When played properly, Blackjack, the most popular of all casino table games, has a house edge of less than one percent, the lowest house advantage of any casino table game. Casinos set the edge at two percent for assigning comps but there is evidence showing the house sometimes has a profit of more than ten percent in some cases. How is this possible? The reason is simple: the game is not played properly by many players. A player who plays hunches may be giving up a huge advantage to the house.

In blackjack, the decisions the player makes at the table have an effect on the house edge, unlike craps and roulette. In roulette the house edge is 5.26%. There are 38 numbers on the wheel and each spin is an independent and unique event. In craps there are only 36 combinations of the dice. This never changes, so every roll of the dice is an independent and unique event as well.

But blackjack is a game based on dependent events. This means that as each card is removed from the deck and dealt, the make-up of the cards remaining in the deck changes. High cards left in the deck favor the player and low cards favor the dealer. As play progresses, the advantage swings back and forth from dealer to player. This is the basis behind card counting. A card counter will wager more when he has the advantage and less when it favors the dealer. The subject of card counting is a separate study, but let it be said that a player does not have to learn card counting in order to bring the house edge down less than one percent.

Blackjack has a fixed set of rules which must be followed by the dealer, meaning that a mathematically correct strategy can be derived to insure optimum play. This is known as 'basic strategy' and was refined by Julian Braun who worked for IBM and ran millions of hands through a mainframe computer decades ago, long before the age of the personal computer.

Utilizing basic strategy, a player can decide how to play his hand depending on the dealer's exposed up-card. A player will stand, hit, double or split his cards to give him the best chance of winning the hand.

The object of blackjack is actually to beat the dealer and not to try to get close to twenty-one. Because the player has to act first, it is sometimes to the player's advantage to stand on a hand that has the potential going over 21 when the dealer also has a card that can bust him. If the player and the dealer both bust, the player loses the hand. This makes it important for the player to learn to play his hand correctly in order to insure the best outcome based on the mathematically correct strategy.