Blackjack Conclusions
The house/dealer advantage is dominated by:
- A tie is a dealer win.
- A player bust means dealer wins even if dealer busts. This is most significant to the house with multiple players but even with a single player, this advantage is reflected in the dealer winning percentage.
Going from trivial to basic strategy does not gain that much - player improves from 40.8% to 42.5%. I suspect there is gain in player winning percentage using double, split and surrender actions, as well as considering multiple aces. However, the precise quantification has not been done, yet.
Hi/lo counting applied to the betting amount does not work. Even though there are better odds indicated through card counting, it does not change the fact that the dealer has the advantage as described above. Betting a larger amount will win big - but it can also lose big. And if the dealer has the higher winning percentage, the player earnings will be worse than just betting minimum bet every time.
There may be a gain to apply hi/lo counting to the playing strategy (e.g. to improve upon the basic strategy). But it is not clear to me how much gain there would be, nor how to simulate it in order to test the method which needs to be devised in the first place.
So, the casinos and online venues will eat your money on Blackjack, or any other game for that matter. Budget accordingly and you can still enjoy a night out. On any given night, you could get lucky and walk away with net winnings.
Here is an app which I have developed to guide my Blackjack actions. Too bad electronic devices are generally not allowed in casinos. There is the online world.
