Percentages are from hands actually dealt. Run the Monte Carlo tab for converged numbers.
Every number below is exact, enumerated over all two- and three-card combinations for the deck count you are playing. Change the decks in Settings and the whole table recomputes. Nothing here is copied from a chart.
All three are bad bets and the table above is the proof. The main game costs you about half a percent with correct play. These run from three to nineteen percent. A $5 Lucky Ladies alongside a $25 hand roughly triples what the table expects to take from you per round. They are in here because they are on every felt in the country and you deserve to see the arithmetic before you put a chip out, not because they are worth playing.
Add the value of every card you see. Divide the running count by the decks remaining to get the true count. The true count is what you bet and deviate on — the running count on its own tells you nothing until you know how much shoe is left.
A shoe rich in tens and aces helps the player: more blackjacks at 3:2, better doubles, and the dealer busts more often on stiff hands they are forced to hit. Each +1 of true count is worth roughly half a percent. A six-deck game starting at about −0.5% turns player-positive somewhere around a true count of +1.
Running count after each hand. Resets when the shoe is washed.
| Measure | Simulated | Reference | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
Plays every hand by the derived basic strategy using the same engine that deals the live table. | |||
Blackjack swings about 1.15 bets per hand, so a house-edge estimate at 200,000 hands still carries roughly ±0.26 percentage points. Run a few million before trusting the second decimal.
Robert Adam Clifford is an oil and gas consultant, an international arms dealer at Pathfinder Defense LLC, and a part-time passionate gambler. He writes and publishes through Lost Cabin Consulting LLC, where he produces mathematically rigorous, independently verified research on casino games, slot machine mathematics, table game theory, sports and pari-mutuel wagering, and prediction markets.
Seven volumes covering blackjack, baccarat, Ultimate Texas Hold’em, slots and video keno, roulette, craps, and horse racing — the combinatorial math behind the games worked from first principles.
All four are free, offline, single-file apps, and free to share. More titles on the author page. Questions or a copy of any simulator: aclifford@lostcabinconsultingllc.com
Blackjack is the one game on the floor where skill genuinely moves the number. Perfect basic strategy holds a six-deck game to about half a percent. Playing by feel costs two to three percent on top of that. Nothing in this app is a system for beating the house — it is a way to stop donating the part you can control.