Did you know that Casinos around the world win more money at Blackjack than they do at any other game played at the tables? Did you also know that more people play blackjack than any other table game. Sadly enough, there are more people who play it poorly than their are people who play basic strategy to their advantage.
Blackjack is a casino game where the player's decisions have a huge impact on the outcome of the game. In the game of Blackjack, whether you win or lose is not necessarily an incidence of chance or even luck. A good Blackjack player (good being one who sticks to basic strategy un-waveringly) plays against a house edge of approximatley 1/2 % in multiple deck blackjack games. Most Blackjack players face a house edge of 2%. Another reason why the casinos rake in so much with this most played table game is because in any given hour, a player can lose many times. As much as 60 to 100 decisions are made each hour by the player. Basic Black Jack strategy provided here.
There are a lot of different programs, software, tables, and various literature on how to play Blackjack to maximize your winnings and minimize your risks. Even amateur Blackjack players instinctually sense that splitting 10's is NO good. But consider for a moment how you would play this hand. The dealer is showing an ace and he/she calls out INSURANCE. How have you played this hand in the past? Well I used to be the sloppy non basic strategy guy until I learned better. I would simply take insurance no matter what. But this is not maximizing your winning potential and definately not decreasing your risk factor. Why? Because no matter what you have, a dealer showing an aces next card in a multihand deck , and although the insurance bet pays out 2 to 1, for every 13 cards in the deck there are only four ten point cards. That leaves a whopping nine that aren't.
Here is a common mistake that players make and that you can think about before playing your next hand. The dealer is showing an ace and asks you if you want insurance. You have two 10 cards in your hand. You want to make sure that you win that hand, which is the second strongest hand in Blackjack so you decide to insure it. Common sense tells us that if you have two 10 cards in your hand you have increased the dealer's chance of not having a 10card under his ace, right? Yet, many players will give the casinos that extra above and beyond boost to their already gleaming edge, thus giving the casino an even greater winning power over them in that situation because they foolishly think they are improving their chances to win by insuring when in truth they are increasing their chances to lose.
For slot strategies see the "Can't afford to bet max?" page.