your bets you increase the chances to stay ahead and to keep all the money you win on Blackjack intact.

The Oscar System is structured in a way that your winnings are always safe.

You only play with the initial capital, the bankroll you set before you started to play your first mini session.

This way it only takes a few wins in a row to recover any losses. That's because you only 2x your bets after the first win.

Sure, it could happen that you will have to dig deep to build back to a winning session, but experiments with this system show it's your best chance to win money at Blackjack.

That's all there is to it.

Follow the optimal strategy, choose the right Blackjack table, and use the Oscar System to break your play up into a lot of small sessions.

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Disclaimer: Gambling is a game of chance and there's no sure-fire formula that guarantee winnings. You can improve your winning chances by using the right in-game strategies but there is no way to predict when a machine or a Casino game is going to pay. Also, this page contains affiliate links. If you click through and play, we might earn a commission. That’s what allow us to keep CasinoSmash free and bring you the best online Casino bonuses!