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You’ve heard it time and time again – the fewer decks used in a game of blackjack, the better your odds.
Casino blackjack how many decksWhen my bride & I first started our career of casino blackjack how many decks going to the casinos blackjack was our game of choice. Poor quality and/or rogue casinos using free chips to try to reel in unsuspecting players. Free chips How Many Decks In Blackjack At Mohegan Sun with ridiculous conditions attached. For example, $100 free but you must wager it 100 times in total, then you can only. How Many Decks of Cards Are Used in Blackjack? You might enjoy the game of Blackjack with one or two decks with your few friends at home. But step into any casino, you will find at least five to eight decks of cards used in Blackjack game! Excluding jokers, each of these decks come with a standard 52 cards.
Have you ever stopped to wonder why this is?
I got the inspiration to write this blog post after fielding a question from a buddy of mine who isn’t much of a gambler. He’s preparing to head to a bachelor party in Vegas and started to study blackjack. He noticed that everyone says “fewer decks is better,” but didn’t understand. After all, he said, the overall proportion of each rank of card is the same no matter how many decks are shuffled together.
This post is all about deck size and blackjack. We’ll cover why fewer decks is better, in detail, and include a little bit of math where appropriate.
Fewer Decks = More Blackjacks
The main reason we say that fewer decks is better for players is that, in each deck, exactly 1/13th of all cards are Aces.
Yes, my friend was right, the initial proportions of card values to one another is equal no matter how many decks you play with. The reason you’ll be dealt more blackjacks with a smaller shoe is that the impact of removing a card from the game is greater in a game with fewer overall cards.
Odds of Drawing Blackjack in a Single-Deck Game
Let’s start by getting an idea of how often a player will draw blackjack in a single-deck game. To get to the probability of drawing a blackjack from a one-deck shoe, all you have to do is multiply the odds of drawing an Ace by the odds of drawing any card with a value of ten points. We know that a single deck of fifty-two cards contains four Aces and sixteen cards worth ten points – four tens, four Jacks, four Queens, and four Kings.
6 Deck Blackjack Card Counting
That means probability of drawing any Ace is 4/52, which we simplify to 1/13. Once you’ve drawn your Ace, the probability of then drawing any ten-point card is 16/51. Notice anything about those two numbers? The first probability is based on a fifty-two card deck, but since you’ve already drawn a card, you have to now work out the probability of drawing one of sixteen ten-point cards from a deck of fifty-one.
This change in the divisor is the reason why a smaller number of decks is advantageous to the blackjack player, and gives the house a distinct disadvantage.
If you want to get an accurate number of the likelihood of drawing a blackjack from a single-deck shoe, you actually need to double your result, since you could technically get a blackjack with either a ten-point card OR an Ace at the start.
All told, the probability of drawing a blackjack from a single deck shoe is 4.83%. That’s the probability of drawing an Ace (1/13) multiplied by the probability of drawing any ten-point card (16/51), multiplied by two.
Odds of Drawing Blackjack in a Two-Deck Game
To give you an idea of the statistical difference between one and two decks, let’s look at the odds of drawing a blackjack when you start with 104 cards instead of 52.
The probability of drawing any Ace from a two-deck shoe is 8/104. The probability of then drawing any ten-point card from the same shoe is 32/103. When we multiply those two together, then double the result, we get 4.78%.
Odds of drawing a blackjack in a one-deck shoe = 4.83%. Odds of drawing a blackjack in a two-deck shoe = 4.78%. By adding a deck (and not changing any rules of the game), the casino has decreased your likelihood of drawing a blackjack by 0.05%. Remember, though, that each one of those lost blackjacks would have been a win under standard casino rules at a 3:2 payout. Losing those 3:2 payouts makes a big impact on your bottom line, and on the casino’s.
Why do Double Downs Work Better with Fewer Decks?
If you’re following along closely, you’ve probably already figured out that the same phenomenon that makes blackjacks more likely with fewer decks probably also affects the likelihood of a successful Double Down. If you double your initial hand (6 and 5), you’ll be more likely to draw a face card to form a total of 21 if the game uses fewer decks.
Here’s where things get tricky – don’t forget that your dealer also benefits from these changes at lower deck counts. It’s not just the player that has a shot at more blackjacks. The reason why this fact doesn’t impact the game as much as it might is that players win 3:2 for blackjack, while the house wins just even money. Also, the dealer can’t Double Down, while the player can. That additional doubled-win gives the player a bigger advantage than the dealer.
Conclusion
All things being equal, meaning all rules being pretty much identical, a blackjack game that uses a smaller number of decks to build the shoe is advantageous for the player. One situation I’d warn blackjack players about – casinos that offer single-deck blackjack with a 6:5 or even 1:1 payout for player blackjack. The implication is that the casino is only willing to give you those improved single-deck odds in exchange for a reduced penalty at the point of player blackjack. In the case of games that don’t pay the traditional 3:2, don’t play them just because of the appeal of the single deck setup.
- Appendices
- Miscellaneous
- External Links
Introduction
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 |
Casino Blackjack Tables
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%.