What Bad Blackjack Is And Why You Should Stay Away

It has already been common practice for the gaming industry to hold an expo every year, wherein new games and slot machines are introduced to the hordes of casino goers. In reality however, very few of the new table games that are introduced stand a chance of actually reaching the casinos. To make matters worse, most of the games that DO make it to the casinos give the house an edge of 3% or even more!

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One game that is widely known to offer the lowest house edge around is blackjack. In fact, it is even possible to play blackjack and win by employing card counting techniques. These characteristics make it highly unlikely that blackjack–for all its popularity as a casino table game–would be able to make the move into casinos if it were only introduced into the market today. That fact that blackjack players can employ "basic strategy" in further bringing down the house percentage to as little as half of one percent, make it even more unlikely that the game would be accepted in modern day casinos. Obviously, this percentage of the house advantage is way below the three percent advantage that virtually all of the corporate casinos enjoy today.

For all the benefits that card counting can bring in terms of winning black jack, very few people actually attempt to study and practice this technique. Furthermore, the few that do try to learn blackjack card counting oftentimes fail miserably when it comes time to hit the blackjack tables. In addition, only a very small percentage of blackjack players take time or make the effort to learn how best to utilize basic strategy.

Now you may think that all these blackjack players playing at less than optimum levels would be enough profit opportunities for casinos. However, there are quite a lot of casino operators who feel that even more profit can be made from blackjack players. This has resulted in a number of changes instituted in recent years, most of which have been developed primarily to draw in more money from blackjack players. Some of these changes involve the introduction of automatic shuffling machine that serve to speed up the game considerably, disallowing doubling down after splitting as a means to increase the house advantage, and similar such rules.

What is more disturbing however is the implementation by many of the casinos in Las Vegas of a new rule that will seemingly have a major effect on the way blackjack is played. Known infamously as "bad blackjack", this primarily entails being paid 6 to 5 instead of the 3 to 2 for a natural. Whereas you would normally be paid $15 dollars for a natural in the past, blackjack tables that have adopted this new rule will only pay you $12 for a natural.
While this would seem like a simple enough variation, it actually increases the house advantage by 1 ½%, giving the blackjack player who adopts basic strategy a disadvantage of 2%. Needless to say, you should avoid these types of blackjack games at all costs.