If card counting in blackjack is just keeping track of high cards vs low, does that mean if I could remember all the different cards used (i.e. how many 5s, how many 7s) I would be really good at blackjack?

Question

This would break online casinos because you could easily do that with electronics. Assuming the casino itself is playing fair.

If you could perfectly keep track of how many of which cards are left in the decks, and everytime make the most mathematically sound bet, would the house still have an edge?

(I assume the correct answer will start off saying I don’t understand how card counting works – fair enough, but what about the basic explanation of it did I misinterpret?)

In: Mathematics

Answer 1

AFAIK card counting works best when you have a single deck of cards, because you have a limited set of cards to work through. If you’ve seen all the Jacks, you know there’s no more Jacks until the deck is shuffled again.

Casinos know this and use 6-8 decks per table. Now you have 24-32 Jacks to keep track of.

You’re also assuming that you will play the whole deck. There’s a number of triggers that might make a dealer shuffle, so you might only get half way through a single deck before it gets shuffled. With an 8 deck shoe, you might only get through 1-2 decks worth before it shuffles.

A lot of this is tied to the limitations of a human dealer. Shuffling takes time so more shuffles = fewer hands = less profit. With electronic poker, they can reshuffle every hand if they want.