Blackjack is the card game of choice for intellectuals, mathematicians, and those who like a chance of beating the house. It’s also one of the few casino games whose optimal play significantly reduces the house edge, which in turn makes it popular with players. In fact, blackjack has managed to push aside such crowd-pleasing casino favorites as baccarat and craps. But how? It turns out that the secret to a successful hand of blackjack is mathematics, which is fearsome when it’s on a test but positively friendly when it can make you money.
Modern blackjack is usually played with a stack of cards coming from several decks that are shuffled and cut before being dealt. This imposes a logical limitation on the probability of occurrence of cards of a given value in any particular situation, since it’s impossible to know the total number of each type of card in the deck before dealing. This compelled mathematicians to develop an approach using approximations, through which they could by-pass the difficulties of probability computations without sacrificing the optimal character of the strategy. The result of this work was the first mathematically correct basic strategy for blackjack, published in 1956 by a quartet of U.S. Army mathematicians dubbed the Baldwin group.
When a player totals 21 on their first two cards, they win immediately unless the dealer also has a blackjack, in which case the hand ties. A blackjack also beats any other hand that does not contain an ace, including hands with a 10 on the board. Some casinos offer a side bet called insurance that pays a 2-1 payoff if the dealer has an ace up.
Unlike the dealer’s hand, which is dealt face-down, the player’s hand must be visible to all players. This enables players to look at each other’s hands, an action known as spoking or hole-carding (although this is not generally legal). The player may also stand (not draw more cards) or hit (add more cards to their existing hand) if they choose.
The game’s simplicity can make it seem straightforward, but there are a lot of little rules to keep track of when dealing. Fortunately, our article on How to Deal Blackjack can help you get started in no time. We’ll walk you through all the nuances of this great game, so you can get out there and enjoy it! But first, you’ll need to understand some of the terminology used in blackjack. Here are some of the most common terms: