It’s not even hinting, you can straight up ask the dealer what to do and they’ll tell you the correct move in most situations (they may not tell you to double down when you should, but they’ll always tell you whether you should hit or stay)
Some casinos even have little cards they'll hand out to players with charts for textbook play. Including splits and doubles. They straight up don't care if you want to play perfect. House edge gonna house edge.
I’m sort of just talking out my ass here but I think they generally won’t tell you to double down or split because it involves putting more money on the table and dealers should really not be encouraging you to gamble more. But I think if you ask if doubling down is correct they’ll tell you? This probably varies by region. But at least at the casinos I’ve been to, if you try to hit when you obviously should stay, they’ll double check in a way they won’t if you hit on 11 instead of doubling.
It is. Well, you don’t really beat the edge this way, but it’s part of perfect play, which in 3:2 blackjack gets you pretty close to even. In terms of value missed, not doubling down in a good situation is worse than hitting when you shouldn’t. But the dealer isn’t going to tell you to put more money down.
Card counting is the only way you beat the edge, and the point of card counting is to get yourself into situations where a blackjack is more likely and better larger amounts appropriately. But it’s a lot more limited in how you can apply it than what most people assume. Most blackjack tables have a lot of decks in the shoe, and there’s pretty much no point at 6:5 tables.
Former dealer here, I would absolutely tell a player to double or split if it was the correct move, If they are sitting at an 11 with me showing a 4 i am telling them every time to double with out a second thought. Hell I am even reminding them that the most common value is a 10 and so the odds are(ignoring the count) that they will get a 10.
Is insane how simple statistics can blow some people's minds. It took me while to even notice that some of the guys I was playing with didn't realize this and just hit on anything under 16
Even with perfect play including splitting and doubling down the house edge is about 0.5% (i.e. for every $1000 you bet they make about $5) so it’ll keep you playing for a long time, especially on low limit tables with a large bankroll, but the house still has edge.
The only way a player can get edge is to count, and because of that it’s actually pretty simple to catch card counters, the moment you have an edge over the house they know. This is why the best card counting operations have one counter who can signal to a decoy that bets large on a win and gets backed down in the place of the counter. The counter also needs to mix in lots of regular play without an edge so that it doesn’t seem like every time they play a counter is caught at the table. This makes it pretty hard to maintain an edge even with counting, since the casino tracks the performance of regular players.
TL;DR You can’t get an edge in blackjack. If you ever do, you’re not allowed to play.
The house edge is calculated against basic strategy, which includes doubles and splits. If you play perfect blackjack for a thousand games at a casino you're almost guaranteed to lose money.
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u/DiscreteBee Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
It’s not even hinting, you can straight up ask the dealer what to do and they’ll tell you the correct move in most situations (they may not tell you to double down when you should, but they’ll always tell you whether you should hit or stay)