Blackjack
Blackjack is one of the simpler casino games you can play in a casino, and in terms of the relative statistical advantages that the casinos maintain, it’s one of the games where you are least likely to have to pawn your shoes to try to win back your plane ticket home.
The game is played with a single dealer (the “house”) and any number of additional players. The house initially deals two cards to each player and to itself. In large casinos where there are strict rules of play to diminish opportunities to cheat, each player’s cards are dealt face-up, and the dealers card are dealt one-down and one-up. Numbered cards are worth their face value, “face” cards (kings, queens, jacks) and tens are all worth ten points each. Aces are worth either one or eleven. The best hand possible is a 21. If you get 21 with the two first cards dealt, the hand is called a “blackjack”. The goal of the game is to beat the dealer without “busting”, or going over 21.
Basic strategy for blackjack is to assume that the dealer’s down card is worth ten. Starting to his left, the dealer offers each player the option to “hit” (take another card) or “stand” (stick with what he or she already has). A player can hit as many times as he or she would like until the count totals 21 or over, but since the goal is only to have a hand that will beat the dealers, a player should only “hit” until their count is equal to or better than the dealer’s face up card plus 10. Basic strategy goes deeper than this, but all of the “recommended” plays are based on the fact that there are more cards worth ten than any other type of card in the deck. In some cases, the strategy is to stand back to let the dealer “bust” on a hand that you suspect will go over 21 with the next card (probably a ten), at other times, the strategy is to continue hitting until your cards are better than the hand you assume the dealer has.