The table game of blackjack has been around for centuries and it continues to grow in popularity. Some studies even say it is the most popular table game in the world.
While single-deck blackjack used to be more popular, it has now become harder to find. Many casinos have it but before you make your choice between single-deck and multiple-deck, here’s a helpful rundown of the positives and negatives of playing a blackjack game with only one deck.
The main positive is that it obviously pushes the odds more in your favor. The house only has an edge of about 0.15% when you use a single deck; it is much, much, much higher with multiple decks. If you are just using one deck, your chances of winning increase significantly and whenever you can get an edge against the house, take it and run.
The other major positive factor for a single-deck game of blackjack is that it helps out those players that have the skill of counting cards, which is difficult enough to do with one deck but almost impossible to do with multiple. With online casinos, the games so quickly that it would be a big challenge to keep track of the cards with multiple decks but in a one-deck game of blackjack, you are more able to put card-counting to work – if you know how.
While those are the positives, it’s not all sunny and bright for one-deck blackjack.
A couple of negatives of single-deck of blackjack include that the payout per hand is not what it is for multi-deck (when you win). If you are going to play single-deck, keep in mind that the payout for a winning hand is usually 6 to 5. Let’s face it: if you’re more likely to win in single-deck blackjack and the house edge is smaller, the leverage needs to be balanced out elsewhere and that’s done with the payout odds.
Beyond that, the other negative with single-deck blackjack is that it’s often hard to find. While it used to be the gold standard, nowadays multi-deck blackjack is what is readily available and the single-deck version is harder to find. Bovada’s online casino offers pretty much every game under the sun, so you don’t have to worry about finding it there but keep in mind that the single-deck version is much harder to find than the multi-deck edition.
Try out your luck with single-deck blackjack today and see if you can taste the difference!