Single Deck Blackjack

Single deck blackjack has often been looked at as the holy grail of the game because it offers players the best chance to win profits. In fact, the house edge is just 0.15% when players stick to blackjack games with a single deck. With this being the case, you’d think that single deck blackjack is the greatest thing ever. However, there are actually some disadvantages to the subject as well, which is covered below along with single deck blackjack advantages.

Single deck blackjack is when only one deck of cards is used. Pitch deck blackjack uses more than one deck and the dealer instead of using a shoe, deals the cards out by hand. In a pitch blackjack game, no more than two decks will be used in the game. All other single deck blackjack games in Las Vegas pay 6:5 on a natural. All the 6:5 games permit players to double down on any two cards but not after splitting. The dealer hits soft 17 at all Las Vegas single deck blackjack tables. Note that a 6:5 blackjack game increases the house edge by about 1.4 percent. Single Deck Blackjack Rules As the name suggests ‘’Single Deck Blackjack’’ is indeed played with one single deck of cards, which is shuffled after each and every round. It begins before the cards are dealt, which is the point when you have to place your bet. Different casino’s will allow you to bet between differing amounts. Single Deck Blackjack In a single-deck blackjack card game, players are required to get a hand value not exceeding 21 or any number close before the dealer without busting or going over. You can also win by having the dealer bust first. To begin the game, you are required to place a player bet.

Single Deck Blackjack online, free

Advantages

The obvious advantage to playing single deck blackjack is just as we stated before in that you’re getting the absolute lowest house edge. Facing a 0.15% house edge puts you on nearly a level playing field with the casino, and makes your chance of profiting seem like a coin flip. Of course, to take advantage of the low casino edge, make sure that you understand good basic blackjack strategy first – otherwise, it doesn’t really matter how many decks you’re dealing with.

One more big advantage of single deck blackjack comes for card counters. Usually, card counters these days are dealing with six and eight deck shoes, which means they have to wait longer for favorable counts. But with single deck blackjack, card counters don’t have to wait nearly as long to get a favorable count, thus letting them bet big much sooner.

Disadvantages

Based on the aforementioned advantages, you wouldn’t think there’d be much downside to single deck blackjack. But the problem is that casinos often advertise single deck games, yet offer unfavorable rules to increase the house edge. And what’s bad about this is that the house edge can actually end up being higher than with six or eight deck blackjack.

In the worst case scenario, casinos will only make 6:5 blackjack payouts instead of 3:2 payouts. This one rule alone will bring the house edge from 0.15% all the way up to 1.45%. Considering the fact that you can still keep the house edge at around 0.5% with both six and eight deck blackjack, it’s sometimes not even worth the effort to search for single deck games. Casinos might put other unfavorable rules in the single deck games too, so watch out for this.

Single Deck Blackjack Chart

Another disadvantage to single deck blackjack is that you’re very unlikely to earn many comps with this version of the game. After all, if it’s true single deck blackjack you’re playing, the casino won’t make much money off you in the long-term. That said, they aren’t going to be generous with comps either.