Beating BlackJack.
Now here’s the thing. Whatever people tell you, or whatever youtube videos you find about Blackjack systems that guarantee profit, there’s no foolproof way of profiting from Blackjack apart from card counting and luck.
With online casinos, card counting isn’t an option as the regular non-live games are randomised so that technically the deck is shuffled after every hand. With the live Blackjack games, it is possible to count cards but as they use a “cutting card” somewhere near the middle of the shoe the chances of counting and gaining a profitable edge before a new card shoe is used is minimal.
Having said this, the chances of profiting from Blackjack are higher than with any other table game or slot. Of all the casino games Blackjack consistently offers the lowest house margin. Most slots have a return to player (RTP) of between 94 and 98%. Roulette, depending on which version you play offers between 96 and 98%. Blackjack offers between 99 and 99.5%.
The best way to maximise your chances of profiting from Blackjack are to strictly follow “basic” strategy and use a progressive system the will enable you to keep increasing your profit.
Progressive Betting
Progressive betting is a betting technique used to maximise profit or minimise risk by increasing or reducing your bet depending on the results of your previous bets.
The most well known of these is the Martingale system. The main issue with this and other progressive systems is that a long losing run is practically inevitable and will wipe out not only your winnings and your original stake, but can also leave you significantly in the red.
The system that I use (and works particularly well if you’re just looking for a decent short-term profit) is known as “OSCAR’s grind”. This has 2 main advantages over other progressive systems. Firstly, your profit will increase steadily as long as you don’t hit a couple of very bad streaks. Secondly, your stake will increase as you lose but unlike the Martingale system, it’s easy to stop after a bad run without losing all your capital.
OSCAR’s Grind
OSCAR’s Grind is a positive progressive betting system which enables you to steadily increase your profit whilst allowing you the opportunity to prevent large losses.
So here’s how it works. Your intital stake should be no more that 1% of your starting capital. The lower the percentage of your intital stake, the lower the risk. For this example, I will use 1 unit (from 100 units starting capital) as the initial stake.
The aim of every hand is to increase your capital by 1 unit. If your initial hand wins then you will have a total of 101 units, and will place another 1 unit bet. If this wins you will now have 102 units and a new target of 103 units.
When your hand loses, you will still stick to a 1 unit bet. Only when you win again will you increase your stake by 1 and only if this is required to reach your target for this hand.
For example, If you get to 102 but then lose 4 in a row you would be down to 98 units but with 1 win you would then increase your stake to 2 units. With 1 win of 1 unit and 2 wins of 2 units you would now be at your target for this hand of 103. The 3 winning hands have not only cancelled out the losses from 4 losing hands but also made you a profit.
Everytime you start a hand your target is 1 unit more than your current capital. You will only increase your stake (and only ever by 1 unit) if the following 2 conditions are met:
- Your hand just won
- Your current stake won’t get you to your target for this hand.
Here’s an example of stake-sizing with a losing streak to make a profit which I’ve lazily plagiarised from wikipedia:
And here’s a video where you can see exactly how this works (my initial stake is way higher than it should be, but that’s just because watching this for a couple of hours until I double my intial stake would be very dull).
Try it out for yourself here. This Blackjack game (by Relax) has the added bonus as it tells you what to select according to Basic strategy:
Oscar’s grind has a big advantage over other progressive systems as losses are incurred slowly and it allows you the opportunity to stop before your entire initial stake is lost. As a very occasional land casino visitor I’ve found the system works very well (as long as you’ve mastered basic strategy) and you’ll probably come out with a profit. My wife was particularly impressed/surprised when we visited a casino on a drinking trip to Prague and I used this system to come out with a stress free profit of over €200.
Learning BlackJack Basic Strategy:
The most crucial aspect to consistently winning on Blackjack is to master basic strategy. The Return to Player of Blackjack drops dramatically as soon you start making the incorrect decision for certain hands. Thankfully, it doesn’t take long to master basic strategy.
There are many versions of Blackjack available, but we recommend using “Relax” Blackjack (available at many casinos) as this rather generously tells you the best strategy for every hand while you’re playing. Just look for the green line under the available options after a hand is dealt.
Using this Blackjack game you can both learn basic strategy and the Oscar’s grind system. You’ll be surprised how quickly your profits increase once you’ve perfected this.
Where to play for real:
