How Many Decks Do Casinos Use For Blackjack
Any blackjack game with more than 2 decks will be dealt from a shoe. Shoe games are completely beatable by card counting. The increased number of decks DOES decrease the advantage of the game, but that is often counterbalanced by other factors like better rules and more tolerance. There were single and double deck games all over the place with all the good rules and casino blackjack how many decks penetration. Know How Some Land-Based Casinos Still hollywood casino online, free slots Use Fewer Decks. An important aspect to consider between blackjack variants is the number of decks in play. This review was last updated: 4. In fact, you will notice that when playing a single-deck game of blackjack many casinos only offer a 6:5 payout for blackjack, while multi-deck games offer 3:2. If you placed a $10 bet and got blackjack on a multi-card game with 3:2 payout you'd walk away with $15, whereas you'd only get $12 for a single-deck game with a 6:5 payout.
- How Many Decks Do Casinos Use For Blackjack
- How Many Decks Do Casinos Use For Blackjack Machines
- How Many Decks Do Casinos Use For Blackjack Winnings
- How Many Decks Do Casinos Use For Blackjack
- Appendices
- Miscellaneous
- External Links
How Many Decks Do Casinos Use For Blackjack
/GettyImages-102284502-57fbcb5e5f9b586c35a12522.jpg "Casinos")
Introduction
How Many Decks Do Casinos Use For Blackjack Machines
In playing blackjack online one problem I often face is not knowing how many decks are being used. This is a particular problem with Real Time Gaming casinos. The help files often do not indicate this rule, as well as other rules, and customer support are notorious for giving incorrect information on their own rules. So I devised a test to help determine the number of decks. This test is based on the player's first two cards and the dealer's first two.
The following table shows the probability for various configurations of the initial four cards in blackjack. Note the probabilites for a suited pair. Of all the hands I feel this is the best to test for, given both it's frequency and correlation to number of decks.
| 4-Card Hand | 1 deck | 2 decks | 4 decks | 6 decks | 8 decks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 singletons | 0.676110 | 0.63692 | 0.618504 | 0.612530 | 0.609573 |
| Non-suited pair | 0.304250 | 0.286614 | 0.278327 | 0.275638 | 0.274308 |
| Suited pair | 0.047769 | 0.069582 | 0.076566 | 0.080006 | |
| Two non-suited pairs | 0.010372 | 0.009771 | 0.009488 | 0.009397 | 0.009351 |
| Two suited pairs | 0.000271 | 0.000593 | 0.000725 | 0.000796 | |
| Two pair - 1 suited | 0.003257 | 0.004744 | 0.00522 | 0.005455 | |
| 3 of a kind - 3 suits | 0.009220 | 0.008685 | 0.008434 | 0.008353 | 0.008312 |
| 3 of a kind - 2 suits | 0.006514 | 0.009488 | 0.010441 | 0.010910 | |
| 3 of a kind - 1 suit | 0.000527 | 0.000773 | 0.000909 | ||
| 4 of a kind - 4 suits | 0.000048 | 0.000045 | 0.000044 | 0.000044 | 0.000043 |
| 4 of a kind - 2 suits (3&1) | 0.000033 | 0.000048 | 0.000057 | ||
| 4 of a kind - 2 suits (2&2) | 0.000017 | 0.000037 | 0.000045 | 0.000050 | |
| 4 of a kind - 3 suits | 0.000136 | 0.000198 | 0.000218 | 0.000227 | |
| 4 of a kind - 1 suit | 0.000001 | 0.000002 | 0.000003 | ||
| Total | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
To determine the number of decks in an online blackjack game keep a tally of both the total number of hands played and the number of suited pairs. Only count a hands as a suited pair if the other two are singletons. For example one suited pair and one non-suited pair does not count. In a single deck game the ratio of suited pairs to total hands will obviously be zero. In double deck this ratio will be about 4.8%. In a 4-deck game the ratio increases to 7.0%. After that the differences are too subtle are to tell without a gigantic sample.
Of course if you ever notice three of the same card on the screen at once that rules out a double deck game immediately. Despite my lack of faith in customer support knowing their own rules I would suggest at least asking. If they give you an incorrect answer, and you can prove it, you may get some free money in your account as a way of thanks. This has happened to me several times.
Unfortunately it takes a fairly large sample size to have confidence in the number of decks between 2 and 4. After 250 hands the probability that the sample mean in a 2-deck game will be greater than 6.96% (the 4-deck theoretical mean) is 5.29%. Likewise the probability that the sample mean in a 4-deck game will be less than 4.78% (the 2-deck theoretical mean) is 8.76%. Increasing the sample size to 500 these numbers become 1.11% and 2.76%. At 1000 the numbers are 0.06% and 0.34%.
How Many Decks Do Casinos Use For Blackjack Winnings
