Kurtis Cameron Math 1030: Quantitative Reasoning Instructor: Camille Diaz Final Project April 22, 2013 Understanding

Blackjack In the card game of Blackjack the house or the dealer will always have the upper hand; but there are ways to improve the odds in your favor. The dealer gains an advantage of 7-8% by playing their hands in a very specific manner. But by using proper blackjack strategies you can actually decrease the casinos house edge to bare minimum. Memorizing and sticking to a Blackjack Strategy Chart can drop the house edge to about 3%. Toss in a basic card counting strategy and youre down to around 0.5%. Successfully applying an advanced card counting strategy can actually turns the odds into your favor, eliminating the houses edge altogether (BlackjackOnline.net). First, a brief explanation of blackjack: The objective of the game is that you will need to obtain a hand value that is closer to 21 than that of the dealer without going over. Other players at the table are of no concern. Your hand is strictly played out against the hand of the dealer. The rules of play for the dealer are strictly dictated, leaving no decisions up to the dealer. Therefore, all cards are played face up; there is no problem with the dealer or any of the other players at the table seeing the cards in your hand. The dealer will keep one of their cards face down until all of the players have chosen to stand, or have busted (got a hand that was over 21), then the dealer will play their hand. The cards have certain values, the Ace is valued at ether an 11 or 1. The cards from 2 through 9 are counted at face value. The 10, Jack, Queen, and King are valued at 10. The value of a hand is the sum of the point counts of each card in the hand. A blackjack, or natural,

is a total of 21 in your first two cards. A blackjack is therefore an Ace and any ten-valued card, with the additional requirement that these be your first two cards. Winning blackjack pays the player odds of 3 to 2. A bet of $10 wins $15 if the player makes a blackjack (BlackjackInfo.com). The player does have some choices to make while playing the game, these choices are: Surrender Surrender offers you as a player the choice to fold your hand, at the cost of half of the original bet. You must make that decision prior to taking any other action on the hand. Hitting/standing The most common decision a player must make during the game is whether to draw another card to the hand (hit), or stop at the current total (stand). Splitting Pairs When you are dealt a matching pair of cards (ignoring the suits), you have the ability to split the hand into two separate hands, and play them independently. You will need to place a new bet on the second hand but this can help to turn a bad situation into a good one (BlackjackInfo.com). What are the odds of getting a good hand in Blackjack? In this case the probabilities attached to card dealing and initial predictions are calculated using one deck of cards. The total number of possible combinations for each of the two cards is C (52, 2) = 1326, for the one-deck game. Probability of obtaining a natural blackjack is P = 8/663 = 1.20663%. The probability of obtaining a blackjack from the first two cards is P = 32/663 = 4.82654%. Similarly, we can calculate the following probabilities:

Probability of obtaining 20 points from the first two cards is P = 68/663 = 10.25641%.

Probability of obtaining 19 points from the first two cards is P = 40/663 = 6.03318%.

Probability of obtaining 18 points from the first two cards is P = 43/663 = 6.48567%.

Probability of getting 17 points from the first two cards is P = 16/221 = 7.23981%.

A good initial hand could be a blackjack or a hand of 20, 19 or 18 points. The probability of obtaining such a hand is calculated by totaling the corresponding probabilities calculated above: P = 32/663 + 68/663 + 40/663 + 43/663 = 183/663 (Probability Theory Guide and Applications, 2013).

Probability of obtaining a good initial hand is P = 183/663 = 27.60180%. What are the odds of busting? The following odds chart shows the blackjack odds of busting, depending on your current hand value: Hand Value 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 or Less % Bust If You Hit 100% 92% 85% 77% 69% 62% 58% 56% 39% 31% 0%

(Blackjacktactics.com)

Here are the odds of the dealer busting. Total chance of this circumstance Dealer's turnedChances that this is Chances of going bust occurring and down card the hole card (a) with this card (b) resulting in a bust (a X b) Ace 10 9 8 7 6 5 or less Total chance of dealer going bust 1/13 = 7.7% 4/13 = 30% 1/13 = 7.7% 1/13 = 7.7% 1/13 = 7.7% 1/13 = 7.7% 4/13 = 38.5% ------------0% 8/13 = 61% 7/13 = 53.9% 6/13 = 46.8% 5/13 = 38.5% 4/13 = 38.5% 0/13 = 0% ------------0% 32/169 = 18.3% 7/169 = 4.1% 6/169 = 3.5% 5/169 = 2.9% 4/169 = 2.3% 0/169 = 0% 31%

(Blackjackrulesandstrategy.com) Note that the dealers highest chance at busting is the same as the players second lowest chance at busting. This shows an advantage of the house in Blackjack. Even with the house having such an upper hand, there are strategies that can help improve the odds in your favor.

The chart below show suggestions of what could be done based on the value of your hand versus the dealers up card. The chart is suggests actions that will have the greatest odds of ether beating the dealers possible hand or preventing a maximum loss of your bet.

(Card-games-play.co.uk) Another method for gaining an additional advantage over the house is the

counting of cards. There are a couple of different ways to do this, an advanced way and an easy way. The advanced way is complicated and requires thousands of hours of practice to be useful, so I will not discuss this method. Beginner card counting involves the simple application of high, low, and neutral values to the cards that are on the table so that you will be able to more accurately predict the value of the next card that is to be drawn. This counting system involves adding and subtracting one point value for every card that is played. The count must be kept in the player's head and is best done as the card is revealed. For every 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 that a player sees he should add one. For every 10-point card or Ace a player sees he should subtract one. Any 7, 8, or 9 and the count remains the same. What this tells you is, when the number is positive there are more Aces and tens than normal and when the number is negative there are less Aces and tens than normal (Blackjackrulesandstrategy.com). Doing this will give you an additional advantage and increase odds more in your favor. The house will always have the upper hand, but with these and other strategies you can improve your odds. With these techniques it is still possible to loose a great deal of money playing Blackjack, so please gamble responsibly. Never gamble with more money than you can afford to loose.

Citations: BlackjackInfo.com. BlackjackInfo.com, 2013. Web. 21 Apr. 2013.

BlackjackOnline.net. BlackjackOnline.net, 2013. Web. 22 Apr. 2013.

Blackjack. Probability.infarom.ro/index.html. Probability Theory Guide and Applications, 2013. Web. 21 Apr. 2013.

Blackjacktactics.com. Blackjacktactics.com, 2013. Web. 21 Apr. 2013.

Odds and Probability in Blackjack. Blackjackrulesandstrategy.com. Blackjackrulesandstrategy.com, 2013. Web. 22 Apr. 2013.

Counting Cards in Blackjack. Blackjackrulesandstrategy.com. Blackjackrulesandstrategy.com, 2013. Web. 22 Apr. 2013.

Card-games-play.co.uk. Card-games-play.co.uk, 2011. Web. 21 Apr. 2013.