Stephen Tabone is an expert on casino systems play and author of a number of books on gambling. He shares his advice on when to double down at the Blackjack table exclusively with the Casino.com Blog. Blackjack players find that doubling down is one of the most appealing actions to make because it allows them to double their initial wager and offers the chance to win additional money. You can use a standard playing strategy to decide whether or not to double down, meaning that blackjack hand value charts often hold the answer. In this guide, I’ll provide some key details about exactly when you ..read more

21 + 3 is two games in one: you play a standard game of blackjack while playing a small game of Three Card Poker. The player uses their original two cards and a dealer’s up card to make a ranking three card poker hand. Thus, you can stand to win a sizeable amount of money if fortune falls in your favour. How to Make the 21 Plus 3 Blackjack Side Bet Before the cards are laid out, when you are placing your wager, you have two choices. The first is on your blackjack bet and how much you want to stake. Making this bet is not optional if you want to continue with the Three Card Poker wager. Once th ..read more

Blackjack is one of the simplest table games you’ll find in a casino. The origins of “21” may still be something of a mystery, but there’s no doubt that the game owes much of its popularity and modern-day relevance to a string of blackjack legends who, over the years, have truly pioneered it. We spoke to Michael Kaplan, a journalist who has interviewed many of the most famous people on the gambling scene, including some who are included here. You can read his thoughts on how these people pioneered blackjack and how their legacies live on in the modern game. Edward O. Thorp Edward Oak ..read more

If you are a total novice when it comes to playing blackjack, you will almost certainly be unfamiliar with the blackjack payouts available to you. Within this page, we’ll explore the blackjack odds you can expect at various tables. With this explanation, you should be able to pick the right online blackjack game that minimises the blackjack house edge and maximises your betting bankroll. First and foremost, let’s take a look at a standard game of blackjack. It’s important to understand the payouts of the original game first before we move on to any of the popular blackjack variants available o ..read more

The history of blackjack is fragmented. Like most things from centuries past, it’s a composite of different ideas, trends, and cultural influences. In fact, this is why modern blackjack isn’t regarded as a casino game with specific rules; they vary from casino to casino. Although the classic format remains popular, there are variants aplenty available for the curious patron.  To understand how we got to a point where Vegas Blackjack can sit alongside such incarnations as Quantum Blackjack, some historical insight is needed. Only by stitching together the various reported origins of b ..read more

Blackjack, as one of the world’s most popular casino games, has been the subject of a great deal of exploratory work over the decades. This means that a) the game is now so well understood that there’s a proper way to play it, known as the basic blackjack strategy, and b) that there have been a number of efforts to ‘game’ or otherwise optimise the way the blackjack experience plays out. It’s understandable. Everybody would like their favourite table game to serve as a convenient money printer. Inevitably, though, without exception, all of these blackjack betting systems are flawed. They might ..read more

In this part of our comprehensive blackjack guides, designed to help you improve your game, we’ve conducted an interview with blackjack expert and industry leader, Michael Shackleford. Here, he provides you with incredible insight into how to get started with the game and how to develop a basic blackjack strategy. Note that Michael does not recommend using betting systems such as Martingale or Andrucci here, simply optimal strategy based on mathematical probabilities. If you want to know why it’s important to have a basic strategy which will statistically increase your chances of success ..read more

On the Casino.com website, our mission statement is clear for everybody to see. We endeavour to be the very best online casino out there, both in terms of the number and type of games we provide and the kind of customer service our players receive. You’ll also note that many of our winners below benefited from VIP treatment at some point in the player journey.  Due to the nature of casino games like blackjack and roulette, part of that lofty goal means rewarding our players for choosing to play at Casino.com. Just about everyone on the site has the opportunity to take advantage of ou ..read more

For all its ability to evolve and adapt to new mediums, blackjack’s recent history, including its success on the internet and mobile phones, is barely a minute on the clock of its existence to date. This classic casino experience has roots in the same decade that England and Scotland united to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, meaning that it likely celebrated its 300th anniversary sometime after the turn of the millennium. Unlike lots of other card games, which were created and played on streets, evidence suggests that traditional blackjack began in French casinos around the beginning of the ..read more

Blackjack is a staple card game that is played in casinos all over the world. While the rules are simple, there are some important aspects of blackjack etiquette for you to be aware of. This begs the question “What is blackjack etiquette?, and how can you be sure you are doing the right thing? This guide gives you insight into what the correct action is for the most common situations. Handling the Cards The way that you handle your blackjack cards is one of the points that you need to be very careful with. It might seem natural for you to pick them up and hold them while deciding what to do ne ..read more