The Future of Blackjack
Blackjack has always been one of the most popular casino games, largely due to the fact that it is one of the few games where skill can be used to reduce the house edge to a minimum or even eliminate it altogether. However, in recent years the game of blackjack has taken something of a back seat as slots with massive progressive jackpots and online poker tournaments with multi-million dollar prize pools have hogged the limelight. So are the golden days of blackjack over? We don’t think so. In fact, we think that the future of blackjack could turn out to be even brighter than the golden days of the past…
The game of blackjack is simple and elegant, with the player trying to make a hand with a value as close to 21 as possible without going over that value. The house edge is paltry to begin with, and any player who approaches the game with a sound strategy and an equally sound bankroll management system can give themselves a very good chance of enjoying a profitable session. What blackjack lacks, when compared with progressive slots and online poker, is the potential to land a massive payoff, and if this situation was corrected, online blackjack could once again become the most popular casino game around.
There have already been a few attempts at making blackjack more appealing to jackpot-seekers, with several variations of the game offering a side bet that gives players the chance to win a larger sum of money if they meet the criteria required to trigger the jackpot payout. Blackjack tournaments at individual casinos have also been introduced which allow players to compete with each other to see which one can turn an initial chip stack into the largest amount in a given number of blackjack hands. Both innovations have helped blackjack to remain attractive to online casino players, but so far neither approach has been able to steal the majority of the limelight from slots or poker.
So what can the online casino industry do to build a brighter future for online blackjack? Our own research into the matter suggests that the way forward might be to introduce a new blackjack network so that players from different online casinos can participate in the same tournaments. Such online blackjack tournaments would be larger than those restricted to players at any one casino and would therefore be able to offer larger prize funds. Encourage a few celebrity and professional blackjack players to endorse the idea, offer a wide range of blackjack tournaments around the clock, give the concept the same kind of media coverage that poker enjoys and we think the recipe for success on a massive scale would be complete.
If this vision for the future of blackjack were to prove accurate, blackjack would experience an explosion in popularity in much the same way that the game of poker did when it appeared online. In fact, it could become even more popular, because the rules of blackjack are a lot easier to learn than the rules of any form of poker, so such tournaments would appeal even to casual casino gamers as well as serious blackjack enthusiasts.
Will this future of blackjack unfold as predicted? Or will other games be allowed to continue hogging the limelight? Only time will tell. In the meantime, we will have to make the most of the games that we have and work on perfecting our skills for the day when things change.
Article Published: 14/06/2010 11:59:22
