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- Best Blackjack Las Vegas Strip
Where to cash in on player-friendly blackjack games, and how to avoid the bad ones
by Henry Tamburin
The 6-5 payoff rule increases the house edge by almost 1.4 percent. If you’re a $10 bettor, playing a 6-5 game will cost you $3 each time you get a blackjack (and you’ll average roughly four blackjacks per hour), which comes to $12 that you are forking over to the casino bosses every hour.
- In this infographic, the team at OUSC took to Las Vegas streets to find out where players should go for blackjack gaming. Irma Wallace Co-founder and Vice President of SearchRank, responsible for many of the day to day operations of the company.
- El Cortez Hotel & Casino in Downtown. Every year, intrepid gamblers head out into the brutal heat.
- Find the best blackjack tables in Las Vegas. The past year has been tumultuous for blackjack in Las Vegas. Many casinos, especially on the Vegas Strip, are changing rules of the game in order to increase the house edge and generate more profit.
- If you’re searching for the best place to play blackjack in Vegas, look no further. We’ve done a thorough research and found top blackjack casinos in Las Vegas. Consider this article as the ultimate guide to your blackjack adventure in the Las Vegas Strip. Some might say that online blackjack casinos have completely taken over the casino.
If you’re searching for the best place to play blackjack in Vegas, look no further. We’ve done a thorough research and found top blackjack casinos in Las Vegas. Consider this article as the ultimate guide to your blackjack adventure in the Las Vegas Strip. Some might say that online blackjack casinos have completely taken over the casino industry. And, while we don’t necessarily.
This month, my column is going to accomplish four things:
- Provide you with a convenient list of casinos that offer a single-deck blackjack game that pays 3-2 for a blackjack (also known as a “natural”)
- Give you an accurate single-deck basic playing strategy that you can use to play this terrific game
- Summarize the casinos in and around Las Vegas that offer the abominable 6-5 single-deck games (so you can avoid them)
- Give you some advice on how you can help eradicate the awful 6-5 games, which have been spreading like a cancer in casinos throughout the U.S.
Note: The information on which casinos offer single-deck games and the corresponding rules and house edges mentioned in this article were obtained from Current Blackjack News (CBJN), with their permission (www.bj21.com). Casinos can change the rules at any time, so check CBJN for the latest rules and playing conditions in casinos across the country.
In the March 2008 issue of Casino Player magazine, I wrote a detailed column about why the 6-5 single-deck game is bad news for players. Without rehashing all the points that I made back then, let me briefly summarize why this game should be avoided like the plague. The 6-5 payoff rule increases the house edge by almost 1.4 percent (no, that’s not a typo). If you’re a $10 bettor, playing a 6-5 game will cost you $3 each time you get a blackjack (and you’ll average roughly four blackjacks per hour), which comes to $12 that you are forking over to the casino bosses every hour.
That is an atrocity, which is why a smart blackjack player would never play this game.
If you talk to casino bosses about their 6-5 games (which I‘ve done), you get this sort of universal response from them: we know players don’t like the 6-5 games, but as long as they keep playing them, we’d be crazy not to offer them. In a moment, I will give you some tips on how you can help us eradicate the 6-5 games from casinos everywhere. But first, let me discuss the single-deck game that I am encouraging you to play; namely, the game that pays the traditional 3-2 for a natural. It’s available, and I’ll show you where.
The house edge against a basic strategy player in a 3-2 single-deck game is a function of the mix of playing rules. The best single-deck games have h17 (dealer hits soft 17), and allow players to resplit aces. The house edge in this game is a meager 0.13%. Second best is an h17 game without resplit aces (house edge: only 0.18%).
The following chart summarizes the relationship of the rules and the house edge for a basic strategy player in a 3-2 single-deck game. You’d be hard-pressed to find a multi-deck game with these low house edges.
Playing Rules | House Edge (%) |
h17, rsa | 0.13 |
h17 | 0.18 |
s17, d10 | 0.29 |
h17, d9 | 0.32 |
h17, d10 | 0.44 |
Where would you guess is the most likely place to find a 3-2 single-deck game? If you said Las Vegas, you’d be dead wrong. According to CBJN, there are only four casinos that offer a 3-2 single-deck game in Las Vegas (and unfortunately, 44 casinos in and around Vegas that offer the dastardly 6-5 single-deck games, making Las Vegas the #1 gambling destination with the most 6-5 games).
Table 1 lists the casinos in Las Vegas that offer 3-2 single-deck games. Table 2 is the list of Las Vegas casinos that offer the 6-5 game. Be smart—on your next trip to Vegas, play the juicy 3-2 single-deck game and avoid the terrible 6-5 game in the casinos listed in Table 2.
The areas of the country where the concentration of 3-2 single-deck games is the greatest are Tunica and Vicksburg, MS, and Reno/Lake Tahoe/Wendover, in Nevada. You’ll be delighted to find many casinos in these cities that offer the fair 3-2 single-deck game. (See Table 3 for the list of these casinos.)
Now that you know where to find 3-2 single-deck games, you need to learn the basic playing strategy for them. Table 4 summarizes the strategy where the dealer hits soft 17 (which is the case in the majority of casinos that offer a single-deck game). You should become familiar with this playing strategy, because it’s slightly different than the basic strategy for multi-deck games. If this is your first time playing a single-deck game, I would also recommend that you bring a strategy card with you to avoid making playing mistakes. It’s perfectly legal to refer to a card before you play your hand.
Table 1
Las Vegas Casinos That Offer
3-2 Single-Deck Games
h17 = dealer hits soft 17
d10 = double down only on two-card ten or eleven