A Fifth of Online Blackjack Players Mistaken
A fifth of online blackjack players wrongly believe that card-counting is an effective strategy when playing the game at an online casino. This is the conclusion of an informal survey carried out by Gamble.co.uk, and it suggests that there are plenty of blackjack players who don’t fully understand how online blackjack games are simulated and/or how card-counting works from a technical perspective.
Card counting is a strategy that will be familiar to many blackjack players who have played the game offline. The basic idea behind card-counting is that, by keeping mental track of the cards that have been dealt from the shoe, the player can estimate whether the cards that remain in the shoe are more favourable to the player or dealer. By adjusting stakes according to how favourable the remaining cards are estimated to be for the player, the experienced card-counter can reduce the house edge and in some cases actually gain an edge over the casino himself.
At first glance, it would appear to make sense that the same strategy of card counting should be applied just as effective online. After all, when you play a game of online blackjack the virtual cards are dealt from a virtual shoe, and you can easily keep a mental track of all the up-cards that are revealed just as you can at an offline casino.
What is far less obvious is the fact that the cards in a game of online blackjack are not dealt in quite the same way as they are offline. When you play offline the cards are dealt for each game and once they have been dealt they do not come back into play until the majority of the shoe has been dealt. This is what makes card-counting effective online, because the count reflects the cards that remain in play. When a certain proportion of the shoe has been dealt, all of the cards are shuffled and brought back into play, and the card counter must therefore start counting again.
When you play at an online casino, the shoe is only there for the purpose of making the game look as realistic as possible. If you check the rules of almost all online blackjack games you will read that “the cards are shuffled after the completion of every game”. In other words, after the cards have been dealt for a game, they are returned to the shoe and all available cards are shuffled before the next game. This means that all cards are in play for every hand, so card-counting to keep track of which cards remain in play is a completely redundant activity.
It is not surprising that a fifth of online blackjack players don’t realise this, as few casual players ever take the time to read the small-print of the rules before they sit down and play. Our hope is that by highlighting this misunderstanding we can reduce the percentage of blackjack players who attempt to count cards online, and that we can also increase the percentage of players who read the rules before putting their money at risk.
Article Published: 14/06/2010 11:59:22
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