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Blackjack
Blackjack is the most popular casino game and offers the best chance at winning

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In the mid-1950s, a group of mathematicians discovered that a "basic strategy" could be employed to reduce the house edge at blackjack, or "21," to virtually nothing. Casinos suddenly realized that the game could be beaten, and have taken various precautions to protect it ever since.

The publication of Beat the Dealer by Ed Thorp in 1962 began a rush to discover systems and methods that would indeed beat the dealer. Card counting, the method first described by Thorp, has been refined down through the years, and today, casinos employ various methods from shuffling after every hand to actually barring players accused of card counting from playing in casinos.

The casinos like to call blackjack a game of chance, but it is as much a game of skill as anything. But you won't hear the casinos denying very strongly that blackjack can be beaten. After all, casinos make most of the money they make at the table games via blackjack. It's great advertising when someone reports a big win at the blackjack tables. Players have been encouraged for many years that blackjack can be beaten, and the casinos don't want to do anything to disrupt that message.

But becoming an effective card counter is difficult and time consuming. And unless you're planning to make blackjack your occupation, it's unnecessary.

Blackjack can be played successfully by using variations on the "basic strategy" developed by that group of mathematicians in the '50s. But first, let's review how the game operates in a casino.

Additional Learn To Play Links:
Taking the Plunge:
The Beginnner's Guide To Gambling

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