Where did the famous casino game of roulette originate? Perhaps in several places and from some or many people and cultures. What follows are some examples of roulette’s possible origins and how players have played the wheel in an attempt to beat it

His name was Blaise Pascal and he was one of the most famous and astute mathematicians and scientific geniuses of the 1600s. He was also quite religious, often driven by science and theology to discover the ultimate truths of existence, and he created what has become known as Pascal’s Wager, a notion that to this very day contains persuasive power, if not overall theocratic authority, being thus: 

You bet your life and soul (if you have one) that either God exists or doesn’t exist. If He doesn’t exist and you believe in Him then you have given up some worldly pleasures to discover nothing as death ceases your full existence. However, if you do not believe in God and He does exist then death is going to be a horrid experience as you find out that not only were you wrong but…well, you can guess the rest. Thus it is best to believe in God than not to believe in God.

Thanks to Pascal, this is – short and sweet – a coin flip, a gamble: Yes or no? God or no God. It is the ultimate gamble with your life and with your soul. To Pascal the best bet was to believe in God as that gave you the greatest chance for perpetual happiness.

THE PERPETUAL WHEEL

However, Pascal wanted even more than this. He wanted to discover something that was eternal right here, right now in this world and that something is what we call a perpetual motion machine.

A perpetual motion machine is one that runs on no outside energy. Read that correctly – it is an amazing concept. Perpetual motion violates the laws of motion that prove some outside force must be used to move objects, as objects cannot move themselves. Energy must be pushed into the system to get it to move. When that energy stops then that movement stops.

The attempt to discover and/or invent such a perpetual motion device has been a vision of many scientific visionaries – all of them wrong in their assumption that such a thing is possible.

[Please note: Some of the greatest frauds in the “pseudo-scientific” world have lied and said that perpetual motion is possible and that they have invented such a machine. That would great, wouldn’t it, as we’d have cars that ran on nothing and would not cost us any energy costs, such as fuel. Sadly that’s not to be.]

Pascal worked a long time in the privacy of his mind to come up with such a machine, indeed a perpetual roulette wheel, but he couldn’t succeed. Instead, what he did accomplish was his version of the first wheel, actually a probability machine, which we credit as the first one in human history. It became known as roulette, which means the little wheel. It might not have been a perpetual motion machine but it certainly has been in almost perpetual motion in the casinos around the world for centuries.

SOME OTHER POSSIBILITIES

It is also believed that two aristocrats helped create the single-zero little wheel as a gambling device in order to make money from the game of roulette for King Charles III of Monaco in the mid-1800s. This allowed the “house” to extract quite a lot of money from the players, most of whom had no idea of what kind of house edge they were facing (2.7 percent) with that zero. King Charles was a happy monarch when this device was used against his own citizens! 

[Please note: At some point along came the Americans who decided to use a double-zero wheel (0, 00) in order to almost double the house edge over the players. Strangely enough this double-zero wheel also came from Europe but the Americans fully adopted it!]

OR WAY DEEP INTO THE PAST!

Let me take this history back even more in time. In the ancient world, definitely, Rome and even pre-Rome, perhaps Greek and pre-Greek, and in ancient Africa, in China, even among the American Indians, playing games or using “little wheels” as precognitive devices was something of a norm. 

Here is an example: “Og, my heavenly king, let me spin my shield and where my symbol points is the land I shall ravage!”

Or, 

“Come my comrades, let us amuse ourselves by sitting on our little, round shields and spinning ourselves ferociously. Whoever does not get sick wins the contest!”

[Please note: Perhaps the two greatest discoveries of human beings are fire and the wheel. People often talked and then wrote about the circle of life and many wrote about the cyclical nature of nature. The fiery sun was often worshipped as a god. Once we had the wheel, the world became shorter and distances shrunk quite a lot.]

THE WHEEL OF ALL WHEELS

The key to roulette is, of course, the very wheel itself; after all the game is actually the little wheel. In my over 30 years of casino play, I have noticed that not all that many players have much interest in the wheel itself as in knowing its components, its structure, or how it works. Many players also have no idea of how the casino actually gets its edge at the game.

Most players will look at the ball spinning on the rotor and watch as the ball descends but how and why the wheel looks and acts as it does actually has little interest for them. For them, the ball spins and then drops into the pockets and finally settles into one and the losing bets are removed from the layout and the winning bets are paid off.

The process is then repeated over and over again – a perpetual game!

THE COMPOSITION OF THE WHEEL

The wheel, like ancient Rome’s government, is divided into three main parts:

1. The ball track where the ball is spun and goes round and round until it loses energy and plummets to the base track
2. The base track that sees the ball actually descending towards its ultimate goal, the pockets
3. The wheel head contains the pockets where the ball will bounce and bounce some more before settling into a single pocket

When the ball spins on the bottom track, there are elements that interfere with its descent. These are variously called “bumpers” or “pins” or “diamonds” or “those darn things that screw up the landings.” The casino does not want a clean line of descent for the ball into the pockets. These interference elements are intended to make the game random because no one can really tell how a ball will deflect – that is, bounce – off these bumpers.

[Please Note: Modern casino games of roulette will often have two balls being used, a large one and a small one. These spin and land somewhat differently – making it almost impossible to figure how and in which pocket a ball will come to rest.]

NUMBERS ON THE WHEEL VS. NUMBERS ON THE LAYOUT

The arrangement of the numbers on the wheel and how they are laid out on the betting layout are completely different. Take a look at the American double-zero wheel and you’ll see that the number “1” does not have number “2” next to it but instead number “2” is across the wheel. On the layout numbers “1” and “2” are next to each other (as they would be in counting). 

The same is basically true of the European single-zero wheels. 

Casinos do not want the betting layout to reflect the wheel’s positioning of the numbers because those players who wish to bet groups of numbers will not be able to do so. If you wish to bet numbers 1, 2 and 3 on the layout these numbers will have nothing to do with the wheel. Since most players have no idea of how the numbers are laid out on the wheel, they usually think betting 1, 2 and 3 means these numbers are near each other on the wheel when they are not.

This is an attempt to keep the betting methods random – and when a game is random it benefits land-based and also the online casino.

HOW THE CASINO GETS ITS EDGE

The casino does not pay off the bets based on their real value. The American double-zero wheels has 38 pockets. If players were to put $1 on each pocket, 37 pockets would lose and one would win. In a fair game the winner would receive $37 while the casino would win – you guessed it – $37 and the game would be an even contest between player and casino. 

But casinos cannot make money this way so they short the players $2 by paying back $35 for a $1 bet instead of $37, keeping the other $2 for themselves. That means the house edge is 5.26 percent. The same is true of the European wheel’s payout of $35 for a $1 bet. Since there are only 37 numbers on that wheel, the house edge is reduced to 2.7 percent.

A HOST OF BETTING OPTIONS

Roulette has a multitude of betting options for the players. They can bet on inside numbers or combinations of these; they can bet on outside proposition bets of various kinds. Like craps strategies, players have plenty of choices to make. Some of the greatest gambling systems have been developed in order to beat the game.

Read other roulette articles on this site to learn about these

PROBLEMS WITH THE WHEELS

The betting layouts of roulette do not reflect the position of the actual numbers on either the European single-zero or the American double-zero wheel. This is to prevent players from betting groups of numbers that are physically adjacent on the wheel without actually looking at the wheel. You want five numbers that bump against each other on the wheel? Then you have to actually look at the wheel’s pockets, something most players won’t bother to do. Therefore betting 1, 2 and 3 will not see those numbers next to each other on the actual wheel although they are continuous on the layout.

Casinos know that some players – some very, very few players over the centuries – have worked on trying to beat the wheel in various ways and some have actually accomplished this. We call such players “advantage players.”

• Players have studied various wheels to see if they had certain pockets that would trap the ball more often than other pockets because they were (usually) somewhat deeper or (rarely) somewhat wider or shorter than the adjacent pockets. This was often called “big number” play as the players followed the numbers that were hitting.
• Some players wanted to see if the wheel was no longer aligned properly so that the ball would tend to fall into the biased part – the part that was fractionally tilted. This was often called “biased wheel” or “tilted wheel” play.
• Some players attempted to predict where the ball would land by using visual cues, they looked at the wheel and estimated how the ball would travel and land (generally in a particular section of the wheel). Yes, these players went up against wheels with bumpers on them. This was called “visual tracking.”
• Some players, convinced that some dealers could control the landing of the ball into certain sections of the wheel, would study such supposed dealers, clock their throws and bet the sections these dealer’s would hit. This was called “dealer signature” watching. 

The good news is that over the centuries some (okay, some few, some very, very few) players have actually beaten the wheels. Unless the casino owners were ferociously checking their wheels with regularity, bad things (for the casino) or good things (for the players) could happen that alerted advantage-players that the time had come to jump into the game and reap some rewards.

That’s the good news. Here’s the bad news: Today’s wheels are almost perfectly balanced, the pockets are the same width, depth and thickness, and constant computer checking of these wheels prevents them from being anything less than almost perfectly working devices; perfect enough that as long as they are checked frequently no player can get an edge over them. 

The little wheel has been a big favorite of casino players, past, present and (I presume) future.

[Please note: Are there players still out there in the world of the casinos who are beating roulette? Maybe, but my guess is that “probably not” is the right answer. It is hard to beat the advanced wheels that exist today.]

All the best in and out of the casinos!

The year 2012 was a sweet one for celebrity poker pro Phil Ivey and Cheung Yin “Kelly” Sun, a woman who would become known as the Queen of Sorts. 

Sun had designed a high-probability approach to beating mini-baccarat. It employs a technique known as edge sorting – hence, her nickname – in which, by spotting subtle asymmetries of patterns on the backs of playing cards, she is able to identify the game’s key cards.

The play requires Sun to prompt dealers to turn the game’s most important cards (7s, 8s and 9s) so that their shortly cut edges face the dealer when divvied out in coming shoes. Sharp eyesight, social engineering and casinos with favorable conditions allowed her to perform her responsibilities for the play. 

Ivey, with a giant bankroll and a reputation as a casino whale, was able to get down five-figure bets and convince gambling dens to use brands of playing cards and types of shuffling machines that Sun could most effectively work with.

Over the course of 2012, they traveled the world and won 10s of millions of dollars from casinos. But that was then. The last 12 months have been decidedly sour for the pair of high-rollers.

In October 2017, the Supreme Court in Great Britain issued a ruling that Crockfords Casino in London does not need to pay them 7.7-million-pounds (worth approximately $11 million in 2012) that they won by using the edge sorting technique. Never mind that Ivey and Sun lost more than half-a-million dollars on their first day of running the gambit in London.

More crippling, on August 2018 a New Jersey court put out a decision that they need to return $10.13 million that they won from Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City. Ivey’s lawyer entered a request for a stay on the payment while the decision is appealed. That request was turned down. The eight-figure sum was won over the course of four sessions in 2012.

Both decisions are anti-player to the extreme. Any casual or pro-casino gamblers should be rattled by such outcomes. A lawyer, representing Ivey and Sun, maintains that making the payment will have a “devastating impact” on the wellbeing of his clients.

Sun says, “My feeling is that we won the money and we should not pay it back. My feeling is very bad. The casino took our bets and they paid us. Now they want us to pay them back 10 million. That is crazy. The casino takes big advantage. If they won $10 million from me, would they give it back? No way. Why should they expect me to give it back to them?”

Robert Loeb, a Chicago-based attorney who frequently works with advantage players, agrees with Sun. She and Ivey, says Loeb, “followed the rules that the casino agreed to. They agreed to those rules because [Sun and Ivey] were playing for the highest denomination chips and the casino thought it could win a lot of money. This was a product of greed and blindness.”

Weirdly, by the time Ivey and Sun made their last trip to Borgata, in October 2012, news of their tiff with Crockfords Casino in London had already broken. A headline in UK tabloid the Daily Mail trumpeted, “World’s number one poker player wins $11m in two nights – but top London casino REFUSES to pay.” US gambling sites quickly picked up on the report. By the time Ivey and Sun entered the Borgata, word of their situation with Crockfords had spread widely. In fact, according to Sun, that publicity is precisely what led her and Ivey to embark on their October trip to Atlantic City.

That journey is rooted in the final play that Ivey and Sun engaged in at Crockfords. It took place in August 2012 and ended with them ahead by some $11 million, a monstrous win by any standard. At the time, Sun feared that the casino would not pay them. Similar outcomes had already transpired for her at sore losing spots in the United States. But, as the front person in the play, Ivey was responsible for negotiating payment – and he did.

Representatives of Crockfords promised to wire the money into Ivey’s bank account. Sun says that the casino provided a receipt that stated as much. Satisfied, Ivey and Sun went their separate ways. He headed home to the United States where a close relative – a fabulously roguish uncle who Ivey referred to as Unk – was dying. Sun went to Paris where she hung out with friends.

The money, however, failed to materialize. Sun became convinced that Ivey was holding out on her. Ivey insisted that the casino was not paying. Finally, after a week, she told me that she called Ivey and said, “Phil, you don’t give me the money, it’s okay. It is only 10 million. It’s fine. You keep it.”

Coincidentally, though, just after the story broke in the Mail, Sun and Ivey encountered one another in Nice, the French city where a poker tournament was scheduled to take place. “Phil told me not to play the tournament,” Sun related to me. “He said that reporters were there and they knew about London.”

At that point, it became clear that Ivey had been honest about the missing millions. He did not receive the money. “We decided to fly to Atlantic City and play Borgata,” said Sun. “Phil and I flew private and split the cost.”

They encountered terrible weather en route to Atlantic City. There were fears that the jet would go down. Rough travel conditions could have been viewed as an omen, but the game at Borgata was too good to turn away from.

On their previous three visits, Ivey and Sun won more than $9 million. During one session, they were not even slowed down by an uninvited visit from blackjack whale Don Johnson, a friend of Ivey’s. 

As Johnson recalls it, he saw Ivey and Sun playing baccarat at a private table. Sun, Johnson told me, “did not look like she’d be on of Phil’s playmates.” It led him to believe that the two gamblers were playing at an advantage. Johnson maintains that he slipped in, mirrored Ivey’s bets and won a tidy sum.

As Sun remembers it, “I said that I would not play until Don left. Phil said that Don is a friend. He wanted Don to stay. But finally Don left and we continued playing.”

During their fourth and final trip to Borgata, it’s easy to imagine that Ivey and Sun would feel concern about the possibility of being turned away. News of their issue with Crockfords was in the poker and gaming media. But Borgata management   allowed them to play seemingly unfettered. They won more than $900,000 and cashed their chips without obvious incident.

It all changed in 2016. That was when, in the wake of a positive outcome for Crockfords, in the suit brought by Ivey and Sun, Borgata began rallying to get its money back. The casino’s legal maneuverings resulted in the original December 2016 ruling that the advantage players have to pay back their money. What will ultimately get refunded and when it will happen both remain unknown. One thing, though, is certain. As of now, the hand being dealt Ivey, Sun and the Borgata has yet to completely play itself out – and Ivey is no stranger to catching a miracle card on the river.

Any live or online blackjack player’s stress level increases when the dealer flips over an Ace as her upcard. That’s because she has only an 11.5% chance of busting and a whopping 88.5% chance of getting to a final hand that totals17 through 21 (assumes the dealer did not peek at her down card to determine if she has a blackjack).

It’s clear the dealer has a significant advantage with an Ace upcard but since we can’t change the cards that we are dealt, we must play them in a way that will decrease our expected long-term losses. This means being more aggressive when we are a dealt a stiff hand (hit rather than stand) and less aggressive when we are dealt a two-card soft hand (hit rather than double down). We also should surrender several hands (even when it results in forfeiting half our bet), and play some hands differently depending upon the composition of the cards in our hand.  What follows is the accurate playing strategy for any hand when the dealer shows an Ace upcard. 

Notations used in this article:
S17 = Dealer must stand on soft 17
H17 = Dealer must hit soft 17
DAS = Doubling down after pair splitting is allowed
NDAS = Doubling down after pair splitting is not allowed
H = Hit
S = Stand
P = Split
Dh = Double down if allowed; otherwise, hit
Rh = Surrender if allowed, otherwise hit.
Rs = Surrender if allowed, otherwise stand
Rp = Surrender if allowed, otherwise split

MULTI-DECK GAME

There are several differences in the playing strategy for multi-deck games depending if the blackjack rules are S17 or H17. I’ll summarize the strategy for S17 first, then show the changes when the game is H17.

WITH S17

• Surrender if allowed, otherwise hit, if holding a hard 16
• Split if holding a pair of As or 8s
• Hit if holding a hard 5 through 15, A-2 through A-7 or a pair of 2s through 7s
• Stand if holding a hard 17 through 20, A-8 and A-9  or a pair of 9s and 10s

Below is the corresponding blackjack strategy arranged into three color-coded tables for Hard Hands, Soft Hands, and Pairs. The first row in each table represents the player’s hand (in the case of hard hands, it represents the total count of the cards), and the second row contains the correct playing strategy against a dealer’s Ace upcard for an S17 game.

 

 

 

WITH H17

If the rules are H17, make the following four changes to the above strategy against a dealer Ace upcard:

• Surrender hard 15 if allowed, otherwise hit
• Double down Hard 11 if allowed, otherwise hit
• Surrender Hard 17 if allowed, otherwise stand
• Surrender a pair of 8s if allowed, otherwise split

The color-coded strategy chart below for hard hands and pair splitting corresponds to the above H17 strategy.

 

WHAT IF YOU ARE PLAYING A DOUBLE-DECK GAME?

WITH S17

The playing strategy for a double-deck game with S17 is the same as it is for multi-deck/S17 game except for one change:

• Double down hard 11 if allowed, otherwise hit

WITH H17

If the rules are H17 with NDAS, the playing strategy is the same as it is for the above multi-deck/H17 game.

If the rules are H17 with DAS, the playing strategy is the same as it is for the above  multi-deck/H17 game with one change:

• Split a pair of 8s (instead of surrendering)

WHAT IF YOU ARE PLAYING A SINGLE-DECK GAME?

WITH S17

The strategy is the same as the above multi-deck/ S17 strategy except for these two strategy changes:

• Double down hard 11 if allowed, otherwise hit
• Stand on A-7 instead of hitting

 

 

WITH H17

The strategy is the same as the above multi-deck/ H17 strategy except for these two strategy changes:

• Surrender a pair of 7s if allowed, otherwise hit
• Split a pair of 8s instead of surrendering

FOR MORE PRECISION

You can gain some precision in your playing strategy if you take into consideration the composition of the cards that comprise certain hands. This is especially the case with a double- and multi-deck game when the blackjack dealer is showing an Ace upcard.

DOUBLE-DECK GAME

If the game is S17:

• Hit a hard 11 consisting of 9-2 or 8-3 instead of doubling

If the game is H17:

• Hit a hard 15 consisting of an 8-7 instead of surrendering

SINGLE-DECK GAME

If the game is S17:

• Hit a hard 16 consisting of 9-7 instead of surrendering

If the game is H17:

• Hit a hard 15 consisting of 8-7 instead of surrendering 
• Stand on a hard 17 consisting of 9-8 instead of surrendering

PRACTICE PLAY

To be sure you have the strategy down pat for playing your hand against a dealer’s Ace upcard, determine how you would play each of the 10 hands listed below, jot down your decision on paper, and then check it against the correct play at the end of this article. (Your goal is to be able to play every hand accurately, regardless of the number of decks of cards or mix of playing rules.)

For more playing strategy tips, consult Chapter 3 in my Ultimate Blackjack Strategy Guide.

Correct plays for the hands in the above table are:

• Hit
• Split
• Surrender if allowed, otherwise split
• Hit
• Double down if allowed, otherwise hit
• Surrender if allowed, otherwise stand.
• Hit
• Stand
• Surrender if allowed, otherwise hit.
• Stand

When a dealer shows a 10 upcard at online or live blackjack, she or he is in the driver’s seat because they have a 77% chance of getting to a final hand that totals 17 through 21 and only a 23% chance of busting. A ten, therefore, is a very strong dealer upcard. This means we have to be more aggressive when we are a dealt a stiff hand (hit rather than stand) and less aggressive when we are dealt a two-card soft hand (hit rather than double down). We also should surrender several hands even when it results in forfeiting half our bet. What follows is the accurate blackjack strategy for any hand when the dealer shows a ten upcard. 

Fortunately for players, the playing strategy against a dealer’s ten upcard is nearly the same for any number of decks of cards or mix of playing rules, with only a few exceptions discussed below.

Notations used in this article:
S17 = Dealer must stand on soft 17 (A-6)
H17 = Dealer must hit soft 17
DAS = Doubling down after pair splitting is allowed
NDAS = Doubling down after pair splitting is not allowed
H = Hit
S = Stand
P = Split
Dh = Double down if allowed; otherwise, hit
Rh = Surrender if allowed, otherwise hit.
Rs = Surrender if allowed, otherwise stand

MULTI-DECK GAME

Regardless of the blackjack rules, use the following strategy when facing a dealer’s 10 upcard.

Surrender if allowed, otherwise hit, if holding:

• Hard 15 and 16

Double down if allowed; otherwise hit, if holding:

• Hard 11

Split if holding:

• Pair of As, and 8s

Hit if holding:

• Hard 5 through 10
• Hard 12 through 14
• A-2 through A-7
• Pair of 2s through 7s

Stand if holding:

• Hard 17 through 20
• A-8 and A-9
• Pair of 9s and 10s

Below is the corresponding blackjack strategy arranged into three color-coded tables for Hard Hands, Soft Hands, and Pairs. The first row in each table represents the player’s hand (in the case of hard hands, it represents the total count of the cards), and the second row contains the correct playing strategy against a dealer’s 10 upcard regardless of the mix of rules.

MULTI-DECK: HARD HANDS VS. A DEALER'S 10 UPCARD

MULTI-DECK: SOFT HANDS VS. A DEALER'S 10 UPCARD

MULTI-DECK: PAIRS VS. A DEALER'S 10 UPCARD

WHAT IF YOU ARE PLAYING A DOUBLE-DECK GAME?

You are in luck. The playing strategy for a double-deck game is identical to the above multiple-deck game.

WHAT IF YOU ARE PLAYING A SINGLE-DECK GAME?

The strategy is the same as the multi-deck strategy above except for the following two strategy changes:

• Hit (rather than surrender) hard 15 against a dealer 10 upcard
• Surrender 7-7 against a blackjack dealer 10 if allowed, otherwise stand.

SINGLE DECK: HARD HANDS VS. A DEALER'S 10 UPCARD

SINGLE DECK: PAIRS VS. A DEALER'S 10 UPCARD

FOR MORE PRECISION

You can gain some precision in your playing strategy if you take into consideration the composition of the cards that comprise your 15 and whether your 16 is multi-card or the result of a split.

• In a double- or multi-deck game, if your 15 consists of an 8-7, hit against a dealer 10 upcard (rather than surrender).
• •    In all games, if your 16 is multi-card or the result of a pair split, stand against a dealer’s 10 upcard instead of hit.

PRACTICE PLAY

To be sure you have the strategy down pat for playing your hand against a dealer’s 10 upcard, determine how you would play each of the 10 hands listed below, jot down your decision on paper, and then check it against the correct play at the end of this article. (Your goal is to be able to play every hand accurately, regardless of the number of decks of cards or mix of playing rules.)

For more playing strategy tips, consult Chapter 3 in my Ultimate Blackjack Strategy Guide and see the Blackjack Chart tables

Correct plays for the hands in the table are:

• Surrender if allowed, otherwise hit
• Stand
• Hit
• Surrender if allowed, otherwise hit
• Split 
• Stand
• Surrender if allowed, otherwise stand
• Hit
• Surrender if allowed, otherwise hit
• Double down if allowed, otherwise hit

If you’re serious about winning more when you play blackjack, I encourage you to utilize the best blackjack strategies I'll share with you. From basic strategies to expert advice, these blackjack tips are designed to help you make smarter decisions at the table.

Note: Unless stated otherwise, the following strategies can be used in all games. The strategies discussed below also assume you are a recreational player and do not count cards in blackjack.

Abbreviations used in this article are:
S17 = Dealer must stand on soft 17
H17 = Dealer must hit soft 17
DAS = Doubling down after pair splitting is allowed
NDAS = Doubling down after pair splitting is not allowed

The Best Blackjack Strategies

You’ll always win more money if you double down on hard 11 against any dealer’s upcard vs. hitting in all games, with one exception. If you are playing an S17 multi-deck game, you are slightly better off hitting against a dealer Ace rather than doubling down. 

Always split a pair of 8s and Aces, no matter the dealer’s upcard. Many players avoid splitting 8s against a 9, 10, or Ace, thinking it’s better to avoid risking more money as a big underdog.

However, splitting reduces your disadvantage by creating two hands starting with 8, rather than playing a weak 16 and hitting. Over time, splitting eights minimizes losses in tough spots, while splitting Aces maximizes gains. Bottom line: always split 8s and Aces to improve your overall results.

[Note: If surrender is offered and you are playing in an H17 multi-deck game, or an H17 double-deck game with NDAS, your best strategy is to surrender the pair of eights vs. the dealer’s Ace rather than splitting them.]

A pair of 5s is also a hard 10, and you are always better off taking a one-or-more-card draw to a 10 than splitting the 5s and playing two hands, each starting with a 5. Even though splitting 10s is much more often than not a winning play, keeping them together as 20 is an even greater winning play in all circumstances.

[Note: There is one exception to the above strategy. In the case of a single-deck game with S17, you are slightly better off standing on A-7 when the dealer’s upcard is an Ace.]

If you are playing an H17 game, the above are the three doubling strategy changes you should make vs. the same game with S17. 

[Note: There are surrender strategy changes as well. You’ll find them in Chapter 3 of my Ultimate Blackjack Strategy Guide.]

[Note: Depending on the number of decks of cards being used and the blackjack rules, there are other hands where surrender is the best strategy.]

[Note: The above best strategy includes a pair of 4s, with one exception. If the rules are DAS, you should split a pair of 4s instead of doubling down.]

[Note: There is one exception to the above rule: If you are playing a single-deck game, you should always split a pair of 2s when the dealer shows a 3 upcard, even if the game is NDAS.]

The insurance bet is a losing proposition, so your best strategy is to never take it when the dealer’s upcard is an Ace - even with a strong hand like 19 or 20. The 2-to-1 payout for insurance is lower than the actual odds of the dealer having blackjack, making it a bad bet.

[Note: If you have blackjack and the dealer offers “even money” with an Ace upcard, remember this is just another form of the insurance bet. While it’s tempting to lock in a guaranteed win, you’ll make more money in the long run by declining it and letting the hand play out.]

You see the casinos have locked in certain percentages that are difficult to overcome by adding something extra to the game. So what is to be done to push the house at roulette?

It is important to know how the edges are arrived at – in reality, that is important in any casino game that you play. 

THE TWO ROULETTES

There are two roulette games extant in the world; the American double-zero game with a 0 pocket and a 00 pocket on the wheel, and the European single-zero roulette game with just a 0 pocket on the wheel. The European game is far superior to the American game as its house edge is almost half that of the American version, 2.7 percent to 5.26 percent respectively.

Please note: House edges can be translated into money by putting a dollar sign in front of the first number and making this the amount one loses for every $100 wagered. Thus, the American house edge will lose the player $5.26 per $100 wagered, while the European game will lose the player $2.70 per $100 wagered.

Given access to the European game and having the betting limits that a player can handle – meaning the money wagered is the same the player would bet at the double-zero wheel – then selecting the European game is the way to go. Doing that is not just pushing the house; it is merely common sense. 

HOW THE CASINO GETS ITS EDGE

Here is a simple way to understand how the edges at both roulette games are established. I am taking this directly from our guide to roulette which can be found on this site.

The American wheel has 38 numbers and the payment for a winning bet is 35 to 1. In a fair game, one where the casino does not have the edge, the payout for the winning bet should be 37 to 1. In short, you bet 1 and you win 37. So you will lose 37 times but win once and the game is even; there is no edge for either the player or the casino. That is zero percent.

Casinos cannot make a profit on such a game, so they pay back less than the bet is worth, 35 units instead of 37 units. It keeps two units for itself. Just divide 38 into 2 and the house edge is 5.26 percent. This 5.26 percent is the house edge on the inside numbers and the outside propositions such as red-black, odd-even and so forth.

The European game as stated is better than the American game, because of that single 0. There are 37 numbers and the casino pays back 35 to 1 for a winning bet. The casino is keeping “1” as opposed to the American casinos keeping “2.” Just divide 37 into 1 and the house edge is 2.70 percent. 

However, you will find that the casinos that offer both games might make the minimum roulette bet at the European single-wheel higher – maybe $25 instead of $10. If that happens you must do some quick figuring or check this chart in order to see what the expected loss of your bets would be (I’ve rounded the money) and choose the bet that loses you less money over time;

Please note: The reason that the European game is better has to do with the absence of that second zero. The payout for a win is based on one hit in 37 attempts in the European wheel but one hit in 38 attempts in the American wheel. The actual payouts for those hits are the same at 35 to one, making the European Roulette wheel far better to play.

SUCKER BETS AT ROULETTE

Although most bets at roulette come in with either the 5.26 percent as on the American wheel or the 2.7 percent on the European wheel, you’ll find that some bets are actually different at each of the games and one bet at the American game is so decidedly awful that it has a far higher house edge than all the other bets. The casino does not explain these bets on their signage at the tables; you have to figure them out for yourself.

Sucker Bet #1

Separately betting two or more individual numbers directly on the layout with two or more bets.

If you decide to bet two or more numbers by putting up the same amount on each of the numbers you are betting too much. A $10 bet on the five and a $10 bet on the six means the casino is going for their percent on both bets. The more bets you make, the more games you are playing which means, naturally, the more money you stand to lose.

If you must bet multiple numbers you can use special “line bets” where you bet one chip to cover two or more numbers. This keeps the bet low but gives you the chance to win at roulette if one of your numbers comes up. 

Let me give you an example from our roulette guide of such a roulette strategy: The Street Bet, or Three Number Bet or “Side Bet” or The Trio (French: Transversal)

You’d think with all these titles for the bet that it would pay off at thousands to one. Nope. It is merely a bet on three numbers. You make the bet by placing your chips on the outside border of the three numbers. A winning bet pays off at 11 to1. The house edge on the American double-zero wheel is 5.26 percent and it is 2.70 percent on the single-zero European wheel.

You can find many such “line bets” on the numbers at both roulette games so do check out our roulette guide for all of them. These will make you ignore the big mistake of making multiple bets on multiple numbers.

However there is a far better way to bet multiple bets as I shall show you shortly. Many players, for their own idiosyncratic reasons, prefer to go the tougher route of betting more of the numbers and spending more of their money to do so – go figure.

Sucker Bet #2

Never bet the “monster” on the American roulette game. 

The monster isn’t under the bed but right there at the game of live roulette – the American version of the game that is. The “monster,” also known as “the beast,” is a “line bet” of the first five numbers: the 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3 with a win paid at 6 to 1. The house edge is a huge 7.89 percent, an expected loss of $7.89 per $100 wagered. Never make this bet. Here the house is pushing the player to make a major mistake – don’t be fooled! Pass this bet by.

Sucker Bet #3

Here it is folks: get your chips, start putting them on the layout, bet it up and never ask the most important question that must be answered to understand what is really happening at the game you are playing.

There is an option in both the American and European versions of roulette that can reduce the house edge in half! That’s right, the American game can drop to a 2.63 edge from a 5.26 percent while the European game can go down to a wonderful 1.35 percent – which stands as one of the best bets in the casino.

This bet, called “surrender,” can be found at some casinos in the United States and its European equivalent, called “en prison,” can be found at many casinos outside the United States.

This pushing of the house can only occur if you are betting any of three propositions, the odd/even, the red/black and the high/low. 

If the 0 or 00 appears in the American game one-half of your bet on any of these propositions is returned to the player. The house edge drops to 2.63 percent from 5.26 percent. That is some bargain.

Now, in the European game the result is even better. If the 0 appears the “en prison” rule applies. Your bet is locked up, meaning it is neither won nor lost. It awaits the next spin of the wheel. If the spin shows a winner, you get your full bet returned; if decision shows a loser, you lose your bet.

This rule reduces the house edge from 2.7 percent to 1.35 percent. This wager is now better than the Pass Line or Come bet at the game of craps. It is truly silly to play a European wheel that has this option and not just stick to these three propositions.

ROULETTE BETS: THE ONE, THE MANY OR THE MAYBE?

There is a tension, so to speak, between those roulette players who prefer to bet one chip and those who prefer to spread out their money on multiple bets. To me the one-chippers have the right idea because one chip can actually be a multiple-number wager. 

That is correct.

If you take a look at the premier propositions at roulette, the odd/even, the red/black and the high/low you only have to bet one chip yet you are actually betting on almost half the numbers in the game. On the American wheel you are betting 18 numbers of the 38, while on the European wheel you are betting 18 numbers of the 37. That’s a lot of numbers for just one chip.

Throw in the “surrender” or “en prison” rule and you have multiple bets with one-half the normal house edge at the game. There is no reason to bet any other way.

But what of the players who just love that big payout on betting directly on those inside numbers? I certainly recognize that a 35 to one win is a great payout. Still, those wins do not come very often do they? 

Yes, the house edge is always 5.26 percent or 2.7 percent on any single bet but your chances of winning on any given decision with the premier even-money proposition bets is far better than your chances of winning that 35 to one payout. In addition, many players cannot resist putting out more (or far more) money when the bet on the inside than they would if they were betting one of the premier even-money bets. Consider that.

Please note: the premier bets of the odd/even, red/black or high/low are also called even-money bets because they pay out at one-to-one. You bet $10 and a win is $10.

If you wish to save money and still have loads of fun at roulette let me encourage you to seriously consider betting those premier even-money bets. If the casino game has either “surrender” or “en prison” then there should be no question about only using these as your betting options. Why would anyone want to play against a house edge that is double at games with “surrender” or “en prison”?

All the best in and out of the casinos!

Among all the skills needed to get the most out of casino games online and offline, one of the most important for casino players is choosing your wagers wisely.

And an important part of choosing your wagers wisely is knowing which bets never to make.

Sometimes that means avoiding bets with extraordinarily high house edges. Sometimes it means skipping a bet because a better option is available that accomplishes the same thing with a lower house edge.

Here are a big four among common casino wagers you should NEVER make:

BACCARAT: THE TIE BET

Only two hands are dealt in baccarat: a player hand and a banker hand. 

Everyone can bet on either hand. Banker wins more often than player, so those who win banker bets must play the house a 5 percent commission -- the payoff is even money minus that 5 percent. Winning player hands are paid at even money.

Both are among the better bets around, with a 1.06 percent house edge on banker and 1.24 percent on player.

There's a third option. You can bet that the two hands will tie.

Winning bets on ties are paid at 8-1 odds. That's tempting for those looking to make a fast profit instead of grinding it out with even-money payoffs.

But the true odds against winning a tie bet are 9.526-1, not 8-1, and the house edge is a whopping 14.4 percent.

When you have two available bets with house edges just a little over 1 percent, why would you make a bet with a 14.4-percent edge? No reason at all.

CRAPS: BIG 6 AND BIG 8

There are many bets to avoid in craps, especially in the one-roll propositions. House edges of 16.67 percent on any 7, 11.11 percent on any craps and others are too high to overcome.

But there are a couple of multi-roll bets with a sneaky high house edge.

In two corners of the layout, you'll see a big red 6 next to a big red 8. Those are Big 6 and Big 8.

They play exactly like place bets on 6 and 8. If you bet on Big 6 and the shooter rolls a 6 before rolling a 7, you win. If a 7 comes first, you lose. No other numbers matter -- if the shooter rolls a sequence such as 5, 9, 3 12, 4, 5, there is no decision. Your bet either stays in action or you can take it down.

The difference is that place bets on 6 and 8 pay 7-6 odds, while Big 6 and Big 8 pay even money.

That difference in payoffs lead to a dramatic gap in the house edge. The house has a 1.52 percent edge on place bets on 6 and 8, but 9.09 percent on Big 6 and Big 8.

Because of the 7-6 payoffs, you want to bet in multiples of $6 when placing 6 or 8. There is no such imperative on Big 6 and Big 8. But you actually average more in losses when betting $5 on Big 6 or 8 than when placing 6 or 8.

Here's how that works:

Let's say I place $6 on 8 for each of 36 spins in which each combination of two dice comes up once. You bet $5 on Big 8 on the same 36 spins.

On 25 of the spins, the roll is neither a loser 7 or a winner 8, and we just keep our money. 

We can focus on the 11 wagers on which bets are decided. On those, I have $66 at risk on my place bets, while you're risking $55 on Big 8.

On each of the five winners, I get my $6 back and get $7 in winnings. That means at the end of the trial I have $65 of my original $66.

On each winner, you get your $5 bet back and get $5 in winnings. Your total is $50, while the house has kept $5 of your original $55.

I've bet more money than you, and we've won and lost on the same rolls, but you've lost five times as much money as me.

Never bet on Big 6 or Big 8. If you want to bet those numbers, use place bets instead.

ROULETTE: THE FIVE-NUMBER BET IN DOUBLE-ZERO

This is not a factor if you're playing roulette with a single-zero wheel. The five-number bet doesn't exist.

But on the double-zero wheel used by nearly all American casinos and which also is available in many online or international casinos, you can bet on 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3 all at once.

The payoff is 6-1, but that's no bargain. The house edge of 7.89 percent is one and a half times the house edge of 5.26 percent of available bets.

You can bet on the same five numbers and get the lower house edge on many different ways. 

If you bet $5 on the five-number bet and I bet $1 each on 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3, we each risk the same amount per spin.

In 38 spins in which each number comes up once, we each bet a total of $190.

On each of the five winning spins -- when the ball lands in 0, 00, 1, 2 or 3 -- you get your $5 bet back and get $30 in winnings. At the end of the trial, you have $175 of your original $190.

My single numbers win five times and are paid at 35-1 odds. On each winner, I get the $1 back that I bet on that number, and get $35 in winnings. When all is done, my total is $180 of my original $190.

We've bet the same amount on the same numbers, but at the end of the trial I have $5 more than you do.

You can accomplish the same thing in different ways. You could bet $3 on the three-number street 1, 2 and 3 and a $2 split on 0 and 00. You could bet a $2 split on 1 and 2, a $1 single number on 3 and a $2 split on 0 and 00.

However you want to do it, the house edge on your combination will be 5.26 percent as long as you avoid the five-number bet. That's one of those bets you never want to make.

BLACKJACK INSURANCE

This one needs a qualifier: You should never take insurance in blackjack unless are a card counter. For card counters who know there is a higher than usual concentration of 10-value cards remaining in the deck, insurance is a viable option. For the vast majority of players, it's a bet to avoid.

The basics, when the blackjack dealer has an Ace face up, he asks players if they want to take insurance.

Taking insurance requires making a wager half the size of your original bet. If you have a $10 bet, you'd then bet $5 on insurance. 

Insurance pays off if the dealer has a 10-value card face down to complete a blackjack. That yields a 2-1 payoff on blackjacks.

If a third of the cards were 10-values, insurance would be an even bet. Then you'd win on insurance an average of once per three hands. If you bet $5 on insurance three times for a total of $15. You'd lose twice, but the one time you won, you'd keep the $5 insurance bet and collect $10 in winnings - the $15 on the one winner would balance your $15 total risk.

However, only 30.8 percent of cards are 10 values, so you lose insurance bets 69.2 percent of the time and the house has a 7.6 percent edge.

When you have blackjack, a form of insurance is offered called "even money." Instead of playing the handout and risking the hand pushing if the dealer has a 10 value down, you tell the dealer "even money." You give up the chance at a 3-2 payoff if your blackjack wins, but you are guaranteed to win every time.

It's a bad tradeoff for the player.

In an average 1,000 trials in which you're betting $10 a hand and have blackjack, you could call even money and guarantee $10,000 in winnings.

However, if you take your chances and play out the hand, you win an average of 692 times. Multiply by 1.5 for the 3-2 payoff, and you get 1,038, and multiply that by your $10 in wagers, and you bet $10,380 in winnings.

Pushes may be frustrating, but by risking the pushes and declining insurance, you win more money.

Unless you're counting cards and know there's an excess of 10-values, NEVER take insurance, including its even-money form.

The following ten strategy tips are for casual blackjack players who want to increase their odds of winning while having fun playing blackjack.

THE BEST 10 TIPS ON HOW TO WIN AT BLACKJACK:

1. Play games with liberal playing rules
2. Learn the basic playing strategy
3. Use a strategy card
4. Avoid making the insurance wager
5. Ignore your fellow players
6. Avoid progressive strategies
7. Don’t believe you are due to win
8. Don’t play on tables that use a continuous shuffler
9. Get rated when you play
10. Go easy on the booze

• Download Blackjack Basic Strategy Chart

 

Note: For security reasons, casinos don’t allow players to place strategy cards — or other “things” — on a blackjack table, so just hold the card in your hand, and if you are unsure as to how to play a particular hand, glance at your strategy card for the answer.

BOTTOM LINE

Strategy cards can reduce your mistakes while playing blackjack. 

One of the playing decisions available to land-based and online blackjack players in some (but not all) casinos is to surrender their hand. For the uninitiated, blackjack surrender works like this.

After comparing your initial two-card hand against the dealer’s upcard, if you think your chances of winning the hand are not very good, you can forfeit playing your hand and surrender (or give up) half of the amount of your wager. If you decide to surrender, the dealer will remove half of your bet and then scoop up your initial two cards and place them in the discard tray. 

Most players disdain the surrender option because they much prefer to try to “win their hands,” rather than wimp out and surrender them. But as you will see shortly, surrender can be a smart play if you know which hands to surrender. 

WHAT IS SURRENDER IN BLACKJACK?

Before I show you the surrender playing strategy, it’s important that you understand the math behind surrender. You know that when you surrender a hand you will lose 50% (or half) of your wager. Therefore, it makes sense to surrender only those hands when your expected loss from playing the hand to a conclusion is greater than 50% (i.e., when your chances of winning are less than one out of four hands).

The latter means that statistically if playing a hand has less than a 25% chance of winning (and consequently greater than 75% of losing), you will save money in the long run by surrendering the hand instead.

Here’s a real-world example. Suppose you are dealt a 10 and 6 and the dealer’s upcard is a ten. This is the worst blackjack hand that you can get when you are playing. You have three choices on how to play the hand: hit, stand, or surrender. The percentages of the time that you will win or lose for each playing option are (assumes a six-deck game):

BLACKJACK SURRENDER STRATEGY: INSIDE THE NUMBERS

The above percentages mean if you stand on your 16, you can expect to lose the hand 77.2% of the time and win only 22.8%; therefore, you can expect to lose $54.40 for every $100 bet on the hand. Hitting improves your outcome slightly; your expected loss is $53.20 per $100 bet.

Think about this:  When you surrender your 10-6 against a dealer 10 upcard, you will lose exactly 50% of your bet, meaning for every $100 wagered, your expectation is to lose $50. Now let me ask you this: is it better to lose $50, $53.20, or $54.40? (I hope you said only $50, which is why surrender is your best option for this hand.)

For even more blackjack charts and numbers, click here.
 

BASIC PLAYING STRATEGY FOR SURRENDER

The blackjack basic playing strategy for surrender in a six-deck game with the dealer standing on soft 17 is:

• Surrender hard 16 (but not 8-8) against a dealer 9, 10, or Ace upcard
• Surrender hard 15 against a dealer 10 upcard

Note: The above strategy differs slightly depending on the number of decks of cards being used and the mix of playing rules. See Chapter 2.2 in my Ultimate Blackjack Strategy Guide for tables that contain the complete surrender playing strategy for any number of decks and different playing rules.
 

MAKING SURRENDER WORTHWHILE

To make surrender worthwhile, average losses on a starting hand have to be high enough to justify surrendering half your bet.

It becomes a balancing act. You'll win sometimes with any starting hand, but with one such as hard 16 when the dealer has a 10 face up, you're between a rock and a hard place. Hit, and you'll bust more often than not. Stand, and the dealer makes a 17 or better to beat you on a majority of hands.

When to surrender in blackjack is much like basic hit or stand strategy in that you must consider your cards as well as the dealer's upcard. Strategy for surrender depends on the number of decks in play, whether the dealer hits soft 17 and the composition of the hand.

Let's take blackjack surrender strategy and break it down hand by hand. In the charts below, "R" stands for surrender, "s" for stand, "h" for hit, and "p" for splitting a pair. If a hand says "Rh," it means to surrender if the option is available and to hit if not. Rs means surrender is preferred, but stand if it's not offered.
 

BASIC STRATEGY FOR LATE SURRENDER in BLACKJACK: SIX DECKS, DEALER HITS SOFT 17

You can see basic strategy calls for surrender with hard 15 against 10 or Ace, hard 16 against 9, 10 or Ace, hard 17 against Ace, and a pair of 8s against Ace. If there's no surrender, hit the 15 or 16, stand on the 17, and split the 8s.
Let's run some numbers.

HARD 15: Numbers differ slightly depending on whether your 15 consists of 10-5, 9-6, or 8-7. 

Anytime you surrender, your loss is 50 cents per $1 wagered. If you make the next best play and hit, average losses against a dealer 10 are 50.4 cents with 10-5 and 50.5 cents with 9-6. With 8-7 vs. 10, the average loss when hitting is only 50.01 cents, barely more than the guaranteed 50-cent loss for surrendering, but it still means your best average results come with surrender.

It's not as close a call when the dealer has Ace up. Average losses when hitting are 59.9 cents with 10-5, 59.6 with 9-6 or 59.5 with 8-7.

We don't surrender with 9 because average losses of 47.2 cents with 10-5 or 9-6 and 46.8 cents with 8-7 are less than the guaranteed loss when surrendering.

HARD 16: With hard 15, we bust with a one-card draw of 7 through 10. With 16, we bust with 6 through 10. That extra bust card swings the percentages in favor of surrendering against a dealer 9.

There are two possible two-card hard 16s: 10-6 and 9-7. When the dealer has a 9 up, average losses per dollar wagered when hitting are 50.6 cents with either 10-6 or 9-7, so the better play is to surrender.

Average losses when the dealer has 10 up are 53.6 cents with 10-6 of 53.7 with 9-7. Against an Ace, averages are 54.1 cents with 10-6 or 54.0 with 9-7.

8-8: Splitting 8s is almost always the correct strategy, but there's an exception in multiple-deck games with surrender when the dealer hits soft 17.

When you have a pair of 8s and the dealer has an Ace up, splitting results in lower losses than hitting or standing. But the average loss of 51.7 cents per dollar of your original wager is more than the flat 50 cents you give up for surrendering.

When you have a pair of 8s and the dealer has an Ace up, splitting results in lower losses than hitting or standing. But the average loss of 51.7 cents per dollar of your original wager is more than the flat 50 cents you give up for surrendering.

 

BASIC STRATEGY FOR LATE SURRENDER: SIX DECKS, DEALER STANDS ON SOFT 17

 

We surrender a lot less often if the dealer stands on soft 17. That's because even though the dealer risks  busting when hitting soft 17, the average final hand is better than the 17 that results from standing. A favorable draw results in more player wins when the dealer stands on soft 17, so we surrender less.

Some numbers: 

HARD 15: Against a dealer Ace, average losses per dollar wagered when hitting hard 15 are 48.3 cents with 10-5 or 9-6 and 47.6 cents with 8-7. All are less than the 50-cent loss for surrendering. So while you surrender 15 vs. Ace if the dealer hits soft 17, you just hit if the dealer stands.

Under these rules, surrender hard 15 only against dealer 10 values, where average losses are 50.4 cents with 10-5 or 50.5 with 9-6. However, if your 15 consists of 8-7, average losses when hitting dip to 49.98 cents per dollar, just on the side of hitting instead of surrendering. It's a close call, but a consideration for dedicated players who use composition-dependent strategies.

HARD 16: Surrender is the preferred play when the dealer has 9, 10, or Ace.  
Average losses when hitting vs. 9 are 50.5 cents vs. 10-6 or 9-7. Averages against 10s are 53.5 with either hard 16, and against Aces average losses are 51.6 cents with 10-6 or 51.4 with 9-7. All are higher than 50 cents, so we surrender.
 

BASIC STRATEGY FOR LATE SURRENDER: ONE DECK, DEALER HITS SOFT 17

If you find a single-deck game that offers surrender, you've found a rare treat. But be careful. A one-deck game with surrender is likely to more than offset it with negative rules that might make a different table a better option.
Some numbers:

HARD 15: Surrender only against an Ace, where average losses per dollar wagered when hitting are 52.4 cents with 10-5 or 51.8 cents with 9-6. But hit instead of surrendering with 8-7, where the average drops to 48.3 cents.

HARD 16: Average losses when hitting against 10 are 50.7 cents with 10-6 or 51.2 with 9-7, while against a dealer Ace losses average 52.9 with 10-6 or 52.1 with 9-7. So we surrender.

HARD 17: Surrender only with 10-7 against an Ace, where losses when hitting average 50.4 cents. However, with 9-8 losses fall to 49.1 cents, so advanced players will hit instead.

7-7: The pair to watch in single-deck, hit soft 17 games is 7s. Surrender against 10, where the next best play is to stand with an average 51-cent loss.  Against Aces, the next best play is to hit with a 52.3-cent average loss.

 

BASIC STRATEGY FOR LATE SURRENDER: ONE DECK, DEALER STANDS SOFT 17

As in multiple-deck games, we surrender less often if the dealer stands on soft 17 The numbers: HARD 16: Average losses when hitting against 10 are 50.7 cents with 10-6 or 51.2 with 9-7. 7-7: Average losses against a dealer 10 are 51 cents when standing, and that's a better play than hitting (51.5) or splitting (62). However, we don't surrender against Aces, where the next best play is hitting, with a 49.4-cent average loss.

A WORD ABOUT EARLY SURRENDER

Early surrender is extraordinarily rare. It was introduced long ago, before basic strategy was devised and before the math of blackjack was fully understood. 

You are unlikely to encounter this rule unless it's in a blackjack-based specialty game that has an overriding rule or two so favorable to the house it can afford to give something back.

There's no point in getting bogged down in the numbers, but for curiosity's sake, basic strategy for early surrender looks like this:

• Against a dealer Ace, surrender with hard 5 through 7; hard 12 through 17; and pairs of 3s, 6s, 7s, or 8s
• Against a dealer 10, surrender with hard 14-16, or pairs of 7s or 8s.

Don't be too concerned with early surrender strategy. Focus on late surrender, where strategy could be useful -- especially in online play.

MORE TIPS FOR SURRENDER

Here are some additional tips to keep in mind regarding the surrender option:

• If you are not sure if a casino offers surrender, contact the casino beforehand (or just ask the dealer if you happen to be in a casino). Usually, if a casino offers surrender, it will state it on the placard that summarizes the rules at each table.
• In US casinos, you can only surrender your hand after the dealer peeks at her hole card when she shows an ace or 10-valued card, to determine if she has a blackjack. If she has blackjack, the surrender option is no longer available, and you will lose your entire bet (unless you also have a blackjack). This is known as late surrender in blackjack and it is the strategy I presented in this article.
• Another type of surrender, known as “early surrender,” is rarely offered in U.S. casinos and is more prevalent in European and Asian casinos where the dealer does not take a hole card until after all players have acted on their hand. With the early surrender option, a player can surrender his hand to a dealer’s ace and/or 10-value upcard before she checks to determine if she has blackjack. Early surrender is a much more favorable rule for players than late surrender, and it has a much different playing strategy than later surrender. (In this article, I only covered the playing strategy for late surrender. See Chapter 2.2 in the Ultimate Blackjack Strategy Guide for the complete playing strategy for early surrender.)
• In some casinos you must verbally announce to the dealer that you want to surrender your hand by saying, “surrender.” Other casinos have implemented a hand signal for surrender, which is to draw an imaginary line from left to right on the felt with your index finger.
• Implementing the late surrender playing strategy will reduce the house edge by about 0.07% in multiple-deck games. Surrender also will stabilize your bankroll compared to a game where surrender is not offered and you have to play your hands to completion.
• Surrender is also a valuable playing option for card counters because it will moderate the swings in their bankroll. Also, knowing when to surrender a hand based on the count should definitely be employed by a card counter. (For details on this, see Chapter 10.7 in Ultimate Blackjack Strategy Guide for the surrender “Fab Four” indices.)
• Some (but not all) online casinos offer the surrender option in their blackjack games. Check the summary of the blackjack rules on the site to determine if surrender is available.

High pairs, low pairs, any pairs are powerful - more powerful than many video poker players realize.

It's not merely that after a draw, pairs can turn into three of a kind, full houses or four of a kind to boost your credit meter.

High pairs - two Jacks, Queens, Kings or Aces - are important in themselves, accounting for a major chunk of your overall payback in any game. They're the hands that keep you going, providing credits to recycle while you chase bigger pays.

Many video poker playing readers have asked how much value there is in high pairs, given that they just get your money back. Some question whether they're really winning hands at all.

Here's and example, in an email that arrived earlier this year:

"What's with the payoffs on pairs of Jacks or better? A five-credit win when I've bet five credits isn't really a win if you ask me. If I bet $5 at blackjack and win, I keep my $5 bet AND get $5 in winnings. On video poker, I just get the five credits back.

"Shouldn't they have to pay you something more than your bet to call it a win?"

That video poker question basically describes the difference between odds-to-1 and odds-for-1. If you're being paid odds-to-1, which is common in most table games, you keep your bet and get winnings on top of it. If you win a single-number bet in roulette, you're paid 35-to-1, so you if you wager $1 you get $35 in winnings and keep you $1 bet.

Most machine games pay odds-for-1.  The machine takes and keeps your bet, then makes its payoff on winners. If the roulette example above paid 35-for-1, you'd be paid $35, but the house would keep your $1 bet.

Video poker pays odds-for-1. If you bet $5 and draw a pair of Jacks, the machine keeps the $5 you wagered, then adds $5 back to your meter after the hand.

Such payoffs are basically the same as pushes in blackjack, where if your hand ties the dealer's, you get your money back.

In video poker, those pushes are an important part of the game. Let's illustrate the power of pairs, using 9-6 Jacks or Better as an example. Pairs of Jacks or better are by far the most frequent paying video poker hands, occurring on 4.66 percent of hands. They account for 21.46 of overall payback.

The situation is similar in 9-6 Double Double Bonus Poker, where high pairs come up on 4.73 percent of hands and account for 21.13 percent of total payback. In fact, in any non-wild card game where pays start at Jacks or better, the high pairs account for 20 percent or more of our return.

What if the game paid 2-for-1 or as table games would pay it, even money -- on those high pairs? That would push the overall payback past 121 percent.

No casino could keep a 121-percent game on its floor so the pay table would have to be drastically altered.

 

Maybe paybacks could start with a pair of Kings instead of a pair of Jacks, but that would mean fewer paying hands and the game would become more volatile without. 

Maybe chunks could be taken out of returns higher on the pay table, but that would reduce the big rewards and our incentive for playing video poker.

You may or may not think of those 1-for-1 pays as "wins," but most of us wouldn't find video poker as playable without them. Each return of your bet on a 1-for-1 pay means credits for one extra hand to chase a bigger payoff.

In that way, high pairs are powerful even if you don't improve the hand on your draw. But if you get a pair on an initial deal, you do have a chance to improve the hand. 

Let's walk through what that means to your video poker strategy when dealt high pairs in 9-6 Jacks or Better and 9-6 Double Double Bonus Poker.

You'd never want to break up a higher paying hand for the sake of starting with a high pair. If you get four of a kind, a full house or three of a kind on the initial deal, thank your lucky stars and hold those winners before drawing. 

In Jacks or Better, you can add two pairs to the list. The 2-for-1 payoff on two pairs makes it a more desirable start than discarding one pair to hold just a low pair.

Double Double Bonus Poker brings a different challenge. Two pairs pay 1-for-1 -- the same as high pairs. You must decide whether to hold both pairs, giving you a one-card draw for a possible full house -- or whether to hold just one pair and open up more possibilities.

The best play depends on the rank of the pairs.

Imagine you're dealt Aces of clubs and hearts, 8s of diamonds and spades, and a 3 of spades.

If you hold both pairs, there are 47 possible draws.  Four of them would complete full houses -- the other two Aces and the other two 8s. The other 43 draws would leave you with two pairs and that 1-for-1 return.

That leaves the average return for holding both pairs at 8.40 coins for a five-coin bet.

If you hold Ace-Ace and discard the other three cards instead, there are 16,215 possible draws. Of those, 11,520 leave you at a high pair and 2,629 bring a second pair, all with the same 1-for-1 return.

However, 1,852 improve the hand to three of a kind (15-coin return for a five-coin bet), 169 bring full houses (45 for 5), 34 bring four Aces (800 for 5) and 11 bring the big 2,000-coin jackpot for four Aces with a 2, 3 or 4 as the fifth card.

 The average return on all that is 9.58 coins per five wagered. That means breaking up two pairs to draw to a powerful pair of Aces is a better play than holding two pairs.

With lesser high pairs, the arithmetic is different. The payoff for four of a kind is 250 coins on four Jacks, Queens or Kings, rather than the 800 on four Aces, and there is no jackpot boost for having a low card as the fifth-card kicker.

If you change the above hand so the high pair is Kings, Queens or Jacks instead of Aces, the average return when holding both pairs remains 8.40 coins, but the average when holding just the high pair drops to 7.24.

That means Aces are more powerful than other pairs in Double Double Bonus, but all high pairs have the powers.

Low pairs are more important than many players realize, too. They're not winners on their own, but they are building blocks to big hands up to four of a kind.

You're better off holding a low pair than three or fewer unsuited high cards, two suited high cards, four parts of an outside straight with fewer than three high cards, or any inside straight draws. 

They're not as powerful as high pairs, but then high pairs are very important to your chances of winning at video poker. Regardless whether high pairs lead to bigger things on the draw or merely replenish your credit meter to keep you going in your quest for big payers, they have a power many players don't realize.