Poker Or Blackjack Better
Posted By admin On 11/04/22Here are 7 reasons poker is better than blackjack. This doesn’t mean you should ignore blackjack, but it gives you some solid information to help you understand why poker is a good choice. 1 – No Heat Poker and blackjack both give players a chance to become long term winners. It might be better to put a match to the dollar bills and enjoy the momentary brilliance of the flames. Sometimes the math works - as with blackjack - but the proper conditions for winning.
When it comes to all the casino card games available that offer a realistic opportunity for the player to make money, there really isn’t a long list of options. Two very popular games on the list are what are known to the world as poker and blackjack—just about everyone knows these games in one form or another, usually through TV or movies where they often figure prominently.
If you’ve ever watched the classic movie Casino or some of the newer gambling-focused movies like 21 or Casino Royale, then you’ve certainly watched someone play blackjack or poker.
These types of movies almost always skip over the mechanics of the game and focus on the atmosphere or feeling of the game, but for some who is trying to go directly into a casino to try to win some money, you’re going to have to learn the mechanics of the game if you want to succeed.
At every casino in the world, there is something in place called the “house advantage” or “house edge” which plays a huge role in every game in the casino and determines how much money you are going to lose over time. This basically means that casino games are set up in a way that assures that the casino is going to win more money than it loses over the long run (think thousands of hands by thousands of players).
Obviously, if the house won every time, then there wouldn’t be very many people who would be willing to risk large sums of money at the game. There has to be a chance that the player can win, or nobody would want to play at all.
Poker is different than blackjack in the sense that instead of playing against the house, players are playing against other players.
This provides a huge advantage when it comes to the opportunities that are available for a player to be able to win. Skill plays a much, much larger role in your ability to win at poker than it does at blackjack. Even if you’re very skilled at blackjack, you still will never be able to eliminate the house edge.
If you’re a better player than your opponents at the poker table, then you have a huge advantage. Players can still have an advantage at the blackjack table but need to be able to count cards. When it comes down to it, poker is a better game to play than blackjack if your goal is to win money, and it can also be a lot of fun playing against other players (as opposed to a stone-faced dealer).
Here are a couple reasons why.
1- No Heat
In poker and blackjack both, players have an opportunity to be long term winners. Unless you’re an expert card counter, it’s hard for a player to be a long term winner in blackjack. To be able to beat the house edge at blackjack, not only do you need to be able to count cards, but you also want to be able to combine that with hole carding and shuffle tracking.
These things definitely go way over the heads of many players and are hard to learn! Hole carding and shuffle tracking are possible in some blackjack games, but not all. And even still, both tactics can be extremely difficult for even the expert to pull off.
Card counting on the other hand is supposedly a lot less difficult to learn, and if you can master it, than you have the opportunity to reduce the house edge down to a half or a quarter of a percentage point or more over time.
Casinos often frown on card counting.
If you have seen the movie 21, then you know what I am talking about. It’s a movie and an overdramatization of the reality of what happens at casinos, but you can see players being taken into the back rooms of the casino by security and interrogated after being suspects for card counting.
Pit bosses and casino security are always on the lookout for card counters. This is what is called “the heat” in the card counting world.
So if you’re sitting at a blackjack table in a Las Vegas casino and are on a winning streak, then you can expect the heat to be on you!
Expert card counters have to be extremely discreet in what they are doing, because if not and they happen to get caught, it isn’t unlikely that they can get escorted out of the casino, or even worse, banned for life!
It’s very very difficult to cheat at a poker table at a casino. If a player is on a winning streak, this is almost always due to the players skill or the rare occasions that a player just happens to be that lucky.
The house is making money during a poker game by taking a small portion of each pot. The pot is where all of the bets are physically placed in the middle of the poker table. I say that because a player’s profitability at the poker table doesn’t have any impact on the money that the house is making in the slightest.
Another way that blackjack players try to avoid the heat is by always switching up the tables that they are playing at, or by rotating the casinos they play at. It’s much easier to get caught card counting at the blackjack table if you stay in the same seat at the same table for the entire night.
So again, poker players receive less heat than blackjack players, making it a better game to play at casinos.
2- No House Edge
I briefly touched on this earlier, but this is a major advantage that poker has over blackjack at casinos—there is no house edge when playing poker.
When you play poker, the house takes a small portion from the pot. This is called “the rake.” Every casino has different house rules, or particular rules at each game that are dictated by the casino, and the house rules will determine what the house takes for the rake during each poker game.
So a $50 pot might have a rake of $5, while a $100 pot might have a rake of $10. Pretty simple to understand.
At every casino, the rake has a maximum cap, so the pot can get super large and the casino is still only going to be able to take a capped amount.
When you’re playing poker, you’re playing against other players. The only hand that the house has in the game is the dealer who is dealing the cards to each player. There is no way that the dealer can have any influence on the game whatsoever.
Another easy way to look at the rake during poker is to think of it as the seat charge for getting to sit at the table and play. Every casino has a different seat charge or rake, and it’s always a good idea to know what that is before you sit at the table to play.
You will always have an opportunity to win more money from your opponents than what you’re paying forward for the rake. When it comes to poker and the rake, it doesn’t matter if you play 100 hands. You can always count on the rake staying the same throughout every round that is played.
This is not the case with blackjack. At blackjack, it’s the player against the house, and that means the player against the house edge. You do not have an opportunity to win more from other players, nor do you have an opportunity to play against the other players. Its you and the house, and unless you know what you’re doing, the odds are never in your favor as the player.
At blackjack, the house edge is determined and created by what’s called the “table rules.” Each table rule in black jack either increases the house edge or lowers it. Even the most skilled blackjack players are having a harder and harder time finding blackjack tables that can provide even a slight advantage to the players, giving us another reason why poker is a better game to play than blackjack.
Do you have other reasons that make poker a better game than blackjack? Or do you disagree and have reasons that blackjack is better than poker? I am happy to hear your thoughts in the comment section below!
If your goal is to find gambling options that offer a high return to player percentage, blackjack and video poker are both good options. In fact, they might be the 2 best options in the casino.
But if you want to have the best chance to win you need to concentrate on 1 game. This reduces your mistakes and helps you master all of the knowledge and skills that you need for 1 game.
How do you choose which game is better for you?
I’ve put together a list of 5 reasons why blackjack is a better option than video poker to help you pick a game.
1 – More Blackjack Games Available
If a casino offers table gaming options you can count on blackjack being available. Blackjack is the second most popular casino game, following only slot machines.
On the other hand, video poker has been falling in popularity for years. Casinos track how much gamblers play each game in the casino and know how much they make from each game. When a game loses popularity it reduces the profits.
When this happens, the casino replaces the low profit game with something else that they hope will be more popular and more profitable. This means that there are fewer video poker machines available than there were in the past.
I don’t see this changing in the future, because there aren’t new video poker games being released on a regular basis and the casinos have already tried all of the old games. It’s almost reached the point that if you want to play video poker it has to be on a computer or mobile device.
I’ve always enjoyed playing at a video poker machine in a casino. But it’s harder than ever to find a good machine with the right pay table. The few video poker machines that are left in casinos almost all have a crappy pay table.
For better or for worse, the fact is that blackjack games are simply easier to find than video poker games in today’s casino environment.
2 – 1 Strategy Card
When you play video poker you need to use a different strategy for every game. You can get cards for all of the popular video poker machines, but this still means that you have to learn and use multiple strategies.
Blackjack games are almost all the same. Yes, there are a few rules variations from game to game, but for the most part the base game is always the same.
To be 100% honest, if you want to squeeze the last .01% out of a blackjack game, you need to use a slightly different strategy based on the table rules. But most blackjack players are just fine using a basic blackjack strategy card.
You can’t use a Jacks or Better strategy card when you play Deuces Wild. But you can use the same blackjack strategy card whether you can double down on any 2 cards or just certain totals. You can get 2 different blackjack strategy cards based on whether the dealer hits or stands on a soft 17, but the 2 cards are so similar that it doesn’t hurt you much to just use the same card for both games.
The best strategy is to carry a card for any game you might play when you go to the casino. And they don’t take up much room. You can fit a blackjack strategy card and 3 or 4 different video poker cards in your pocket.
But it’s always best if you play enough to memorize the best plays. This way you don’t need to use a card. And this is much easier if you only need to memorize 1 card instead of 4 or 5.
3 – Easily Change Wager Amounts
Blackjack tables have minimum and maximum wager amounts, and you can bet either of these or anywhere in between on any hand. You can change how much you bet from hand to hand or make the same wager on every hand.
Video poker machines are coin based, and almost every machine is set for 1 coin amount. If you want to use a different coin amount you have to find a different video poker machine.
I know that you can bet between 1 and 5 coins when you play most video poker machines, but the best strategy is to always use a 5 coin wager. In other words, I only look at a video poker game based on the maximum wager amount, and this is how you should look at them also.
If you’re not an advantage blackjack player the truth is that you should always use the smallest wager possible. But if you’re using advantage play the ability to make larger wagers is a way you can overcome the odds when you’re playing blackjack.
4 – Easier to See on a Small Screen
Poker Or Blackjack Better Video Poker
If you’ve never tried to play video poker on your phone or other small screen device, it’s difficult to see everything. Depending on the quality of your eyesight, you might not even be able to play video poker on a phone.
It’s much easier to play real money blackjack on your phone. You only need to be able to see the value of your 2 cards and the dealer’s face up card. This is easier to fit on a phone screen than 5 cards and a pay table.
The only advantage to playing video poker online or on a mobile device is it’s much easier to find good machines and decent pay tables. I rarely find a 9/6 Jacks or Better video poker machine in a live casino, but I can play this version at many online casinos.
You can also find good blackjack games online and in mobile casinos easier than in live casinos. Online and mobile casinos have a lower cost of staying in business so they can afford to offer more games with good rules than live casinos can.
The problem comes into play when you’re counting cards. I cover card counting in more detail in the next section, but it doesn’t work when you play online or mobile blackjack. You can use online play to practice, but not to get an edge.
Poker Or Blackjack Better Games
5 – You Can Count Cards
The main advantage that blackjack has over video poker is the ability to count cards. It’s possible to count cards and change the size of your wager in certain situations enough to beat the odds. This is a specialized skill, but it’s not impossible to do.
Of course, there have been a few video poker games designed with a pay table that can be beat, but these machines are almost impossible to find. And if you do find 1 of these machines, you can’t make a single strategy mistake or your small edge is gone.
The other problem with these rare video poker machines is that even if you have a small edge, you have to play until you hit a top hand to come out ahead. This often involves 10’s of thousands of hands.
When you’re counting cards while playing blackjack, you can grind out a small edge over time. This doesn’t means that you’re going to win every single time you play blackjack, but you’re going to get ahead much faster than playing video poker.
Completely covering how to count cards can’t be done in a few paragraphs. But the key point I want to make sure that you get is that it’s 1 of the few ways you can get an edge, and you can learn how to do it.
The thing that keeps most blackjack players from learning how to count cards is ignorance. They believe that you have to learn how to remember every card that’s played, and this is simply not true. Read a few articles about card counting to see how it’s done.
If you’re able to use a strategy card when you play blackjack you’re smart enough to learn how to count cards.
Conclusion
If you’re looking for the best gambling option and want it to be easy to find games, blackjack is clearly a better choice. Many more blackjack games are available in casinos than video poker machines. And when you play video poker you need to learn strategy for each base game instead of just 1 base game.
You can change how much you bet on every hand at the blackjack table, but you have to find a new machine if you want to bet a different amount when you play video poker.
The best reason to play blackjack instead of video poker is that you can learn how to count cards and get an edge.