Real Money Online Black Jack

Playing blackjack for real money is completely different from playing for fun online or with your friends.

The main difference is the pressure that you will feel when you are betting $5 or $10 per hand. A losing streak takes on more meaning and it can lead to bad betting habits that can bust you out.

For the beginners out there, here is how I go about betting in blackjack regardless of whether I am at a casino or playing online:

If you are playing $5 per hand, you should have at least $200 to play with. If you stick to this $5 per hand pretty firmly without making wild bets, it means you can lose at least 10 hands in a row without running out of cash. If you like to play $10 per hand, you should double the amount you start with.

Blackjack is a game with major streaks involved. Don’t be surprised to win or lose 5 or more hands in a row. There are sometimes the dealer will bust several times in a row and times when the dealer pulls out a small card to beat everyone.

I can’t tell you how many times one bad hit or stay will have a negative effect the rest of the shoe at a blackjack table. Seasoned blackjack players are very superstitious and if you mess up often you will probably see a player or two leave the table.

The following is an example of how I would go about betting on my blackjack hands during the course of playing real money blackjack. This doesn’t take into account all blackjack card counting methods where you increase or decrease your bets based on the card count differences between low and high cards.

Betting in Blackjack

Let’s say you are going to bet $10 per hand as your average bet and you start with $400. This doesn’t mean you always bet $10 per hand, but that is what you are shooting for as a goal. You begin by betting whatever your predetermined average bet ($10) and the result of this hand will determine what you should do.

You have a couple of different things that can happen in your first hand:

1) You double down/split and win $20
2) You get a blackjack and win $15
3) You have a higher total than the dealer or the dealer busts and you win $10
4) You have the same total as the dealer or only win one split for a Push
5) You have a lower total than the dealer or you bust and you lose $10

Here is what I would do on my next hand in each of these situations:

If you double down or get a blackjack, take your original bet but leave the winnings for the next hand. For any of the other results, I would bet $10 on the second hand.

The second hand can really start to take you in one direction or another. If you start winning several hands in a row, increase your bets by increments of $5 or $10 per hand until you lose. This will mitigate the eventual loss while banking on the winning streak.

Winning Streaks

It is very important that you play the recommended way when you are on a winning streak. You can take a look at the suggested way to play Vegas Blackjack with these blackjack strategy cards.

That means you should double down and split in the appropriate situations even if you have a large bet on the table. This is what gives the house only a slight advantage over the player.

The only reason you should have that large bet on a hand is when you are ready to take advantage of a good situation. The worst that should happen is that you need to go back to your normal wager on the next hand.

One more thing: Don’t take insurance on the dealer’s ace. The only way I would ever conceive of taking insurance is if I had a 5+ hand winning streak and that made me bet more than $75 on a hand and I received a 19 or higher.

Losing Streaks

If you start to lose several hands in a row, the best thing to do is bet the table minimum until you win a hand. I’ve said to myself 100 times, “I can’t really lose 7 in a row … 8 in a row … 9 in a row. Can I?” The answer is yes you can. It isn’t a statistical anomaly either. I have experienced a 12 – 16 count against a dealer showing a 10 more than 5 times in a row.

This isn’t to say that blackjack is always going to have runs like that. Just making you aware of the pitfall that I usually fall into when I bust out. It’s called the “I’m due” factor. Normally, you will go back and forth with the dealer for a while. If you are averaging winning 3 out of 5 hands against the dealer, bump the bets up to $15 or $20. If you are averaging losing 7 out of 10 hands, only bet $5 or the table minimum.

Blackjack is a game that is normally played for at least 2 hours. If you can’t make it that long, you are doing something wrong fundamentally. Usually, the problem occurs with the players bets and not how they play the game. Here is the most important thing that you should not do when you are playing at sites with real money online blackjack:

I bought $200 worth of chips. I have played for an hour and I’m down to about $100 in chips. The biggest mistake I can make is bumping my bets up to $25 to try to “make up” for the losses. Becoming impatient with the process will make you lose the money. Even worse is what happens if you win on that large bet; then you will be conditioned to try to throw a large bet and bust out without giving any real effort. At that point you only have yourself to blame.