Card Counting Edge

Most casinos will have a house edge of approximately 0.5% if you are playing perfect Blackjack strategy. With the use of card counting the player is able to swing that edge in their favour to about 1%, a change of 1.5%. This can depend on the skill of the card counter and other playing conditions, and often it can take hundreds of hours of play to achieve this level of profit.

To make card counting a real success the player needs to have a very large bank. It is recommended that a card counters bank should be 250 times bigger than their average bet. This is required so that they can make full use of each hand that is going to favour them as they will only be able to raise the stakes typically in 25% of the hands.

This edge is often gained not through playing the optimal strategy when the cards are in favour, but more often by taking advantage of features of Blackjack such as Doubling Down and Splitting cards. You can effectively win twice as much from each hand that these features are applied in and as the stakes have already been upped at the start of the hand the amount of profit gained in circumstances such as this can be phenomenal. If trying to use card counting, it is important to be aware of Card Counting Rules.