Discover How Many Decks Are Used in Blackjack

Blackjack is one of the favourites at online casinos for its low house edge and a mixture of luck and strategy. Despite a great strategy, some factors increase the house edge such as the number of card decks.

In this article, we will reveal what you need to know about card decks including the types of card decks and the reasons for multiple card decks.

Types of card decks

Single deck blackjack

Single-deck blackjack is also known as pitch black and is the rarer of the two types of blackjack decks. Despite its rarity, it is great for its low house edge. 

One of the major reasons it's not so popular at online casinos is because of card counting. Card counting combined with an understanding of house rules of when to hit or stand gives players the upper hand over the casino. 

Due to this player edge, it comes with stringent rules. For example, a natural blackjack in single-deck blackjack offers a payout of 6 to 5 with a house percentage of 1.39% compared with multi-deck blackjack where a natural blackjack pays out 3 to 2. 

Multi-deck blackjack

Multi-deck blackjack is the more popular of the two types of blackjack found at both land-based and online casinos. The main goal behind this kind of blackjack is to make it difficult to card count making it more profitable for the casino. 

The most popular variants of multi-deck blackjack are the six and eight-deck games because they offer the highest house advantage of 0.64% and 0.66% respectively. 

Additionally, the number of cards for both, 312 for six-deck games and 416 for eight-deck games makes card counting extremely difficult. 

The middle ground is four-deck blackjack with four decks, a relatively low house edge and fewer cards (208). 

Reasons for Multi-Decks

Card counting 

Card counting is an easy-to-learn blackjack strategy that is effective for increasing a player's edge. By adding more decks, casinos make applying this strategy more challenging.

However, with more practice, you can learn to memorise several cards and maintain your edge over the casino. 

Shuffling 

Since more hands dealt mean the casino enjoys more profits, multiple decks are the preferred choice for casinos. With multiple decks, the croupier doesn't have to shuffle cards as often which means they can increase the number of hands. 

Increasing house edge

All casinos want more profit. however, blackjack is well known for its low house edge which means casinos have to figure out ways to increase the odds in their favour. 

Multi-decks are the solution because every additional deck increases the house edge by 0.46%. For example, four decks and eight decks have a house edge of 0.60% and 0.66% respectively. 

Conclusion 

While it's important to consider the number of decks, when it comes to online casinos, it doesn't matter much. This is because the Random Number Generator shuffles cards after every hand. 

This means your memory will do little to help. Therefore, it's better to focus on the rules such as doubling down, resplitting and surrendering.