This post is aimed at the beginner who has making money from the game as their goal. This post explains how the house gets its mathematical edge over the player, but it also explains how card counters overcome that edge by taking advantage of how the deck changes over the course of the game. It also explains which kinds of blackjack games really are impossible to make money at unless you get lucky. No such obstacle exists to prevent poker players from making a vlackjack. In the short term — uu the course of a single session or a single trip to the casino — some players come out ahead. Over time, if you play enough hands, your actual results are going to start to resemble the theoretical prediction. This is what mathematicians call the Law of Large Numbers. In blackjack, the casino gets its edge by making you play your hand. The reason blackjack differs from other casino games, though, is because the composition of the deck changes as you play. Until the dealer shuffles again, the cards...