While you’re playing blackjack, you’ll probably think of the dealer in terms of how well they interact with you. A friendly dealer can make a game feel more social, while an unfriendly one can put a damper on the mood. In a higher limit game, a serious blackjack dealer can add to the atmosphere of the game.

But there’s a lot more to being a blackjack dealer than just interacting with the players. Of course, if the dealer is doing their job well, you won’t even notice all the things they’re doing at the table. But the dealer needs to know rules for all sorts of contingencies, understand how to pay out all bets quickly and accurately, and how to deal with mistakes when they occur. They also need to be on the watch for players looking to cheat or otherwise take advantage of the casino or their fellow players.

How to Become a Blackjack Dealer

Sep 26, 2010  Dealers have to hit on 16 and stay on 18 or better. So what about 17? Dealers ALWAYS stay on a 'hard 17,' which is a 7 and any card worth 10. A 'soft 17' is a.

Most blackjack dealers get their start by going to a dealer school. At these schools – many of which are run by the casinos themselves – dealers learn all the skills they need to deal games such as blackjack in a casino environment.

Even having gone to dealer school, however, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to get a job as a blackjack dealer. After applying for a dealer job, you may need to audition in front of casino personnel to prove you’re capable of handling the job. Even after that, you might need to attend some in-house training to learn the specific regulations and procedures used in that casino.

Another route to becoming a blackjack dealer is to work in a casino in another capacity before moving on to the lucrative dealer position. For example, you might get a job assisting in the pit, and then apply for a blackjack job when one opens up.

As a blackjack dealer, there are benefits and drawbacks. The pay can be quite good, especially when considering the tips you’ll get from winning players. On the other hand, the hours are often erratic; dealers may be sent home early if there’s less activity in the casino than usual, while they may be forced to deal mandated overtime if the casino is busier than expected.

Many skills are required to be a blackjack dealer. For one, you must be comfortable on your feet; you’ll be standing most of the time you’re in a casino, other than on breaks. On the bright side, breaks are more frequent than in most jobs (dealers usually get 20 minutes off after each hour of dealing). You should be able to count and do basic math quickly, both in terms of keeping track of hand scores and in paying out bets. It’s also important to be accurate in fast in everything you do at the table.

One other important thing to do as a blackjack dealer is to make sure you don’t give players information that they’re not supposed to have access to. This can happen in several ways. One common way a dealer can slip up is by allowing players to see cards when they shouldn’t, such as exposing the dealer’s hole card for an instant before placing it down on the table. In games where the dealer must physically peak at the hole card, there are two ways that the dealer might unwittingly help the players; they may once again allow the players to view the hole card momentarily, or they may give away information based on their reactions to the hole card.

Blackjack Dealer Rules

During a blackjack game, there are a number of rules the blackjack dealer must follow. In most blackjack games, dealers must hit with any hand of 16 points or less, but must stand with any hand of 17 or more. In some games, dealers are also instructed to hit on a soft 17.

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Blackjack Dealer 16 Or 17 5

Odds are everywhere you look. Seriously. Odds are in a casino, your workplace, your day-to-day live and habits, your marriage and where in the world you live.

Don’t believe me? Take a look for yourself:

• Odds of having twins (21st century) – 3 in 100 or 3%
• Odds of getting a divorce – 40 to 50%
• Odds of being stuck by lightning – 1 in 5,000 or 1 in 700,000 in any given year
• Odds of being audited by the IRS – .4% if you make less than $200,000 / year
• Odds of being dealt a blackjack – About 4.83%

Odds are just the likelihood that something will happen. As a blackjack player you deal with this all the time.

Lets look at a couple real examples to show you what I mean.

Here are the odds of you busting your hand, depending on what you were dealt:

• 21 – 100%
• 20 – 92%
• 19 – 85%
• 18 – 77%
• 17 – 69%
• 16 – 62%
• 15 – 58%
• 14 – 56%
• 13 – 39%
• 12 – 31%
• <11 – 0%

Odds of Being Dealt Specific Hands

Here are the probabilities for being dealt a specific hand:

• Blackjack – 4.8%
• Standing Hand (17-20) – 30%
• Decision Hand – (1-16) – 38.7%
• No Bust – 26.5%

Here are the odds for the final hands that the dealer will make:

• Natural 21 – 4.82%
• 21 (3+ cards) – 7.36%
• 20 – 17.58%
• 19 – 13.48%
• 18 – 13.81%
• 17 – 14.58%
• 16 – 28.36%

Dealer vs. Player Odds

Finally, here are the odds of the dealer busting based on their up card:

• 2 – 35.30%
• 3 – 37.56%
• 4 – 40.28%
• 5 – 42.89%
• 6 – 42.08%
• 7 – 25.99%
• 8 – 23.86%
• 9 – 23.34%
• J,Q,K – 21.43%
• A – 11.65%

Of these examples, this is the most useful. Notice what hands the dealer is most likely to bust with. The dealer will most often bust with 4, 5 or 6, followed by 2 and 3.

The odds above are static. There’s nothing you can do to change them. However, you can find ways to improve your odds so that you lose fewer hands and less money. And the less money you lose, the more you can keep to play more blackjack.

Here’s what you can do to improve your odds in blackjack:

• Use basic blackjack strategy. Without basic strategy you’re playing at an 8% disadvantage. With strategy, however, the odds increase significantly. You’ll be playing at only .5 to 1.5% disadvantage.
• Find the best games. The rules make all the difference. For example, if you play a 6:5 blackjack game you’re adding a 1.39% disadvantage. If the dealer hits soft 17 that’s another .18%. However, it’s possible to find games where the player is paid 3:2 for blackjacks and the dealer stands on soft 17. So find those games. Also be careful about which blackjack variation you play. The best games to play are blackjack, Spanish 21, Vegas Strip BJ and Blackjack Switch.
• Avoid side bets. Side bets look exciting, because for a nominal amount you could possibly win a huge jackpot — worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars. The problem is that the odds against winning can be anywhere from 2-40%.
• Avoid wives tales. There are a lot of bad strategies like never busting (never hit a 12+), mimicking the dealer and assume that the dealer has a 10 in the whole (with ace up). The problem with using any of these strategies is that they increase the house edge from 3 to 10 percent.

You can do other things, too, like count cards or read books (usually a mix of basic strategy, card counting and general how-to’s for casino blackjack). However, you’ll improve your odds at winning at blackjack just by following my suggestions above.

Understanding the Long Run – Sample Size and Variance

I wanted to finish up this article with a brief explanation of odds, and how they work over the long run. You see, I think a lot of people will see the numbers above and get confused when they don’t match their own stats. In other words, someone might go to the casino play 500 hands of blackjack, and wonder why they didn’t get 24 natural blackjacks, or the other way around, why they got 42.

The thing is, odds and statistics are all about the long run. Long run usually meaning sample size, or the total number of hands (or games) played.

What that means is that over a significant sample size, hundreds of thousands or even millions of hands, the number of times you’ll receive a blackjack is about 4.82%. The more hands you play the truer this will become.

The reason why odds don’t match up in smaller sessions, say over 500 hands, is because of variance. There’s a technical term and definition for variance, but I’ll just give you my version; variance is the ups and downs you experience on your way to the long term (expected) results.

Blackjack Dealer 16 Or 17 2017

Mike Caro, a poker player and author, puts it this way:

A measure of the spread of statistical distribution about its mean or centre.

Blackjack Dealer 16 Or 17 In Spanish

That means in a short time frame, it’s possible to experience more drastic odds. You might win or lose more than you’re supposed to. It also explains why people can go into a casino, not use basic strategy and win 3x as much as what they walked in with. The cards ran in their favor — they experienced a positive streak of variance.

So that’s the gist of it. So the next time you walk into the casino and have a wild swing one way or another, you know that that’s not normal, and that in the long run you’ll be closer to break-even so long as you stick to basic strategy — the plan with the best odds.