Welcome to our Blackjack Page
When it comes to casino games, they don’t get any more classic than Blackjack. They say many games take a moment to learn but a lifetime to master, but it is particularly true of Blackjack. The object of the game is to get the highest score of 21 or less, starting with two cards. All number cards represent their value, face cards are 10, and aces are either 1 or 11, depending on what you need them to be. The dealer deals you two cards and takes two for themselves. That’s basically it!
The name comes from what essentially amounted to an advertising promotion. With gambling proving to be a huge attraction as America expanded west, the riverboat casinos needed to find gimmicks and tricks to try to entice players out of the casinos and bordellos of New Orleans. In order to do this, they offered a bounty: if you were dealt the Ace of Spades and either the "black" Jack of Spades or Clubs, you won a 10-1 return on your original stake. No one knows how long the promotion lasted, when it ended or how successful it was, but the name stuck.Tips for playing Blackjack Online
You won’t need to make a special deal with a casino in order to play blackjack online. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get a lot of variation in the blackjack game you want to play. For example, as well as a variety of language options (so keeping track of the rules is so much easier), there are several variations. Super 7s for example, is a variation of Blackjack online that gives you extra returns if your hand has a seven in it. You get a small bonus for any winning hand that has one seven in it and a bigger one for two. Of course, three sevens adds up to the magic number of 21, and because you are playing with several decks of cards, it’s entirely possible that you get three sevens of the same suit. Win a game with that, and you’ll win an extraordinary 5000:1 bounty. Or if you want to feel like a true high-roller, you can play an entire table of blackjack online on your own.
You can play blackjack online with other people as well if you like, including a real dealer. Some of our games have real croupiers who will be more than happy to guide you through the game, offer congratulations when you win or just to talk to you about your day. There are other rulesets that you can use for playing blackjack online, such as Atlantic City or Reno rules. No matter which version of blackjack games that you want to play, you’ll always find a great selection here on Casino777. So whether you want to stand, hit or even double down, you’re in the right place.Getting Good
Once you’ve understood the rules, it’s time to get good at this Blackjack game. That is a little trickier than you think. Unlike Blackjack online, blackjack games in the casino are usually played with several decks, kept together in what is called a ‘shoe’. You can trust to your luck, which is what the casino wants, or you can try to keep track of the cards in order to give yourself a bit of an edge. Of course, remembering how many face cards and/or aces remain in up to six decks of cards is not particularly easy, but it is possible. Unfortunately, casinos really don’t like it and while it’s technically not against the rules, a casino can (and will) issue a ‘back off’ warning, essentially a casino version of ‘we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone we want’. At any moment, a suspected card-counter can have their game shut down.
This puts Blackjack aficionados, not to mention the casino, in a bit of a difficult situation. After all, the only way to win at Blackjack without trusting to luck is to keep track of the cards. Therefore, a careful balance needs to be found, between the player not winning too much money from the casino and arousing suspicion, and the casino knowing full well what the player’s up to, but not coming down too hard on them.Going Too Far
Of course, sometimes, someone takes it too far. Bringing Down The House, a book by Ben Mezrich, tells the story of a group of MIT students who formed a group solely for the purposes of counting cards. While the account is disputed in a variety of aspects, certainly the basis for the story is true, this really happened. A group of students (sometimes as many as 80) would book into casino hotels under assumed names, pretending that they didn’t know each other. Then they would take up position in or around the Blackjack games and signal to each other when a game was primed to start paying out. Naturally, they got caught, but not before they took millions.Going Pro
Probably the most successful Blackjack player of recent times is Don Johnson (no, not that one), who won $15 million from three casinos between December 2010 and April 2011. He managed this not by counting cards, but by changing the rules of the game before he sat down to play it. Casinos were hurting after the 2008 financial crisis. In order to try to drum up business, they attempted to court various high-stakes players to come and play at their casino. Johnson was one such player and when three Atlantic City casinos courted his attention, he new exactly what terms to ask for. Among the numerous small adjustments he requested was that the dealer be forced to stand on a soft 17, a 20% rebate on losses over $500,000 and six decks in the shoe.
With these changes, he had forced the casino into a position where the house edge was seriously blunted, and as a consequence did pretty well. In three months, he’d won $15 million. Funnily enough, the casinos weren’t keen on continuing the arrangement.
