The most favorable for players is early surrender, which, when played properly, reduces the house edge by 0.6%. The more casinos, the better the selection the better the selection, the likelier to find games in one area with favorable rules. Gambling venues like Las Vegas, Reno, Atlantic City, Biloxi, Monaco, Macau, and San José (Costa Rica), and many more, all have multiple casinos. Look for casinos that have as many of these features as you can find. The best are on the Wizard of Odds website. So first memorize the tables associated with basic strategy. If you learn blackjack basic strategy, which you can find online, and which does not involve counting cards, and learn how to find the best games, you can reduce the house edge to 0.5% or less. It’s called research, and there’s plenty of information available. You can do something perfectly legal and safe to reduce the house edge. Now casinos use computers to ascertain whether a suspected card counter actually is counting.

Counting cards has become even tougher than what is depicted in the movie 21. Add to that the fact that casinos look for and bar card counters, to get around which card counters may resort to disguises and also modify their play to escape notice, which practices further lower their already small edge. For example, if you are counting cards sometimes you stand with a total of 12 versus the dealer’s 10 upcard, while sometimes you hit 16. The playing decisions change depending on what cards appear. And then mathematical gyrations must be performed in your head with the appearance of each card.

It’s hard to keep track of all the cards as they appear.

Betting more when the edge is in the player’s favor and less when not can be accomplished by counting cards. The house has the edge more often than the player and that is how they make money against most players. But in blackjack, the advantage swings back and forth between dealer and player. Most casino games have a fixed edge and it is always in the house’s favor. The best you can find is blackjack (21) played optimally, wherein you can reduce the house edge to under 0.5%. By Michael Wiesenberg © 2019 Great Bridge Links Most casino games have a fixed house edge, ranging from as low as 1.36% to as high as 29%.

Blackjack surrender house edge