If you like playing USA online blackjack, or any other type of casino game, you probably stumbled upon a term called house edge. House edge may differ in every game, and it is simply the amount of money that casino earns on you playing games.
Casino games are luck-based games but they are always slightly in favor of the casino since the gambling houses need to earn money as well. Therefore, a house edge is the average amount of money that casinos earn from a certain game.
It is basically a statistical way to state the advantage that the house (the casino) has in certain games. If the house edge is, say 5%, that indicates the average amount of money that the casino takes from players. Naturally, games are random, so some players may win a lot of money, while others may lose it all. However, after some time, when we look into the past and take into account all the winners and losers, we can see that the casino earned approximately 5% from all the money that was invested in games.
The house edge that is applicable to blackjack is statistically much lower compared to other casino games. If you just focus on the basic blackjack strategy you are likely to play a game that has a house edge which is only %0.5.
One cannot help but wonder — why are casinos still holding on to blackjack so much if it has such a low house edge? Well, the thing with the majority of players who play blackjack do it for fun, so many don’t even bother keeping up with the basic strategy and hold on to the luck factor. In other words, most players don’t want to take time and put in effort in learning the basic strategy, let alone applying it when playing blackjack, and that is completely okay. Many casino games are about fun and suspense rather than mathematical thinking.
On the other hand, players who decide not to use the basic strategy will still have a better house edge compared to other casino games. Playing blackjack without the strategy will result in an average house edge being approximately 2% which is still not that bad.
In the end, there is the card-counting technique which can minimize and even completely exclude the edge, but it is forbidden in many casinos and can get you banned from online casino sites.
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