Shoe Penetration: A low initial house edge is important when it comes to beating the game of Blackjack with card counting but the rules of the game are only part of the picture when it comes to actually BEATING blackjack. Penetration is one of the biggest factors that will determine how big of an edge you can hope to gain over the house. Simply put, The house edge is the difference between the true odds and the odds that the casino pays you when you win. Look at this It shows the Casino's advantage for different casino games. All are fixed except for Blackjack and Video Poker. The rules for Blackjack put forth by the PGCB lower that house edge even further. In fact, the house edge for PA casino blackjack under PGCB rules is only about.40 percent. That means the game has a theoretical return to player rate (RTP) of 96.6 percent.
Blackjack is by far the most popular game at any casino. However, players might find the blackjack tables at PA casinosare even busier than most.
That's because the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) has set rules for Blackjack at PA casinos that make the game even more player-friendly.
There's no doubt Blackjack can be fun. However, the number-one reason for its popularity is the fact it often offers casino players the best chance to beat the house.
The game has a low house edge to begin with. The rules for Blackjack put forth by the PGCB lower that house edge even further.
In fact, the house edge for PA casino blackjack under PGCB rules is only about .40 percent. That means the game has a theoretical return to player rate (RTP) of 96.6 percent. In other words, over the long haul, $96.60 of every $100 bet on Blackjack at a PA casino will be returned to players.
That's about as player-friendly as a casino game gets.
Basic PA Blackjack rules
Every PA casino employs the same Blackjack rules. The basic PGCB rules that give Blackjack in PA its low house edge are as follows:
- Blackjack pays 3:2
- Dealer stands on soft 17
- Players can double down on any two cards
- Players can split up to three hands (except aces) and double down after splits
- Late surrender is allowed, allowing players who don't like their hand to give up half the bet when the dealer doesn't have blackjack
The payout on Blackjack (3:2) is certainly better than many casinos across the country where it pays 6:5. The difference on a $10 bet is $3 in winnings and that can certainly add up over time.
Having dealers stand rather than hit on soft 17 (17 with an ace) has a major impact on the house edge. Players may not see this scenario play out too often during the average Blackjack session, but they'll certainly be happy when they do.
Allowing players to double down on any two cards and double after splitting up to three hands is like giving them an invitation to increase profits when things are going well at the table. Blackjack can be a streaky game and these PA Blackjack rules let you take full advantage of that fact.
The late surrender secret
Casinos may not come right out and tell you about the late surrender rule employed in PA. Plus, even the savviest gamblers don't invoke the late surrender option too often. However, the ability to give up half a bet rather than hit or stand with terrible cards facing almost insurmountable odds most definitely reduces the house edge.
Learn basic strategy
PA casinos are not just giving away money to Blackjack players just for walking in the door. The PGCB Blackjack rules are player-friendly, but they are not a license to print money. Players need to learn and employ a good, solid, basic Blackjack strategy, taking into account the player-friendly PGCB Blackjack rules, to take advantage.
Cheat sheets are available online that can help players perfect a basic Blackjack strategy. It's all about making the best odds play, hitting when the timing is right and standing when it isn't.
Cheat sheets can provide all the information a player will ever need regarding every holding and dealer up card. Players that study and use this information ensure the true house edge for PA Blackjack can be realized. Any mistakes or deviations from basic strategy and players are essentially giving the house its edge back.
PGCB rules here to stay
Back in 2016, the PGCB Executive Director told Trib Live Player's Advantage columnist Mark Gruetze PA's Blackjack rules are player-friendly and here to stay:
'I don't foresee any changes. Our board has consistently recognized their responsibility to protect the gaming public in all aspects of legalized gaming. Part of that is to have rules of the game that provide an appropriate house advantage to the casino but something that still meets a standard of reasonableness and a standard of fairness. We're pleased with how we have accomplished that in games (like Blackjack) that have been on the books since 2010.'
PA Blackjack side bets
Not all PGCB Blackjack rules are as player-friendly as those described above. In fact, the PGCB allows PA casinos to make some money back on side bets that often come with a huge house edge.
There are nine Blackjack side bets the PGCB allows casinos to offer. Here's a list with odds:
Hit And Run Progressive and Bad Beat Progressive
Both these bets pay out progressive jackpots when near impossible situations play out. The Hit And Run Progressive hits when the dealer makes an eight-card hand.
Bad Beat Progressives hit when the dealer makes 21 with seven cards or more. Both also pay out small when the dealer either makes Blackjack or beats a 20 with 21.
The house edge is upwards of 45 percent, but when the jackpots get big enough, even savvy Blackjack players might deem it worth taking a shot at either of these side bets.
Lucky Ladies and King's Bounty
Players that take the Lucky Ladies or King's Bounty side bet option get paid 4:1 when they draw 20 in the first two cards. The big payday comes when they draw two Queens of Hearts playing Lucky Ladies and two Kings of Spades playing King's Bounty. It pays 1,000:1, but unfortunately, that's not the true odds of accomplishing such a feat, keeping the house edge on both games around a whopping.
In Between
In Between bets pay when the dealer's up card falls in between the player's first two cards. Payouts vary depending on the size of the gap but max out at 30:1 when all three cards match. At 13 percent, In Between has a sizable house edge.
Bet The Set
Bet The Set pays players for drawing pairs and suited pairs. The House edge is around 10 percent but the most it ever pays is 15:1.
Royal Match
Royal Match side bets pay off at 2:1 when a player's first two cards are suited. A big 1,000:1 payday comes when both player and dealer draw King-Queen suited. However, the true odds of that are astronomical and Royal Match has a house edge of close to six percent.
Match The Dealer
Bet Match The Dealer and get paid up to 11:1 or 14:1, depending on how many decks are in play when either of your first two cards matches the dealers up card. It's a better bet than Lucky Ladies or King's Bounty but the house edge is still upwards of four percent.
21+3
21+3 side bets pay off at 9:1 on flushes, straights, trips, and straight flushes. The house edge is lower here than most, standing at 2.8 percent.
The house always wins. But when it comes to real money blackjack, the way the house edge works is quite a bit different than in other games.
Before I dive into the topic, let's make sure we're all on the same page on this one—there's not a game in existence where the house doesn't have an edge.
That funny phrase about how 'the house always wins' isn't just a clever casino spiel, it's reality. Casinos could not exist if they didn't have an edge. It just wouldn't make sense from a business standpoint.
Every game you play in a casino has a house edge. And how large that edge is depends on the rules the casino puts in place to some extent, and on you to some extent—your strategy, your tactics, your knowledge of the game, your decisions on how you play and why you make the plays that you do. All of these things affect how large the house's edge truly is.
So, how does that house edge work for blackjack, anyway? Let's take a look.
Start Thinking in Percentages
If you don't like math, you're probably not going to like gambling much. Or, at the very least, you're not going to be very good at it.
Now, as mentioned before, there are many factors that determine the house's edge, but you're looking at anything between 0.5% (if you're implementing a good blackjack strategy) and a few percent (or even more).
There's a reason so many gambling movies focus on blackjack. It's one of the games where you can potentially come out on top if you know what you're doing.
Why? Because the house edge only really means something for a statistically significant number of hands. What that little percentage up there means is that, on average, all players who are playing blackjack are going to lose about 0.5% of what they bet over time.
It's clear right away why this only means something across a large number of bets. If you bet $100 and lose a hand, there's no possible way to lose 50 cents. You either win some money, you lose some money, or you end up neutral.
But if you add up all the bets of all the players who are currently on the floor of a casino, and you start to measure the amount won and the amount lost over time, you'll see that the house is going to be up about 50 cents a hand on average.
Casinos are profitable for precisely this reason. The rules are set up so that, statistically and over time, house losses are negated by house wins, and a slight profit is made. Slots tend to have the worst odds (and thus, are most profitable for the house), but the house holds an edge in almost every game available to you. But there are rare exceptions.
What Determines the House Edge
There are a number of factors that specifically determine the house edge. First and foremost is strategy. If you don't know what you're doing and don't have a clear strategy, the house edge is going to be closer to 2% than 0.5%.
Other rules that can often feel completely strange or incalculable to new players also affect the house edge. For example, the amount you can win if you play a natural (blackjack—21) plays a big role in the house edge.
You'll find that some casinos will pay you 3:2 on a natural (which means, for example, that you get $15 on a $10 bet), but many other casinos have moved to paying 6:5 (you get $12 if you get blackjack on a $10 bet). That greatly increases the house edge, so avoid it if you can.
Other rules play a factor—does the dealer hit or stand on a soft 17? Can you double after a split? Can you double on any first two cards? How many hands can you re-split to? Can you re-split aces? Can you hit on re-split aces? What about when a dealer gets a blackjack—do you only lose your original bet? What's the surrender rule?
All of these seemingly insignificant rules play a huge role in the house's edge, but remember—the house is winning over time over many different hands.
You don't have to play a lot of different hands, you can come out on top.
Beat the House – Walk Away When You're Winning
If you decide that the house edge in the casino you're playing in is, say, 1%, that means you're losing about 1% of whatever you're betting over time.
But what happens when you win on the first hand? Let's say you hit blackjack on your very first hand—lucky, but certainly not impossible.
Let's further say that you bet $100 on that firsthand and the casino pays 3:2 on a natural, so you're now up $50.
What happens when you walk away? You walk away with $50.
Blackjack Rules House Edgewater
See, the house edge only means something over thousands of hands—tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands—all the hands that you play and that everyone else plays.
But if you only play a few hands (even a few dozen), you're not in the realm of statistics anymore, you're in the realm of randomness and luck.
Blackjack 21 Rules
If you walk away from the table before you start to lose (and you will start to lose if you play enough hands), then you've just beaten the odds.
The same can be said for losing, however, if you find yourself down, cutting your losses may be the best way to go. It's certainly possible you can win your money back and get on top again, but on average, you are literally paying money to play, in the form of that 1% of your bet that the house is claiming on average.
The Solid Base of the House Edge That You Can Never Overcome
While we can talk all day long about blackjack strategy and how much money you make on a natural and all that jazz, I think it's instructive to look at the origin of the house edge in the first place.
Every game you play in a casino has some simple rule that automatically guarantees the house and edge of some sort. Games of pure luck keep that house edge rigid, for example, there's not much you can do to influence the odds of a roulette wheel. You place your bet, you let that sucker spin, and you either win or you lose. That's that.
Blackjack's house edge may be much more flexible given how you can apply strategy, but the foundation of the edge comes from the simple fact that you can bust before the dealer even has a chance to play their hand.
Rules To Blackjack
Think about it! If you bust, the dealer might have busted as well, but it still counts as a win for the dealer because you bust first. The dealer doesn't have to reveal their hand until the end.
That translates into a huge advantage for the dealer. The house starts off with such an enormous advantage that all those other rules have to be put into effect just to get the darn thing down to something reasonable, and even then, you need a solid strategy if you're going to beat the house.
What Is a Blackjack Strategy?
A blackjack strategy is essentially a set of rules that takes into account probabilities of cards turning up and then makes recommendations one what you should play based on your hand and the card the dealer has revealed.
While there are more than a few blackjack strategies out there, you're going to need to do at least some studying if you want to understand how to reduce the house edge and get yourself to a place where you can at least have a chance of making some profit.
Blackjack Rules Pdf
Remember, even with a strategy, the house still maintains that edge. There's no way around it. So, on top of whatever strategy you come up with, it's still a good idea to learn how to get out when the gettin's good.
Sometimes, you're going to walk away when you feel like you're on a winning streak. At the beginning, I say that you're going to have a bad time if you don't like math, and it's true. Every hand you play is a complete tossup. There's no such thing as having a hot or cold streak.
The only way you beat the house is to quit when you're ahead.
Conclusion
Free Bet Blackjack House Edge
The house edge works in blackjack in just about the same way it works in every other game, that is to say, it works for the house and against you. Learn some blackjack strategy, take free gambling lessons at some of the bigger casinos, learn what you can learn from watching the pros, but ultimately, if you want to beat the house edge, learn to walk away.
