Truth be told, it’s not terribly hard to get ahead playing online blackjack. While there are always going to be some rough outings, for the most part, if you play blackjack solidly with the percentages, you will hold a few extra chips a good deal of the time.
The tricky part is, knowing when to walk away with those extra chips. Of course, if everybody knew this and had control and restraint, the casinos would close the blackjack tables due to lack of profit. As the whole gambling world is not about to suddenly get smart and thrifty, take your opportunity to cash in while playing blackjack.
Blackjack Strategy for Managing your Money: Initial Stake
When you sit down at the table to play blackjack, how much money do you have to gamble with, in relation to the table’s minimum bet amount? Is it five times, ten times, thirty times? Do you just plop down with whatever you’ve got?
If you don’t have a clear strategy as to your financial starting point, you are hampering your odds for coming out ahead. Twenty times the table minimum is a good rule of thumb. Of course, we’ve all heard (or told) the story of, “I sat down at the $25 table with fifty bucks and ran it into seven hundred!” – Or something similar to that.
While that scenario is absolutely possible, it definitely is not going to happen very often. Do your very best to sit at the table with at least 15 times the minimum, and more preferably, 20 times the minimum. This number will give you a fighting chance against any early-on in the shoe losing streaks, and if you lose twenty times the table minimum, base betting at that amount, you probably aren’t going to show a profit at any point that session anyway.
Blackjack Strategy for Managing your Money: What Profit is Enough Profit?
That’s the big question. While there is no hard and fast rule about when you should walk away, the best advice is to sit down to play blackjack with a profit figure already in mind that will cause you to get up and leave the table.
And then do it!
If you set a profit goal, and are lucky enough to achieve it, the hardest part is then sticking to it. The greedy little monster in our mind says, “Hey, I doubled my money easy! – Now I have a bigger stake, so tripling my initial investment will be easy!”
Wrong.
If nothing else, walking away from the table and cashing in your chips allows you the opportunity to look at your winnings as cash money, instead of plastic, multi-colored discs. Psychologically, it’s really easy to lose those silly chips. Taking the cash out of your pocket, after you were fortunate enough to turn a profit, is hopefully a little tougher.
Play Blackjack and Have a Plan
Indonesian casinos wouldn’t offer a game if it were easy for them to be beaten. If you take the time to learn the sound strategies of blackjack, have some discipline and a sound money management game plan, you can give them a run for their – and your – money.
Should I use a Betting System
The Internet is full of sure-fire betting systems for winning at blackjack. Odds are good that you know someone – a co-worker, your mechanic, your florist – who has a sure-fire system for taking all the casino’s money.
Odd how these people always seem to be broke.
The real deal is that to win at blackjack on any given occasion, you don’t need a betting system, you simply need to play solid, percentage-driven blackjack…and a little luck.
That said, many of you are going to forge ahead, determined to find the loophole that allows cascades of money to flow from the casino’s fountain. So, let’s at least break down the most common betting system strategy and see if we can find any flaws.
Should I use a Betting System: The Martingale Betting System
The Martingale Betting System is very simple, yet it seems that every Jabroni who has ever sat down at the blackjack table thinks he is the genius who has finally discovered the foolproof method of wagering that will bring the casino to its knees.
The Martingale Betting System is simply doubling your bet after each loss. The theory is that you will eventually make back everything you lost on the losing bets with the one final win.
Brilliant, huh? Except for one thing: The casino never runs out of money and you likely don’t have an unlimited supply.
For the dealer to win eight hands in a row, the odds are roughly 175-1. Sounds high, but it really isn’t. A 1 in 175 chance during a long evening of blackjack is not far-fetched at all.
Now let’s say that you can find a table with a $10 minimum. You go on a bit of a bad streak. What would you be betting after eight hands? Hmm, 10-20-40-80-160-320-640-1280. If you lose eight hands in a row, you just lost a single bet of $1280 at a $10 minimum table! Add in the steps on the way to 1280 and you just lost $2550 in eight hands – or about three minutes of time at the table. Would you be comfortable going to the next level of The Martingale Betting System that would require a $2560 wager?
Let’s move on.
Should I use a Betting System: Is any One of the Betting Systems the Best? Not really.
A system is always going to fall to the laws of basic math at some point. It is pointless to take on each betting system individually. Suffice to say that none of them are going to work over the long haul. We only broke down The Martingale Betting System individually because that one seems to be the one that a lot of people believe will lead them to the land of easy riches.
Don’t bother with a betting system. Learn the game of blackjack inside and out and only bring money to the casino that you can afford to lose and you will have your share of winning go-rounds.
Should I use a Betting System: Please! I Have to use Something!
If you desperately need to have some sort of structure in your play, then try this simple method. It’s not really a system, just a style of play that should satisfy your need for “pushing” your bets every so often without breaking your bankroll in one giant swipe.
Once again, we’ll use $10 as our base bet. Play your straight $10 bets, then, whenever you get the “feeling”, double it. By “feeling”, I mean whatever makes you want to push a little, whether it’s because you’ve lost a few in a row or just a gut feeling. If you win your doubled bet, then keep playing that amount until you lose, then go back to your original amount until you feel the need to push the action again.
The reason I back this style is because it allows you the thrill of the bigger bets, without any devastating losses.
All that’s left now is to make sure to know when to take the casino’s money and run! — And make sure, when at the blackjack table, to be aware of the rules of etiquette.
