The most common question everyone asks when starting to play casino games is how to become a winning blackjack player.

One of the advantages to working for an online casino is the access we have to raw data. Every online casino keeps track of every detail of game played on their servers. While this data is kept primarily to ensure quality control it can also give us an interesting insight into the habit of winning and losing blackjack players.

We took a sample of our top 100 most winning players and compared their playing stats and details to the top 100 most losing players on the site. By taking a close look at the data we can begin to see where the losers are losing and most importantly: how the losers are able to become winners.

Play Blackjack: Just Blackjack

Just about every online casino offers Blackjack and Blackjack variations. These can include games like: Perfect Pairs, Super 21, Pontoon, European Blackjack and Face-Up 21. While all this variety can be appealing, you need to ask yourself why you would opt out of playing the original game, with the best odds.

Just about every other variation of Blackjack will reduce your odds, reducing the amount of money you can win in the long run.

Win vs. Loss vs. Push Rate*

* Figures taken from thousands of actual real-money hands

When comparing the game selection of winners to losers we see that losing players play these other variations of Blackjack for a bit over 20% of all games played. The percentage of winning players playing other games comes in a full 6 points lower.

The winners are sticking to the standard version of the game, so should you.

Perfect Pairs are for Suckers

A big part of becoming a winning Blackjack player is staying far away from any sucker bets, Perfect Pair type bets being the most common.

Now I’m sure my bosses won’t be too happy about this section, but I just can’t help myself. Betting on the Perfect Pair bets (or the same bet by any other name) is one of the worst bets you can take. In fact only 7% of all Perfect Pair bets collect any money.

The winning players are clearly aware of this, with only 11% of all winning players playing the perfect pair tables opting to make the bet. Contrast this to the losers, with a whopping 57% opt-in rate, and you can start to see just how much of a leak this is.

Insurance is for Suckers

According to our statistics, when the dealer is showing an ace they will have blackjack around 31% of the time. Since that means 69% of the time they will have anything else, insurance is a waste of your money.

Don’t believe me? Let’s just do some math. To make it easy we’ll say we’re betting $10 a hand and paying max insurance of $5.

So out of 100 hands 69 times the dealer doesn’t have Blackjack. We keep our bet (in play) and lose the insurance ($5 x 69 = -$345).

The other 31 hands are a wash. Each hand we lose our bet ($10) but get 2 to 1 on the Insurance, grossing $10.

We’ve lost $345 strictly on insurance when up against an ace.

Now if we never bought insurance we pay $10 every hand. On 69 of those hands we’re ok, on 31 we’re not and we lose our bet ($10 x 31 = -$310).

By not paying for insurance we’ve lost $310.

In other words: not buying insurance saved me a total of $35.

Double Down… a Lot

Blackjack is a game with nearly 50/50 odds. If you want to make money you need to get as many bets in as possible when you have the edge. The easiest way to do this is to double down every time you’re ahead in the numbers.

If you have less than 12 and the dealer is showing a 6 or less, chances are you want to double. Most people will tell you to double down every time you have 11, regardless of what the dealer is showing.

Rather have some stats instead of advice? No problem

As you can see the winners are doubling down significantly more often than the losers. You’ll also notice the winners win rate is more than a full percentage higher than losers. This implies the losing players are occasionally doubling down in a poor situation, such as doubling down A8 against a dealer showing a 9.

When we narrow down the double down range to doubling down while you hold less than 12 against a dealer showing a 6 or less the winner’s win rate climbs up to a massive 59.6%

When it comes to doubling down on 11 (regardless of what the dealer is holding) the winning players are doing this more than 71% of the time (compared to the 59% of losers). The win rate for both losers and winners on this is right around 60%.

When looking at the numbers for players who hit on 11 (instead of doubling down) with the dealer showing anything but a 10 we see the players win rate drop as low as 26%.

So double down, a lot.

You Heard me, SPLIT! (You Damn Dirty Eights)

As previously mentioned, the goal in blackjack is to get as many bets in play as possible when you have the edge. Aside from doubling down the only other way to change your bet mid-hand is to split.

To be a successful player you need to know when and how to split. Some rules to live by: Never, under any circumstance, split two 10-point cards. A 20 is nearly a guaranteed win, take it.

One of the most important splitting hands is when you’re dealt a couple of 8’s. If the dealer is showing anything less than a 9 you should be splitting. You have 16; neither hitting nor staying at this value is a particularly good idea.

You’re more likely to be dealt a 10 point card than any other card in the deck. This makes two hands worth 18 the most likely outcome from splitting. If 18 is likely good enough to push or win (dealer showing 8 or less) then you should be splitting.

What if the dealer’s showing a 6?

If the dealer has a 6 (or a 5) and you have anything you can split (other than two 10’s) you should be splitting. When the dealer is showing a 6 you want to get as much money onto the table as possible. If you can, split and then double down on any hand worth less than 12.

Roulette wheels in Europe have thirty-seven slots representing the numbers 0 through 36. American roulette wheels have thirty-eight slots with the same numbers plus another zero. The game starts after the players buy-in with different colored chips. This keeps the bets from getting mixed up. After buying in, you can’t get money back without leaving the game to cash in your chips.

The first bets are made in the game when players place their chips on any number, including the zeros. Once everyone has a chance to place a bet, the croupier starts the spin and drops the ball onto the wheel. Just before the ball lands on a spot, the croupier calls out that there are no more bets. The ball lands in a spot and the croupier places a dolly on the winning number. He then clears off the board of any losing bets and settles the winning bets. Once the board is clear, the players can then place new bets for the next round of spinning.

The house has a significant advantage on a double zero roulette table, accounting for 5.26% advantage. Players should always keep this in mind as they play their bets and prepare for each round of play. The best bets for beginners in roulette are those bets that have a fifty-fifty chance of paying out. For example, betting on an odd or even number or perhaps red or black will likely be for fun for the starting players as there are more opportunities to win.

Set a Budget
It’s a simple rule, but it’s usually overlooked. Before you even start to play make a budget and set a limit for the amount you’re willing to lose. Make that the amount that is the absolute cutoff. This budget will also help you determine how much to bet in a single round – betting it all at once may seem glamorous, but it can also make for a very short-lived afternoon of fun.

Never Bet on a Tie
Among the many baccarat tips, you should never bet on a tie. Casinos will pay out 8:1 or perhaps 9:1 on a tie bet, but you almost never win so there’s really no point in even trying it out. It’s far better to skip this – it’s not the good bet it might appear to be.

Don’t Bother Counting Cards
While card counting may sound like a good strategy, it’s really just a way to kill time while you’re playing. In order to count the cards in the game effectively, you have to be able to subtract and add large numbers in a matter of seconds. And even if you become and expert card counter, the advantage you have is tiny. You’ll only have an advantage in the game every 345 hands of baccarat, and that’s a lot of counting. It’s far better to just enjoy the game without the card counting drama at least.

Slot Machine Strategy: Calculating Odds
Modern slot machines are calibrated so that a player’s odds of winning are dependent on how the game is set up. The reels of the machine make a significant difference in that machine’s odds. Every stop on the reel corresponds to more than one stop as the wheel goes around. Symbols appear on the wheels more than once, so the actual odds of hitting a particular symbol are based on the total number of possible shapes on the reel.

Slot Machine Strategy: Hitting Jackpots
The top jackpot, or the most winning state on the online slot machines, is only possible once per reel. On the standard jackpot machine, the odds of hitting a jackpot are 1 in 64 as there are 64 symbols on a reel. When all three reels are considered in order to line up the odds necessary, the total likelihood is 262,144.

The higher the possible payout, the more symbols there are on the various reels in play. This makes the odds of actually hitting the jackpot far lower than they might be on the lower paying machines.

In addition to the larger reels making big jackpots harder, slot machines include blank spots right next to the jackpot symbols. There are multiple blank spots on the reel making it more likely that a player will earn nothing rather than winning the jackpot. Additionally, the close proximity of the blank spaces to the jackpot makes it feel as though the player just barely missed winning and he’ll be more likely to play again. Be mindful of your odds – not what appears to be correct.

Ever since the first violent video game was released (Death Race 2000, 1976) the media, religious life-haters, mothers and morons have crucified video games as the catalyst for every violent (or antisocial) act committed on American soil.

While it’s impossible to truly understand how the mind of a right-wing religious zealot works, I think I’ve sussed out their train of logic: They believe all humans are weak, incapable of making moral or rational decisions and are perpetually susceptible to “monkey see, monkey do” syndrome.

Since America and Religion are perfect, no human would ever do anything as horrible as hurting another person, anyone committing any violent act must have been coerced and trained to do it by playing video games.

Clearly the Inquisition, crusades, labeling of Natives as “animals without souls” and Rwanda were all a result of too much chess being played.

Below you’ll see my infographic looking at the history of violence in video games, and trying to find any sort of evidence which correlates violent acts with violent video games.

Note: the infographic below is a combination of graphics, video and code. If you’d like to share this graphic on your own blog you’ll want to use the embed code found at the bottom of the page.

To embed this infographic select all the text below then hit Ctrl-C to copy.<p><iframe src="http://www.silveroakcasino.com/blog/posts/violent-games/vvg-infographic.html"width="510px"height="11231px"frameborder="0"><p>Your browser does not support iframes.</p></iframe></p><p>Created by <a href="http://www.silveroakcasino.com">Silver Oak Online Casino</a>. Read the <a href="http://www.silveroakcasino.com/blog/entertainment/video-game-violence-parental-advisory">original blog here</a>.</p>

Sources:

http://www.wikipedia.org

http://www.vgchartz.com

http://www.youtube.com

http://news.google.com

http://www.teamctf.com

http://obsoletegamer.com

Don’t Bet It All
You’ll need to keep some money back when you’re at the baccarat table because every Banker bet you make requires an additional 5 percent commission. The dealer will keep a tab for you so that you don’t have to pay for every bet, and before you leave the table, you’ll have to settle the tab. You might also be asked to pay up when a new shoe is shuffled or when a player leaves. Even if you lose all of your money at the table, you’ll still owe the dealer commission, so keep some money in your pocket – no matter how tempting it may be to use it for one last Hail Mary bet.

Don’t Bother Counting Cards
While counting cards seems like a good idea, in baccarat, counting cards only gives you an edge every 345 hands. Not only is it a lot of effort that doesn’t help you very much, it’s also not allowed. Just consider baccarat a game where counting cards simply doesn’t work.

Bet at the End of the Shoe
A Banker bet offers nicer odds than a Player bet, and these odds improve as the game goes on. The best bets are near the end of a shoe. As the remaining decks in the shoe start to decrease, start raising your bets as you have more luck at this point in the game making a big win.

While baccarat is a pure game of luck, there are tricks, at least, that will help you take advantage of the opportunities there are to beat out that substantial house edge.

The only thing more terrifying than US congress trying to take an incumbent stranglehold over the internet is the apparent lack of care or concern exhibited by the general public.

To keep this as succinct as possible: SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) is a bill created and championed mostly by the bigs in Hollywood to stop the piracy and illegal sharing of copyrighted material. That sounds ok, but unfortunately the bill makes it illegal to share, or facilitate the sharing, of any copyrighted item (photo, video, text or audio).

It allows the owner of the copyright to nuke the offending site by pulling its domain from all US DNS servers (when you go to www.google.com a DNS server looks up the URL and finds that google.com belongs to the I.P 74.125.127.106. The I.P is the actual address, the domain means nothing it’s just a nickname). This means the site will technically be live, but it will be nearly impossible for anyone to find it (without knowing the actual I.P address).

The problem: This law extends to all content on your site, meaning if a user leaves a comment on your blog pointing to an un-authorized video, you could permanently lose all access to your own site. This will force all sites to refuse all user-generated content, and sites based entirely on it (Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook…etc.) will have to shut down, or spend all of their time policing the content being added to their site.

This will effectively kill all social media. Any SM sites remaining will be forced to censor and monitor your online activities to the point of completely destroying any semblance of free speech.

Even worse, this law includes private email msgs (if they’re hosted on an online mail host). Meaning Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo mail will all be forced to read and edit (or refuse delivery) of any msgs violating this law.

I’ve already been in more than one heated debate of SOPA, and not against anyone who’s actually in support of the bill. I’ve found most people have one of two reactions when informed of what SOPA means:

1) “Whatever, they’ll never pass that law”

Or the slightly more ignorant:

2) “That will never happen”

To clear up any confusion: 1) They are actively trying to pass this law as you read this. You’ll see where SOPA is in the law making process in the infographic below. 2) It can and is in the process of happening.

So if you like things like: Social media, blogs, reviews, streaming video, streaming audio, web-based email and the right to free speech, take a look at the infographic below and share it with as many people as you can.

NOTE: This infographic is a combination of code and images, to post it on your site you must use the embed code below the image.

To embed this infographic select all the text below then hit Ctrl-C to copy.<p><iframe src="http://www.silveroakcasino.com/blog/posts/sopa/sopa-infographic.html"width="510px"height="1990px"frameborder="0"><p>Your browser does not support iframes.</p></iframe><br/>Created by <a href="http://www.silveroakcasino.com">Silver Oak Online Casino</a>. Read the <a href="http://www.silveroakcasino.com/blog/entertainment/sopa-death-of-internet-infographic.html">original blog here</a>.</p>

Now that you’re on board the anti-SOPA train do a search for anti SOPA petitions (like this one https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/veto-sopa-bill-and-any-other-future-bills-threaten-diminish-free-flow-information/g3W1BscR) and get in contact with your local politicians to be heard.

But you’re not done yet! SOPA is likely just a smokescreen, a bill purposely put out there to take heat and get turned down, while another bill (which is almost the very same thing) PIPA (Protect IP Act) gets passed under the radar.

So once you stop SOPA you need to also pipe up to stop PIPA.

We’ve decided to share 25 that will make you say “wow” and hopefully “I never knew that”.

You never know when useless trivia might come in handy. Should you some day find yourself on a television game show with the final prize just an answer away, we retain rights to half of the winnings if something from this list wins you the cash. Sounds fair to us.

Enjoy

The times they are a changin’ and they’re a changin’ fast. The world we grew up in has been obliterated, the only glimpses left coming from period pieces such as the greatest movie ever made: The Sandlot.

Editor’s note: I might have exaggerated slightly with the critical acclamations of The Sandlot.

Here’s a list of 10 things which kids born after 2000 will never know. It’s sort of crazy to think that so many of the things which made up part of everyday life for us growing up are completely obsolete and removed from society.

I think the worst part about all of this is no longer being able to use Beta vs. VHS as an analogy. HD DVD vs. Bluray just doesn’t have the same punch to it, that and the majority of the world apparently has no idea HD DVD’s ever existed.

The list:

Many of the bets with craps rely on a single roll of the dice and many rely on multiple rolls of the dice. Of course, it’s easier to keep up with the single roll of the dice bets rather than the multiple rolls, but after a few rounds, you’ll start understanding how the game is played and the betting system will feel much more natural.

Take the Pass Bet
The most fundamental bet of the best craps strategy is the pass bet. This is the most common bet and virtually all players make the pass bet for the game. The pass bet is simply a bet that says the dice will make it pass the line on a come out roll, or the first roll. Once you place the bet, you’re simply waiting for the numbers. If the come out roll lands on 2, 3 or 12 you lose. If the dice add up to any other number, you win.

The roller then continues to roll until she either gets a 7 or hits the same point number again. If she hits a 7 first, you lose. If she hits the same point number you win even more money.

Set a Limit
Before you get sucked into the fun of playing online slots, you should set your bankroll amount and be sure that you can stick with it. You don’t want to lose money that you can’t afford to lose. Using a separate bank account will help you do this without touching your regular credit cards or your bill money.

Check the Odds
A game might look flashy and fun, but always check the odds on the particular game you’re interested in. Each slot game is unique and if you’re playing a game that has low odds of winning, you’re risking more money than you should have to in order to be successful.

Bet the Maximum Number of Coins
When you bet, be sure you play on a machine where you can afford to bet the maximum amount each time. By betting as much as possible with each round, you’ll be sure to activate all of the play lines and bonuses which may result in more winnings, but should definitely result in more fun.

Check if a Bonus Is Worth It
You may need to do a bit of math to determine if a bonus is worth the wagering amount requested. Expect the bonus to always look good, but there are some times when you should just ignore it and save your money for more exciting play.

* Start small on the lowest denomination machine, especially if you haven’t played in awhile or you’re totally new at video poker. Some pros like the smaller machines as well just because you’re able to play for fun, longer, and not risk a serious amount of money.

* Take your time to study and analyze each hand. You’re playing against a machine, so it doesn’t really matter how long you take per turn since nobody is being forced to wait on you and you’re not under pressure from anyone else.

* When playing video poker, it’s easy to get ahead in the game at least some of the time by following some time-tested strategies.

* Use machines that pay 9 coins for a full house and 6 coins for a flush.

* If you opt for a progressive game that only pays out 8 coins for a full house, pick a machine where the jackpot is more than $250 on a nickel machine or $10,000 for the dollar.

* On a progressive video poker machine, make it a point to always bet the maximum number of coins. This will ensure you’re in the right position to win on royal flushes.

* If you can, use a casino slot card so that you get credit for all of the games you’re playing. You’ll earn some comp benefits even if you’re losing the hands. Finding out ahead of time what the comp value is always wise as well.