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Manage Blackjack Odds - Money Management
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There are two ways to play blackjack online with favorable blackjack odds, depending on what your objectives are. If you are looking to just hustle the bonus money, then you may want to play blackjack with a simple flat bet betting sequence. Simply bet the same amount on each bet. This is a boring way to play, but it reduces your variance to the absolute minimum.

If you play with proper basic strategy, you can expect to lose about ? -1% of the total money you have wagered. Factor in the 10-30%+ bonus that you will receive from the casino, and you will be ahead of the game with positive blackjack odds to you.

Example: Say you buy-in for $100, and want to receive a 20% online casino bonus (in this case, $20). Let’s further say that the casino requires you to play 2X the buy-in plus the bonus. That would equal $240 worth of action in order to qualify for the bonus money. O.K., you decide to play blackjack using proper basic strategy and figure to give away 1% of you action to the casino. That would equal $2.40 in expected losses while playing. Once you qualify for the bonus, you will have the additional $20 bonus deposited into your account. Subtract the 1% expected loss of $2.40, and that leaves you with an expected $18.60 profit.

Original blackjack odds (Casino Payout): 99%
Deposit: $100
Casino Bonus: $20
Wagering action to qualify for bonus: $240
Expected loss: $2.40
Expected profit: $18.60 (You get the extra blackjack odds)

If you flat-bet, starting with $5.00 hands, you will need 48 hands of play (minus any double downs or splits) to qualify for the $240.00 worth of action. This will take you about 15-20 minutes to accomplish.

If you move up to $10 per hand, you will only need 24 hands to qualify for the bonus, but you will also be raising the variance in your play (lower blackjack odds). This means that you will have a slightly higher chance of losing your buy-in. Of course, if you are strictly playing for the bonus, then you will be largely unconcerned about your daily wins and losses as they are expected to average out to the 1% overall loss rate and instead you will concentrate on getting the bonus.

Once you reach the bonus, you will want to play a little more to keep the online casino happy. But soon after, you will want to terminate your play with that casino and search out the next one.

The following table summarizes the money management concepts, when flat betting for the game of blackjack.

Flat Bet Money Management for Blackjack

Fair enough. But what if you want to play blackjack in hopes of winning consistently online? While conducting research for this website, I have literally played dozens of betting variations to try and determine which one(s) would be most effective against the online casinos.

Flat betting will result in the expected approximate 1% loss rate. Good enough for the bonus play, but not good enough if you want to be a consistent winner.

You can have better blackjack odds!

How to use blackjack basic strategy for betting progression

Up-as-you-lose betting progressions (the most famous of which is the Martingale, or double-up progression) increase the bet size after each loss. This can be a very exciting (again, that should be read as sometimes terrorizing) way to play. This type of progression allows for a minority number of wins that still produces a profit. However, in the game of blackjack, you can only expect to win about 45% of your hands to begin with; and that 45% places a heavy burden on this type of progression. You end up with either the need for a large bankroll (500 units or more (, or have to accept a low percentage of game wins. In either case, the variance (bankroll volatility) is very large too large for the comfort of most players.

That leaves us with the up-as-you-win progressions. Here is the progression that I use (all figures are expressed in units, or chip denominations). It is an up-as-you-win progression:

1-1-1.5-1.5-2-2-3-3-5-5-7-7-10-10-15

You start with the first level of the progression, and increase you bets after each win. After any loss, you start the progression over at the first level. I also skip a bet after any successful double down, split, or after receiving a blackjack. This gets me further into the series faster than I normally would, and does so without any undo burden on my buy-in.

Play your hands according to your blackjack basic strategy, and keep a record of your play. That’s really all there is to playing blackjack online.

The beautiful thing about this progression is that, once you win the first bet in the series, the worst you can do is break even, or make money, on successive bets. And the first bet is the minimum bet a bet size that you would be making even if you were flat betting. All higher level bets are made with that you have won not money that came out of your bankroll.

Playing with the progression of blackjack basic strategy, I have found that the length of the average game goes up to an average of 30-45 minutes per game. This is good since you are almost always assured of qualifying for the bonus in your first, or sometimes your second, game.

The other good news is that the progression allows for making money while playing blackjack online. While using the progression your buy-in will often times head south. However, I rarely play a game while using this progression where there isn’t an eventual streak that only catch me up, but also eventually leaves me ending the game with a profit.

If you use this progression, you’ll have to lay with patience and discipline. Do not become alarmed when you see your bankroll going down. Just realize that this progression has built-in mechanisms for righting itself and pulling back out. Stick to your basic strategy play, and allow the progression enough time to work itself into the game.

Now I’m not saying that this progression cannot lose it certainly can. What I am saying is that under all but the most extreme conditions, this progression works remarkably well (you will win with high blackjack odds).