• House edge and rules
• Basic strategy charts
• Unusual plays
• Recommended casinos
• Game location
• The gambling budget

House edge and rules

Cryptologic currently have a single-deck blackjack game with an overall payout of 99.83% and a house edge of 0.17%.

The rules are:

• Hard 17
• Double On Any
• No Double After Split
• Full peek

Basic strategy charts

The following is the correct basic strategy for this game - the top row represents the dealer's up card, the left-hand column the player hand:

S = stand, H = hit, D = double, P = split

Hard Totals


Soft Totals


Pairs

Unusual plays

There are several very much non-intuitive plays here, particularly if you're used to the standard multi-deck strategy. They are:

9 v. 2 = double, not hit.
11 v. A = double, not hit.
A2 v. 4 = double, not hit.
A3 v. 4 = double, not hit.
A6 v. 2 = double, not hit.
A8 v. 6 = double, not hit.
8 v. 5 = double, not hit.
8 v. 6 = double, not hit.

77 v. 10 = stand, not hit.

Recommended casinos

The casino I recommend is:

  ♠ InterCasino ♠

Game location

For the location of the game see the screenshot below:

Ensure that you have the single deck game correctly selected - it sits right at the bottom of the blackjack menu in each of the casinos.

The gambling budget

At most of the dollar casinos the minimum bets are quite high, unfortunately - $25. How does this work out on the gambling budget, purely in terms of the game return and taking absolutely nothing else into consideration?

The house edge is 0.17% and the minimum bet is $25. Assuming you play three hands per minute, you could end up wagering $4500 per hour. That may sound like quite a lot, but what is the house edge (0.17%), in real money terms, on an hourly basis? 0.17% of 4500 is 7.65. Consequently, the average "cost" of your play, per hour, based on $25 minimum bets and with perfect play, is under $8. On average, a solid evening's play would cost you around $25 dollars, assuming minimum bets and fast play. Again, this is based purely on the game play, and takes no "extras", such as comps, into consideration. Factor THAT into the equation and you have an even more attractive package (see the comp points article for more information.)


Furthermore, and as with the Microgaming game, if you employ the "composition-dependent" strategy exceptions you can gain a further few tenths of a percent - refer to the composition-dependent exceptions page for details of the exceptions relating to the Cryptologic game.

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