Category Archives: General

General

Low Limit Blackjack

August 30, 2016 – 10:01 am

One of the biggest advantages of playing blackjack online, besides the fact that you can play it from the comfort of your home, is the low limits online casinos have to offer. When playing blackjack online you can find stakes as low as $1 making it affordable for almost everyone. Not all of us can comfortably afford $10+ minimum bets which can be found in land based casinos. It gets even more frustrating when you see an amazing single deck blackjack table with favorable rules, only to find out that the minimum stake is $50 or higher.

Online blackjack is a different world and you can find the most favorable USA friendly blackjack games with bets of just $1 and even lower. And we are not talking just about video blackjack, but live dealer tables as well.

How is it possible?

Some of you might ask: “How it can be?” Why can online casinos can have a 0.2% house edge game with such low bets and regular casinos not?

There are two main reasons for that. First, brick and mortar casinos are more expensive to manage. They have so many expenses to cover: dealers, waitresses, electricity, not to mention building the casino itself. You can see each table or slot machine as a piece of real estate. It’s “rented” to players and needs to bring the casino a certain amount per hour to make it profitable.

If the house edge is high – the casinos offer lower minimum stakes, but if they allow same bets on a favorable table, they just won’t make any money. That’s why all the high payout games have high minimum bets to compensate for that.

For online blackjack the situation is different. First, the expenses are lower. Second, there is no limit to how many players can enjoy the same game at the same time. There can be literally thousands of players on the same blackjack game from all around the country or even world. And the math is simple: better odds + lower stakes = more players.

Live dealer blackjack is a bit different, but even there, online casinos have the upper hand. With the recent addition of Bet Behind feature – the number of players that can play at a single live dealer table is almost endless. As a result, online casinos have started offering low limit bets on these games too.

The bottom line is that if you like playing blackjack, but not looking to bust the house, online low limit blackjack is the perfect place. You can still enjoy your favorite game, without risking much of your hard earned cash. Play USA online blackjack at any of our recommended casinos and play for as little as $1 per game.

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General

What is Card Counting and How Does it Work?

April 20, 2016 – 7:19 am

Card counting is part of what makes blackjack unique, in that it is the only real way a player can claim an advantage over the casino without breaking the law and cheating. Here we take a look at what cared counting is, when it was “invented” and whether it remains relevant in the modern world of blackjack and specifically USA online blackjack.

What is card counting?

Card counting is a method a player uses to keep track of the rough formation of the deck by following what cards have already been dealt. In general, high cards in the deck help the player, whilst low cards in the deck are less advantageous. By knowing how many high value cards remain to be dealt the player can ascertain whether they are more or less likely to win any given hand and alter their bets accordingly. When the deck is favorable, they will stake big and when it is against them they will stake small or not at all.

When was it first formulated?

Dr. Edward O. Thorp is considered by many to have been the first person to espouse card counting in his classic 1962 book Beat The Dealer. That said, there are known to be several professional and semi-professional players using similar systems in the 1950s and perhaps the most famous four men in blackjack history, known as the Four Horsemen, published Playing Blackjack to Win in 1957.

That book was more focused on Basic Strategy but also touched on card counting and ultimately the wonder of card counting cannot be fairly attributed to any one single person, although it almost certainly began in the 1950s in America.

How does it work?

Blackjack is unique among casino games in that what has gone before has an impact on what will happen next. In slots or roulette – or indeed any other online of offline casino game – keeping track of previous spins is pointless. However, in blackjack this is not the case.

High cards are proven to help the player, making it easier to hit blackjack, making doubling more successful and, most crucially of all, making the dealer more likely to bust when they are forced to hit on 12 to 16.

There are countless variations of card counting but what they all have at their core is keeping track of the relative numbers of high cards and low cards that remain in the deck and using this count to alter how the player approaches the game.

Can you use card counting to play USA online blackjack?

Card counting remains legal but the casinos have, over the years, introduced a range of measures to offset it. When it comes to playing USA online blackjack, the benefits of card counting are minimal, with almost all real money online casinos effectively shuffling the pack after every hand, thus ensuring that all cards are in play on every hand.

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General

Best Blackjack Bonuses April 2016

April 6, 2016 – 8:29 am

If you live in the US and want to play real money online blackjack then not only have we got all the best USA online blackjack sites for you to choose from, we’ve also got a range of great blackjack bonuses to help you make a profit too. Read on for the latest and best blackjack bonuses available online right now, April 2016.

There are lots of things we take into account when assessing a bonus and perhaps the most important is the quality, reliability and trustworthiness of the site itself. A great bonus is no use if the games are poor and the casino makes depositing and withdrawing a nightmare. The other crucial factors are the wagering terms and how blackjack works towards these and so the following are the best of the best. If you don’t have an account with all of these blackjack sites you’re in luck, because great games and even better bonuses are just a click or three away.

Silver Oak

Silver Oak are a great USA online blackjack site and their bonus fittingly gives you an extra 21% on blackjack! Deposit between $50 and $500 for a 100% bonus with bonus code SILVERBLACK1, use code SILVERBLACK2 to get a 120% bonus for deposits from $501 to $1,000 and code SILVERBLACK3 for deposits over $1,000, on which you’ll get a massive 140% bonus! But, as said, on top of those, you’ll get an extra 21% too, so that’s a massive 161% bonus for you high rollers!

This blackjack bonus is for existing customers of Silver Oak too, so you can even claim a bonus before taking up this blackjack special and best of all, the wagering is just 60 times the bonus and deposit. That might sound like a lot, but with blackjack counting 100%, as opposed to just 10% or even less at some casinos, that 60x rollover is actually VERY generous.

Bovada

Bovada are another great real money blackjack site that tick all the right boxes and blackjack fans can claim a brilliant 100% bonus up to $250, valid for blackjack and indeed all non-slots games. This bonus can be claimed four times for a total of $1,000 in free blackjack cash!

Use bonus code GAMES250 each time you deposit and note that whilst Single Deck Blackjack, Double Deck Blackjack, Baccarat, Sic Bo, Craps, Roulette and mini games in the Bovada Sportsbook are excluded from the wagering, many other blackjack variants are perfectly valid and the wagering is just 40 times the deposit and bonus!

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General

Latest Blackjack and Casino News – December 2015

December 2, 2015 – 10:41 am

We love playing blackjack and with so many great options for USA online blackjack (check out our reviews and bonus info for the latest great sites and promotions) you don’t even need to leave the house to have a game. However, whether we’re on a run of bad luck, waiting to get paid or just fancy a change, sometimes we like to take a break from playing the great game of blackjack. At times like these we take a look at the news – blackjack news, of course!

MIT Blackjack Legend Sells Vegas Mansion for $9m

Andy Bloch, the 46-year-old poker and blackjack ace who was part of the infamous MIT blackjack team that inspired the movie 21, has put his Vegas mansion on the market. If you fancy living in the former house of Bloch, who won more than $100,000 in a single blackjack session in his MIT glory years, you’ll need some big bucks of your own, with the asking price just a shade under $9m. Who said you can’t make a living playing cards?

The six bedroom palace has, naturally enough, a games room with in-built poker table, a prime view over the Vegas strip from the outdoor pool and even a media room. It’s a bit rich for us but maybe one day …

Cheating at the Tables in Southbridge

A 52-year-old dealer, Roy Mariano, and a 36-year-old woman, Marlene Rivera, have been charged with larceny after surveillance footage from the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut allegedly showed them conspiring to cheat. It is said that on 16 times in August this year Mariano overpaid Rivera by substituting $100 chips for $5 chips when he paid out. The pair are alleged to have split the $78,000 profit 50/50 and Mariano says he took part in the scam after his hours and pay were cut. The case continues.

Delta Corp Shares Surge

Shares in Delta Corp jumped 6% today after it was announced they had been granted permission to operate blackjack and other casino games at one of their Indian hotels in Goa. This is the first time Delta Corp have been granted an on-shore license and they hope this will pave the way for further expansion into the potentially huge Indian market, where they already own three offshore casinos in the state of Goa.

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Maybe Slots are OK After All

November 6, 2015 – 6:32 am

USA online blackjack is what we’re all about here (the clue is in the name of the site!) because we love the low house edge on blackjack, the element of skill and thought and the fact that you can enjoy long sessions at the blackjack table even with a relatively small bankroll. Slots, we often feel, are for part-timers and old Floridians enjoying their annual Vegas trip. Well, last month we heard a little story about a UK soldier who won $20m playing an online slot and that’s kinda made us reconsider!

Granted, the odds of hitting a progressive jackpot slot are pretty darn slim so we aren’t suddenly going to cash in our life savings and hit the nearest online slots site but, much as we love blackjack, you’d need some pretty big stakes and a seriously long winning run to match the win of world record online slot winner Jon Heywood.

The 26-year-old UK soldier from Cheshire in the North West region of England hit the biggest ever online slots win last month playing at online casino Betway, who sadly don’t accept US players. The Mega Moolah slot delivered him his life-changing eight-figure win from a single spin that cost around 40 cents. Mega Moolah isn’t an option for USA casino fans but other great progressive slots are, many with jackpots worth more than $1.5m!

Heywood, who has toured Afghanistan, will no longer need to worry about work after his huge win and plans to spend the money on his family. First priority is his father, who requires a lung and heart transplant, whilst more money is earmarked for a family cruise round the Mediterranean and with $20m to go at, safe to say it won’t be a budget trip!

He also has his heart set on a yellow Bentley. Great automobile, lousy color. His current ride is a Fiat Punto, worth around $12,000, so the Bentley Continental GT – asking price circa $250,000 – is a nice little upgrade for the lucky Brit.

As said, blackjack will always be our number one casino game but with lottery-style prizes like this available playing the spinning reels, and slots bonuses generally being the most generous offered, maybe slots are OK after all!

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General

The Four Horsemen of Blackjack

October 7, 2015 – 11:03 am

The Four Horsemen of Blackjack are quite possibly the most important people in the entire history of the game of blackjack. Whether you are a regular of USA online blackjack, like to play a few hands whenever you’re in Vegas or play at home with your buddies, if you have ever used Basic Strategy when you’ve played blackjack, you owe a great debt to The Four Horsemen of the Aberdeen Proving Ground – to use their full and proper title.

Basic Strategy is the mathematically proven optimum strategy for playing blackjack and effectively tells you whether you should hit, stand, double or split in any given situation. Working this complex algorithm out now would be relatively simple with a cheap computer and a decent grounding in math, but back when the Four Horsemen figured it all out, they used just a pencil, some paper and their collective brainpower.

William Cantey, Herbert Maisel, Roger Baldwin and James McDermott were stationed at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland in the 1950s and decided to see if they could crack the game of blackjack. Upon learning that the dealer had to hit to 16 and stand on 17, Baldwin, who had a Master’s in Math, decided he could try and calculate the best move following the initial deal.

Given there are a fixed number of cards in the deck it seemed right that in any given situation there must be a “right” and a “wrong” call. Previously blackjack players went on received wisdom and hunches but these four bright army men decided they would attempt to work out what choices would yield the best results in the long term.

From 1953 onwards the four soldiers worked on their theory, testing and analyzing, using nothing more than army “adding machines”, as primitive calculators were then known. In fall 1956 they published “The Optimum Strategy in Blackjack” which essentially codified, created, invented, call it what you will, Basic Strategy.

Their original document is almost perfect, with some very minor alterations having been made over the years that produce returns a tiny fraction higher. Amazingly it wasn’t until 2008 that they were inducted into the Blackjack Hall of Fame but since then their amazing feat has been more widely and fully appreciated.

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Playing Mobile Blackjack

September 23, 2015 – 8:59 am

Loads of great online casinos offer USA online blackjack, but more and more of the best casinos around now offer USA-based players the chance to play mobile blackjack too. Playing your favorite card game for real money, wherever and whenever you like may sound too good to be true, but it’s not – welcome to the world of mobile blackjack!

Blackjack may have been around for 100 years or more but in essence the game has changed very little since the advent of online casinos in the mid-1990s. However, one of the best and latest developments means you can play blackjack on your cell and if you haven’t tried it, prepare for non-stop excitement and the most convenient casino action imaginable.

No more trips to Vegas, hell, no more trips to get the laptop ready or sit at your desktop: your favorite game is now resting neatly in your pocket, ready to be loaded in seconds whenever boredom hits, you have a few moments to spare or you just fancy a bit of blackjack fun.

Playing blackjack on the go couldn’t be easier: there is no need to download an app (at most of our featured online blackjack sites) and blackjack is available at just about every mobile casino there is. Apple and Android users will find they have access to just about all sites, although most modern smartphones should be able to access the mobile versions of sites easily enough.

As long as you have reasonable 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi connectivity, all the blackjack you could wish to play is in the palm of your hand. The gameplay on mobile is identical to standard online blackjack, with all the normal options and decisions open to you. The only difference between playing on your cell and on your laptop is that certain account functions (e.g. seeing all your gameplay) may not be available, but in terms of blackjack itself the experience is just as good.

Obviously the number one benefit of mobile blackjack is the total convenience so say goodbye to boredom and hello to mobile blackjack. Whether you’re waiting for a friend, collecting the kids from school or just have spare moment or two, those aces are right there in your pocket!

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The History of Blackjack: Three Theories

August 26, 2015 – 7:44 am

Like many games found in casinos, the origins of blackjack have not been proven beyond doubt and there are plenty of contrasting theories which researchers have asserted as to how this fine game came about. While USA online blackjack is not that far removed from the game that arrived in the USA with migrants and merchants from Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, here we look at three theories about how it all began.

1. What have the Romans ever done for us?

There is a school of thought – chiefly championed by Italian researchers – that the origins of blackjack reach far further back than many believe, right back to the Roman times no less.

The theory goes that Roman soldiers who were hanging around their camps waiting for the next battle or conquest to be ordered would while away the hours inventing and playing various games on which they could gamble (they loved to gamble, apparently!) One such game involved the use of wooden blocks, each of which had a numerical value carved onto it. The players used the numbered blocks to try to get to a target total, the nearest to the total being the winner.

2. If in doubt, look East

Another theory about the origins of blackjack is that it was invented in the Far East (most probably China) some time around 900AD and that it developed from games that came about when Chinese merchants would shuffle paper money (something they certainly invented).

There are only sketchy accounts of such games and how they relate to blackjack, but there is certainly circumstantial evidence that merchants who ventured from Europe to the Far East were exposed to such games which might have inspired them to adapt the rules into something that more resembled blackjack.

3. 21 by any other name

The French game of vingt-et-un (which means “21”) is widely considered to be the true forerunner to the game of blackjack we know and love today. Originating sometime around the early 17th century, and probably as a variation of other games that existed at the time, vingt-et-un was a card game whose object was to reach a total of 21 without going over that total and in which aces counted as one or 11 in value. Sounds familiar, right?

Conclusion

All in all it is impossible to say how blackjack really came about and it almost certainly developed over the centuries as various games were morphed and adapted by those who played them. One thing’s for sure though, now we’ve got blackjack, it isn’t going away!

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Latest Blackjack and Casino News

July 31, 2015 – 8:43 am

Playing at great USA online blackjack sites is how we spend most of our time but every now and again we take a break to keep up with blackjack news from around the world and in particular here in the US. Read on for some of the latest and most interesting blackjack news stories around.

Lady Gaga Hits The Tables

Lady Gaga doesn’t seem to be doing too much musically of late but she’s certainly enjoying some good casino time. She was playing at Atlantic City’s Borgata Casino and then decided to see what the casino was really all about by playing craps with Tony Bennett until three in the morning!

Personally, we’d have steered her to the blackjack tables but she obviously likes the glamour and attention that comes with shooting craps. Somehow we don’t see her playing online craps or blackjack in her kitchen on a Saturday night!

High Rollers Do As They Please

This may not count as news to many people but high rollers and the rich in general are allowed to do more or less what they please, at least according to one casino pit boss. A boss at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut, has told of players urinating on walls, falling into screaming frenzies, throwing chairs, expecting to be allowed to cheat and even perpetrating sexual harassment.

Competition at real-world casinos and online blackjack sites for the big fish who spend top dollar is so intense that it is claimed that such outrageous behavior is accepted. The claims come as part of a hearing at a tribal gaming commission as pit boss Maria DeGiacomo is accused of allowing high rollers to cheat by placing late bets, action she was sacked for.

Glen Costales, testifying in support of his colleague said, “All men are created equal, except in the casino,” and said that such behavior around high rollers – allowing them to place late bets – was common and accepted.

DeGiacomo is trying to clear her name but in the process the industry of offline casinos and gaming is certainly being done no favors.

Seminole D-Day Draws Close

The ongoing issue of the Seminoles’ exclusive rights to blackjack and other card games shows no signs of an easy resolution, despite the exclusivity deal being set to expire on July 31st. Mediation is being sought as the Seminoles look to extend their lucrative deal but the ongoing battle in the state of Florida seems to be heading toward an unhappy conclusion for the tribe, who will have to close their blackjack tables.

If you want to play blackjack then playing online is, oddly enough, our favorite solution so why not check out the various casino and blackjack bonuses available right now?

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Does Card Counting Work for Live Dealer Blackjack?

July 17, 2015 – 2:00 am

Okay, we’ve all seen the movies, we may have read the books, but let’s get one thing clear at the outset, card counting at blackjack is no easy task. You’re as likely to get thrown out of a casino as to make any money from it if you are not very careful, and if you don’t already have basic strategy all but memorized, you might as well forget your chances of getting anywhere close to profiting from card counting. In short, card counting is not for the amateur blackjack player.

Card counting involves assessing when a deck has a glut of 10s and aces (which works out well for the players) or a lack of them (which puts things in favor of the dealer) and wagering accordingly. For instance, when the card counter knows there are many 10s, picture cards and aces to come in the deck, he would alter the way he plays, upping his bets and amending his strategy to go against the basic strategy in certain circumstances when deciding to split, hit or double when the basic strategy says to stand.

Of course, card counting usually takes place in bricks and mortar casinos rather than on USA online blackjack sites (whose standard blackjack games are powered by Random Number Generator software). The advent of live dealer blackjack, however, has given hope to some that you might just be able to get away with a spot of card counting when playing online while not of course running the risk of getting thrown out (there are no cameras watching your every move when you play online of course!). Even though live dealer blackjack games involve real dealers and real packs of cards, the likelihood of you being able to gain any advantage from counting cards is small at best, and even then it is probably reliant on dealer error. This is the case for one simple reason: deck penetration.

Deck penetration refers to how far into a deck (or, more usually, the decks – plural) the dealer will allow play to go before reshuffling. The larger the deck penetration, the better chance card counting has of bearing fruit. Alas, most live dealer blackjack dealers reshuffle after about half the cards have been dealt, which – especially with the commonly used eight-deck shoe – is not nearly enough to make card counting particularly effective. In other words, when playing blackjack online, simply stick to basic strategy for your best chance of winning!

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