Whenever I’ve gone into a casino, I’ve always sticked to the quarter eating machines, with little luck (though I won $60 once on a slot machine). So, knowing how to play blackjack, and knowing I was going to a casino over the weekend (if only for a very short time), I went online to look at strategy and such.
Got to the casino, found a low minimum table ($10 bets), and purchased $80 in chips. (I was prepared to lose $100, but might have quit if I lost the $80 quickly). Anyway, my first five hands were…losers. I was already down to about 30 bucks, and then I started winning. And winning, and winning. Won a few double bets, and just had good luck. After about 20 minutes, I look down at my chips, see that the pile is bigger than when I started, count them (but not by picking them up or anything), and play one more hand, which I won. Total at end: $160. So, while not big stakes or anything, I feel pretty good! I doubled my money the first time I played blackjack.
From now on, I’m sticking to blackjack in casinos. Sure, I know I’ll lose about as much as I win, but since the odds on blackjack are almost 50/50 (just slightly in the house’s favor), it’s a good bet.
Jman
(and, if this double posted for any reason, Mods, could you delete the one that has this disclaimer…if not, then just ignore this disclaimer, since it’ll be the original post)
If you’re really a beginner, you may want to try finding the $5 or $3 minimum tables. Sometimes casinos up it all to $10 minimums on the weekends, but there should be at least a few around there somewhere.
I mean, it’s great that you won. I recommend BJ any day over the one armed bandits, but it’s quite easy to lose $100 on $10 bets for no fault of your own. The cards were just running bad and you didn’t have enough money to cover the deviations.
Oh, I know that the chances are just as great that I’ll lose 80-100 bucks as win that much. When I go in to gamble, it’s for entertainment. I budget how much I’m willing to lose and still be ok (purchasing the entertainment), and then I go in there and use that money. If I bust with all that, then I’m done…no more betting. If I win, great, if I don’t, well, then I’ve had a good time with it. Of course, it’s a much better time when you do win!
Oh, and I was going to go to a $5 table, but $10 was the lowest table they had.
If you teach yourself a simple card counting method (such as Hi-Lo) and memorise Basic Strategy (not too hard), you can actually tip those odds in your favor.
Craps and BlackJack, the two best odds games in the house and my favorites. Mind you, not just books, but whole libraries have been written about craps, so stick to BJ unless you have a very well tenured craps playing friend to hep you.
I make more money playing craps than anywhere else. Love that game. That and the paddlewheels at the local bars. I love those things too. Terrible odds, but I always tend to win.
One thing to add: if you play blackjack (or anything else, really), you should have a specific winning amount in your head that you would like to achieve (e.g. double your money). Once you reach that point, leave the table. You’re much more likely to make money if you have a fixed goal than if you just play for a long time and see what happens. Time is your enemy when the odds are worse than 50/50. (If you’re counting cards, that’s a different story, obviously.)
I’m with Tripler – if you really want to win money in a casino, Craps is the best game to play. You have to find a table that will let you do 3x, 5x, or 10x line bets, but you can effectively cut your odds down to 50%-50% if you do.
Of course, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can lose a lot of money as well, but that’s the nature of any casino. I once went from $200 ahead to $50 down in two minutes…
