Posts Tagged ‘Online Blackjack’

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What Can Basic Strategy do for you in Online Blackjack?

Monday, July 25th, 2011

Online blackjack already offers players one of the best house edges in the online casino industry. Prior to any blackjack strategy, online blackjack has a house edge of 2 to5% depending on the individual house rules. In our current climate most house edges for blackjack online sit at around 4 to 5%.

When playing blackjack in a land casino there are more strategy options available because you are playing face to face with real cards and a real dealer, not virtual cards dealt by the Random Number Generator. One of the biggest differences between land casino blackjack strategy and online blackjack strategy is card counting. In online blackjack there is no card counting because there are no discards in online blackjack; think of it as being like playing with a Continuous Shuffle Machine in a land casino.

The loss of card counting is blow to online blackjack strategy since card counting can potentially give the player the edge. But without discards there can be no card counting. So. Moving on, what do we have?

The strongest online blackjack strategy tool that players have is basic strategy. Sometimes online players become tired of hearing about basic strategy. But the reason you hear about it so much and from so many sources is because it is the strongest strategy tool. Playing every hand according to basic strategy can drop the house edge down to 0.5% over time. And that gives online blackjack the lowest house edge out of all the online casinos games. This means that it has the most stable potential to turn a profit for players and to win them real money at online blackjack.

So when you are going to set about playing online blackjack, pull up a basic strategy chart and play exactly how it tells you to. You will not win every hand but your edge will go up and that means you can make more money over time from online blackjack.

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Blackjack Players, When in Rome…

Thursday, July 14th, 2011

When in Rome do as the Romans do right? Well if in Rome they are enjoying blackjack aimed bonuses, that means to enjoy them too right? Right!

Well over at the online casino Rome Casino there are several bonuses that are good for those playing table games and that means that all of you online blackjack players can take advantage of them too.

First up part of the Weekend Warrior bonus specials include an unlimited 15% cash back for table game players. This means that you can get 15% of your losses back in a cash back from playing online blackjack. Not a bad offer for kicking back on the weekends and playing.

Playing during the week? Not to worry, online blackjack players, there are weekday bonuses for you to take advantage of during the week too. They are coming to you from the Weekday Labor bonuses. Online blackjack players can either take advantage of various deposit bonuses with different percentages (check in with Rome Casino each week to see what is offered), or online blackjack players can take advantage of the same unlimited 15% cash back that is available to you on the weekends.

Looking for something that is only available to a smaller crowd? Copia’s Cash Back Bonus is only available to online blackjack, roulette and video poker players. And that is a pretty small crowd considering that it is not available for online slots or online poker players. This special bonus is for a 25% cash back. Nice chunk of money there.

There are also special weekly bonuses in addition to the Weekday Labor bonuses for players to check back for. Rome Casino certainly likes to take care of their ‘Romans’ who are playing online blackjack with all those cash back opportunities.

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Best Times to Bet in Online Blackjack

Monday, June 27th, 2011

When playing blackjack in a land casino, often times blackjack players will take their cues of when the best times to bet are from other players at the table that they perceive to be more knowledgeable about blackjack and blackjack strategy than they themselves are. I am talking about the times to double down and split pairs. In some cases this works out just dandy, and in other cases this does not work out so well.

But in online blackjack there are no other players to take cues from when it comes to betting in online blackjack to know when to double down and split pairs. It is just you and the game, and you have to determine the best time to bet. No other players to influence you. So if you are still getting your online blackjack game or betting strategy feet under yourself I do have a suggestion: basic strategy.

Basic strategy is the online blackjack player’s best tool for knowing the best times to bet. Not every hand has the best odds for doubling down and splitting. Without other players to learn from, basic strategy provides the best information to determine the best times.

A basic strategy chart is made up of the dealer up cards across the top with all player starting hands running down the left hand side. This chart will tell players when the best times to double down and split pairs are.

For example, most players know that most hard 10 and hard 11 dealer up card combinations are good to go for doubling down on. But did you know there are some hard 9s that have pretty good doubling down odds? Or did you know that there are eighteen soft hands that have good double down odds?

Granted, players cannot always double down on any hand in some online blackjack hands. But if players have that option there are soft hands that should be doubled down on. And pairs! There are eight instances where you should double down on a pair of 5s and not split.

That is the kind of information that basic strategy provides. And it provides it for free while being a perfectly legal strategy tool. Basic strategy is the online blackjack player’s best way of determining which are the best times to bet and double down or split pairs in online blackjack.

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Blackjack Background

Monday, June 20th, 2011

Have you ever stopped to consider how online blackjack, or just blackjack in general, got to be so popular?

The game of blackjack goes as far back as the 1700’s when it was called Vingt et Un in France. This is why it should come as no surprise that Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte played blackjack; in fact, it is has been reported that it was his favorite card game and the one he played most often. So think of it this way when you are playing out your hands of blackjack online: you and your blackjack mind are in the company of Napoleon.

So you picked up that blackjack was not always called blackjack. Vingt et Un is French for 21. This is why the game is commonly called 21, which makes sense considering that the point of the game is to beat the dealer without going over 21; 21 is the star hand in the game—it is the hand players cannot go beyond and it is the hand that awards the highest payout.

So if the name of the game is supposed to be 21, where did the name blackjack come from? The game was so popular in the 1920’s American casino scene that it was nicknamed blackjack as slang for 21. This is derived from having a hand made up of the Ace of Spades and the Jack of Spades; it was the most popular hand, and even today there are some blackjack variations that payout even more if the blackjack is made up of the Ace and Jack of Spades.

When playing blackjack, be it blackjack online or in a casino, you now have a sense of history. This is not just a casino game with really good odds and house edge; it is a casino game with a strong history and popularity.

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Online Blackjack Bonuses at Win Palace

Friday, June 10th, 2011

I love bonuses. Bonus dessert, bonus savings, bonus anything. But when it comes to online blackjack, I love bonus money. There are a couple of bonuses for online blackjack players at Win Palace that have struck my fancy.

First there is the Welcome Bonus for Blackjack. Win Palace does offer a standard Welcome Bonus but it is aimed dominantly at online slots. Thankfully they created an online blackjack bonus. Starting with a new player’s first deposit, a 100% deposit match bonus worth up to $500 can be awarded. That deposit can be claimed ten times, which is a total maximum amount of $5,000. The bonus coupon WINBJ must be turned in before making any of those bonuses though.

After new players are done claiming their ten Welcome Bonuses for Blackjack they can hope on board for the weekly bonuses at Win Palace. Win Palace will theme their weekly bonuses to jazz them up and make them a little more fun. There is one bonus for online slots and another for table games—naming online blackjack. Here is the current week’s rundown of online blackjack bonuses:

Any deposit gets 110% (BETS1)
A deposit of $100 or more gets a 152% bonus (BETS2)
Deposit $200 or more and receive a 200% bonus (BETS3)
Deposits of $350 or more get a 240% bonus (BETS4)

Any of those bonus coupon codes can be used during the week, up to 40 xs. Coupon codes have to be turned in before making the deposit. Turning them in after will not get you your bonus. Also all bonuses have a wager requirement of 30 xs. Add together your deposit and your bonus money and there is the amount for the wager requirement. Naturally you can play online blackjack to meet that wager requirement.

Win Palace is lively with their weekly bonuses and it is worth checking back with them.

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Are CSMs Fair in Blackjack?

Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

It is a question I hear fairly often: Are CSMs fair to use in blackjack? CSMs by the way are Continuous Shuffle Machines. Most blackjack players hate them. The ones that do not hate them learn to dislike them once they understand what they do. Blackjack players who count cards particularly hate them.

When a CSM is being used at a blackjack table, the dealer will collect all of the cards that were just used in the last round and pop them into the CSM. The CSM then immediately shuffles the just used cards back into the deck. At no point is there a stack of discards at a table that is using a CSM. It is the lack of discards and the constant shuffling that makes blackjack players hate CSMs.

But to answer the question, yes, CSMs are fair to use in blackjack. We may not like them, but there is nothing anywhere that says that they cannot be used. Sucks, right? Right.

Online blackjack players really do not have much to say on the idea of a constantly shuffled deck. But that is because the RNG used in online blackjack games creates an effect similar to a CSM. There are no discards in a game of online blackjack. At the beginning of a new round the RNG will pull at random the two starting cards of the player from all possible two starting cards; and will pull at random the dealer’s up card from all possible up cards for the dealer to have. Each card that is dealt is dealt from all possibilities. This is a similar effect to a CSM since the cards from a previous round are not removed from the possibilities.

Casinos can use that similarity as a means to back up the idea that it is fair for them to use a CSM. But at the end of the day, CSMs are fair game to be used in a casino no matter how much players do not like them.

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Win Palace’s Online Blackjack Bonus

Friday, May 27th, 2011

I am into exploring new things. Originally this might have been limited to blackjack variations and blackjack strategy, but now I am going to take a look here and there at different online blackjack bonuses. Why not? America is heading towards online gambling whether the nay-sayers want it to or not. It never hurts to get familiar with what is being offered out there when it comes to online blackjack.

Today we are going to take a peek at what Win Palace is offering new online blackjack players.

Naturally Win Palace is offering a deposit match bonus. They are giving new online blackjack players a 100% deposit match bonus worth up to $500. Not excited? How about if they make it redeemable ten times? That means that new blackjack players can receive a maximum of $5,000 from this Welcome Bonus. And it is all for online blackjack,

The way it works is new online blackjack players must create their player account at Win Palace. Then they have to click over to the cashier section of the website, and then click the Redeem Coupon button in the tool bar. It is here that players enter the Blackjack Welcome Bonus: WINBJ. Then simply click redeem and make a deposit. Players can repeat this process nine more times for a total of ten times.

Like any bonus there are some restrictions. For one, this is a playing only bonus. This means that the bonus money is not withdrawable and will be deducted from the player’s when they do make their first withdrawal. A withdrawal cannot happen until the wager requirement is met; that wager requirement is to wager the combined total of the deposit and bonus twenty five times. Blackjack and Perfect Pairs will meet the wager requirement. Other games such as Roulette, Craps, Baccarat and more will not count towards meeting the requirement, and playing them will void the bonus. In short, stick to playing only blackjack until the wager requirement is met.

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One More Good Thing About Online Blackjack

Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

After a trip to the local casino this past weekend I have one more thing to be thankful to online blackjack for: no third base.

No, I am not talking about the ‘bases’ guys have in regards to making it with girls. I am talking about the seventh seat at the blackjack table, the one on the dealer’s right hand side. It is how the player in this chair is treated that just gets under my skin.

It is widely believed—too widely if you ask me—that the third base player can make or break the dealer’s hand. Let me say this right now: This is a myth.

According to this myth, the third base player can either hit and take the card that would allow the dealer to win, even if it means sacrificing the player’s own hand. Or the player can stand and pass along the card that would bust the dealer, again at the cost of the player’s hand.

There is one problem with this blackjack myth: The dealer has a hole card, and no one knows what that hole card is. If no one knows what the hole card is, how could a player in the third base chair know whether or not the draw card will make or break the dealer? That is just it—there is no way of knowing.

But when the player in the third base chair does or does not take the dealer’s bust card–depending on what the situation called for—and players at the table who do believe this convoluted myth proceed to yell or exclaim a good deal over how the third base player did not sacrifice their hand to shut the dealer down.

And it is the reactions of these players who believe and take out their belief on the third base player that make me thankful for online blackjack. Online blackjack is played solo. No third base player. No mean other players to yell at the third base player. Just a nice peaceful playing experience when playing blackjack online.

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Blackjack for a Grill

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

Silver Dollar is fast becoming one of the most popular places to play online blackjack at. The game lineup is good and there are promotions constantly being offered. Some promotions are cash prizes while others are useful in other ways, such as this month’s promotional prize: a Primo Kamado Ceramic smoker.

With spring here and summer not far on its heels people will be lighting up the grill and breaking out the ground beef. Or soy burgers if you are into that. This is what makes the promotional sweepstakes at Silver Dollar heat up this month.

Players can enter the grill sweepstakes by turning in some of their loyalty points for a ticket; 500 loyalty points will equal one ticket. Loyalty points are earned by real money players at Silver Dollar for playing their favorite online casino games. This means that online blackjack players can accumulate points to turn in for tickets to enter into the grill drawing.

Naturally there are details for this sweepstakes in regards to timing and shipping (because they cannot very well deposit a grill into your player account). The drawing for the grill will happen on May 30th so there is still plenty of time to choose to redeem loyalty points for grill sweepstakes tickets. If the winning player lives in the US then the grill will be shipped to them without the player paying for any shipping. But if the winning player lives outside of the US, sorry but no grill for you. Instead if the winning player resides outside of the US, he or she will receive the cash value of the grill deposited into their player account.

Again, players can earn loyalty points for playing online blackjack for real money. No special codes necessary, just sign up for the Silver Dollar loyalty program for free and watch the loyalty points build. Then you can turn them in for a shot at winning the grill.

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75 Year Old Armenian Woman Cuts Country Off from Online Blackjack

Monday, May 2nd, 2011

No joke, this is a true story. A little less than a month ago online blackjack players in Armenia were suddenly without online blackjack. The connection, the internet, the games—and even an online blackjack tournament—were all interrupted when 75 year old Aishtan Shakarian cut through an international fiber optic backbone cable, known as the West-East cable, that connected Armenia to the rest of the world’s internet.

The elderly woman had been out gathering scrap metal to sell when she found a steel wrapped cable. Thinking to bring what she could carry with her to sell, the grandmother of eight began to chop away at the cable. After about ten hours of hacking at the cable Shakarian was able to pull free a twenty meter section of the steel casing. In doing so she damaged the fiber optic internet cable to the point that the majority of the country lost its internet connection for around twelve hours.

Online blackjack is the second most popular online casino game in all of Armenia, hence all of the upset when the cable was damaged and internet service lost. At the time the cable was damaged an online blackjack tournament was taking place. Players in this particular tournament were highly upset due to the fact that entry fees into the tournament were unrefundable, and after twelve hours of no internet, there was no one winning that tournament.

At the time Shakarian was arrested and admitted to damaging the cable while digging. When commenting on the situation, Zurab Gvenetadze, a police spokesman, said, ‘Her age is a mitigating factor. I am not expecting the prosecution to push for a strict punishment.” It is likely she will face a fine, some time doing community service and potentially a year in prison. It is unclear if she knew what the cable was for and if she knew she was cutting her country off from the Internet. There has also been no word on whether the online blackjack tournament players received a refund owing to the exceptional circumstances.

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