Blackjack Odds

Hi there! I’m glad you could join me here for this lesson. Today I’m sharing my knowledge of blackjack odds with you. By now you must know and trust me enough to have a pretty good feeling for my expertise. I’ve been around and seen it all (almost!), and I’ve got the goods on blackjack odds for you right here. Don’t forget to take some notes!

Now you know as well as I do that blackjack is one of the most enjoyable and exciting games at the casino. I don’t want you to have the experience of losing lots of hands in a row, but you know it will happen from time to time. If you want to cut that down as much as possible, you have to know something about blackjack odds when you’re making your bets. This will just increase the chances of making a winning bet, but all the knowledge of blackjack odds in the world will never make it possible to win every hand. Nothing can do that except cheating, and you won’t find any information about that here!

First of all, the thing I want to tell you is that you never want to take a hit on 20 or 21. That should be obvious, since 21 means blackjack and a guaranteed win, and if you take another card, you’re bust. That one is just common sense. As the total point value of your hand decreases, so do the odds of busting on a hit. The odds of bust at 20 is 92%, at 19 it’s 85%, at 18 it’s 77%, and at 17 is 69%. So you can see that the blackjack odds of a bust have gone down a lot, just over 4 points.

Once you’re below 17, the probability of bust 62% for a hand of 16, 58% at 15, and 56% at 14. Once you really start looking at the odds, you can see the sense behind the numbers. It’s not rocket science. I don’t think there are many folks out there who know anything about blackjack odds that would shy away from a hit below 14, but keep in mind that these odds are based on the percentage of times you would bust if you took a hit with that point value in your hand. Like I said, knowing about blackjack odds can only aid you in being a more educated player, not guarantee constant wins.

Now that I’ve shared my knowledge of blackjack odds with you, you’re ready to take your knowledge to the tables. Remember, if you hit twenty-one, it really wasn’t blackjack odds that did it; you just had a visit from good old Lady Luck! Right about now, you may also want to learn about some strategies, so go to my blackjack strategy page if you wish. Now get out there and enjoy yourself!