How To Be The Best Blackjack Dealer
Tips for dealing blackjack hands. Learn the rules of dealing cards in this free video clip about becoming a blackjack card dealer. Expert: Melissa Powell Bio. Never split 5s or 10s and never stand on 12 through 16 if the dealer is showing a 7 or higher. Never play cards when you're drinking. Which makes Blackjack the best game to play in the casinos.
- Poker Guide
- Learn to Play Poker: Getting Started
- Poker Game Variations
- Texas Hold ‘em Guide
- Learn to Play Texas Hold ‘em
- Hold ‘em Gameplay
- Texas Hold ‘em Strategy
- Beginner Hold ‘em Strategy
- Intermediate Hold ‘em Strategy
- Blackjack Guide
- Learn to Play Blackjack
- Blackjack Dealing
- Blackjack Strategy
- Blackjack Resources
- Roulette Guide
- Learn to Play Roulette
- Roulette Strategy
- Roulette Types and Variations
- Roulette Resources
- Slots Guide
- Learn to Play Slots
- Slots Games and Variations
- Slots Tips
How To Deal In Blackjack
After you learn the basic rules of how to value and manage your own hand in blackjack, the next step is to figure out how to read the dealer’s. It’s a pretty straightforward process, but one that requires close attention in order to optimize your chances of winning.
Basic Rules by Which the Dealer Must Play
The first step in reading the dealer’s hand is to know about certain rules they are forced to abide by. First of all, as the cards are dealt each player receives their two of them face up. The dealer, on the other hand, gets one card face up and the other face down.
Once every player at the table has acted, the dealer turns up the hidden card and plays their hand from there. This basic procedure, and the one exposed card in front of the dealer, will be the foundation around which most of your blackjack decisions will be made.
Table where a dealer has starting cards equalling 11.
Dealer In Blackjack
The next basic rule to understand is that the dealer has to hit any time their two cards equal less than 17, and stay anytime their two cards are worth 17 or more. The only exception to that rule is when a dealer has what’s known as a “soft 17.”
A soft 17 only occurs when the dealer has an ace and a six, giving them a hand that could take a hit and not bust because the ace can be worth either one or 11. Different venues have different rules regarding how a dealer must proceed on a soft 17, but most require that the dealer take a hit.
Finally, the dealer is not allowed to split or double down (guides to which can be found elsewhere on this website) no matter what they’ve been dealt or the other players are showing.
The Rule of 10
Now that you know how the dealer is constrained, it’s time to figure out how to go about reading their hand and making your bets accordingly.
The first piece of strategy that any amateur player has to learn is the rule of 10. Very simply, it states that you should assume any card you can’t see has a value of 10. With four actual 10s in each deck, and 12 face cards that all hold that same value, there are more cards worth 10 in the deck than any other amount. Since you can’t know what the next card will be – unless you have some sort of James Bond-ish pair of x-ray glasses – the odds dictate that you assume the rule of 10.
It is such an important rule because you’re always going to be presented with at least one card you can’t see – the dealer’s down card. So, no matter what they have showing, always assume the card you can’t see is worth 10 and proceed from there.
A similar idea applies to the next card that will come out of the deck when you take a hit, but to a much smaller extent because you should almost always make your decisions based off the dealer’s holding, not what card you suspect might be added to your hand when you take a hit.
Making Hit or Stay Decisions Based on the Dealer’s Holding
Now that you know to assume the dealer’s down card is worth 10, many hit or stay decisions become somewhat automatic.
For instance, if the dealer’s up card indicates strength with, say, a face card showing, you should figure that they have a total of 20 (and it’s very likely they will have something very strong even if they don’t have the 20). Therefore, if you’re two cards equal anything less than 17 you are always going to want to take a hit, even if you have 16 and are afraid the next card will bust you. It’s always better to go down swinging than to chicken out and find they had 20 all along, thus never giving yourself a chance to take a run at winning the hand.
On the other hand, if the dealer has a weak card showing – anything between two and six – you’re options are wide open. If you have a hand that can’t bust with one card, you might want to consider doubling down in order to take advantage of their weakness. If you have a poor hand that can bust with one card, like a 14, you’re always going to want to stay and hope the dealer goes over 21.
Most professional blackjack players have their own strategy that tells them when would be the best time to stand and when would be ideal to hit. In blackjack, the house edge starts around 5.5 percent, but if you know when to hit and stand, you can decrease those odds down to around 3 percent. Here are some of the most common scenarios in blackjack and how to know when to hit or stand when you’re stuck in that situation:’
Pay Attention
Once you understand the basic strategy behind reading a dealer’s hand the strategy involved becomes relatively simple. But above all else, you need to remember to pay attention to what’s going on and how the dealer’s hand is developing.
In a casino or online there can be a lot of distractions – loud noises, blinking lights, obnoxious neighbors, beautiful cocktail waitresses, etc. It takes very little effort to ignore all that for a few brief moments to size up the dealer’s hand and make an intelligent, calculated decision. So always take that short break from enjoying your surroundings to study what kind of hand you’re facing.
By putting just a little extra energy into reading the dealer’s hand, and then applying the rules and ideas stated above, you’ll find yourself cashing in chips much more often.
If a game’s been invented, then someone’s tried to invent a way to beat that game. While uncommon and difficult, cheating at the casino does happen. It’s less common than it was in the early days of Las Vegas and Atlantic City, before casinos became more heavily regulated with more sophisticated surveillance equipment and techniques.
Nevada State law defines cheating as “to alter the elements of chance, method of selection or criteria which determine the amount or frequency of payment in a game, the value of a wagering instrument, or the value of a wagering credit.”
The real question is who is cheating whom; is it the blackjack players who cheat the casinos or vice versa? Since it takes a cheater to spot a cheater, listed below are methods and terms people use when rigging the game in their favor
Ways Blackjack Dealers Can Cheat Players:
Stacking the deck: A good dealer will have developed the kind of hand dexterity that makes sleight-of-hand manipulation of the cards seem like child’s play. There are many different ways the dealer can affect the outcome of the hand by slipping in the “correct” card at the correct time. Two of the more common methods are dealing from the bottom of the deck or dealing the second card from the top (second dealing). These work when the dealer has had a chance to sneak a peek at the bottom or top card, depending on which method is in use.
The high-low pickup: Another method of stacking or setting the deck is to pick up cards in a round in alternates of high and low cards. A savvy (and sketchy) dealer will have developed a fake shuffle move that keeps the cards in the order the dealer picked them up. Then when the cards are dealt out to players they come in pairs of high and low cards, the type of hands that are more likely to bust.
Swapping hole cards: With quick hands, a dealer may replace a low hole card with a high one, and even if this type of cheating is rare in regulated casinos with decent surveillance, it is probably good strategy to assume the dealer has a ten as the hole card, as a matter of form, since there are more cards with that value than any other in the deck. There are only four cards of each value one through eleven, with the exception of ten. There are twenty cards in a standard deck that count as ten.
Mishandling Money or Chips: A dealer could fail to pay off a winning bet correctly or give the wrong change back. This is not necessarily cheating and could be the result of apathy or inattention. Players can help avoid this and be better at casino games by remaining vigilant.
Holdout shoes and other devices: Since much of the above can be counteracted with shuffling machines and dealer shoes on the part of the casino and keen observation by the player, devices such as holdout shoes are particularly insidious. Nearly identical to a normal dealer shoe, a holdout shoe will second-deal a card. A prism or mirror is positioned in such a way in the shoe that the dealer can see the top card, but no one else can. Other devices use the same basic premise, combining second dealing with a mirrored surface. Some shoes are designed to allow a dealer to shorten the deck as well. Using a holdout shoe or any of these devices is also a sure way to lose a gambling license so that regulated casinos will stay far away from this practice. However, it is best to remember that not every gambling environment is strictly regulated and be certain you know what authority does regulate games before you play.
Pegging: Pegging is a catch-all term that refers to dimpling cards subtly to mark out various high cards. Casinos that change decks frequently make methods of card marking on the part of either the dealer or players a difficult grift to sustain.
Ways players can cheat the game, the dealer, or the casino:
Palm and switch: Grabbing winning cards and swapping them out with losing cards used to be one way in which players could cheat their way into money, but casinos are wary of palming methods and have many eyes trained on the tables, and many casinos will not allow blackjack players to touch the cards, rendering this method obsolete.
Daubing: This one is old and, like the palm and switch, nearly extinct. Daubing is another method of marking cards (see pegging above), but this one uses dirt or ink or whatever is available to mark the high cards. A more high tech variety involves marking cards with a substance only visible with a special kind of eyeglass worn by the cheater.
Two-man teams: Two-man teams have many variations but all involve one person to spot the dealer’s hole card and signal it to the other player who makes playing decisions accordingly.
Spooking: This version of a two-man cheat has the spotter lurk behind the dealer like a ghost or a spook and signal to the player from there.
Blackjack Dealer Tips
First Base Play: The spotter sits in the first place that the cards are dealt – first base. The player sits at the anchor or any other later position.
Front Load: To front load is to spot the dealer’s hole card when it is slid over the up card rather than when the dealer peeks at it.
Card counting and advantage gambling: The number of high cards in the deck – twenty valued at ten (K-10) and four at eleven (the aces) for a total of twenty four out of fifty two cards accounts for nearly half the deck and when you add in the four nines as well than it is just over half the deck. Card counting need not be as complicated as it might seem to the uninitiated, since most methods of card counting involve calculating the ratio of high cards to low cards rather remaining in the deck rather than determining the exact suit or ranking. Whether this is cheating or not is often in the eye of the beholder. Is it a skill to be be developed alongside playing strategies in order to be a better player or is it another way of gaming the system that is itself predicated on the notion that the house ultimately wins? The debate may rage on, but many casinos watch for signs of card counting and will ask you to leave if you are caught and put you on a list. They may even share that list with other casinos. Even if it is not cheating, casinos also have the right to refuse service to anyone.