Laughlin Blackjack – With summer coming and many of you heading out to the Colorado River for some fun in the sun, I thought it would be a good time to post a guide for playing blackjack in Laughlin. If you’re a serious blackjack player (aka card counter), then you’re going to be better off in Las Vegas, Reno or Wendover. However, if you’re just out having some fun with friends in Laughlin, then this guide will help you get the most out of your money at the blackjack tables.

Side Note – If you’re attempting to count cards in Laughlin, at the end of this article I will cover the strategy I suggest using to maximize your winning potential. If you don’t know how to count cards or are just simply ineffective with your current way of doing things, then you might want to consider one of my upcoming blackjack seminars.

Best Blackjack Odds in Laughlin

The smallest house edge you can find in Laughlin will be at the single deck tables at Golden Nugget and Pioneer. These games give a full payout on blackjack and hold a house edge of under .2% if you know how to play your hands correctly. If you’re looking to get these great odds, then I suggest brushing up on your single deck basic strategy. Beware of the single deck at Harrah’s Del Rio and Aquarius, because they pay 6:5 on blackjack rather than 3:2. That gives the house nearly a 2% edge rather than a .2% edge.

Your next best option is the single deck blackjack at Riverside. They also give a full 3:2 payment on blackjack, although they restrict your doubling down to just on 10 or 11. The house edge on this game is still under .5% if you use optimal basic strategy.

Laughlin Double Deck Blackjack

The double deck games you’ll find in Laughlin are all pretty similar. There’s no doubling after splitting and no resplitting aces. The odds hang around .5% for a basic strategy player. If you’re not card counting, then you’re better off on the full paying single deck games. If you are card counting, then you may want to consider the deep dealing 6-deck options. Either way there’s never really a reason to be playing double deck in Laughlin.

Laughlin 6-Deck Blackjack

The 6-deck shoe games in Laughlin have the worst odds other than the dreadful 6:5 paying single deck games. Even as a perfect basic strategy player you will be facing nearly a 1% disadvantage. Being a Professional Blackjack Player myself, I probably wouldn’t play these games unless they had extremely good dealer penetration and I was using a team strategy. The 6-deck dealer penetration in Laughlin is typically pretty good.

Laughlin Blackjack Rules

All blackjack games in Laughlin have the dealer hitting on Soft 17. The majority of the games will not allow you to double after splitting and you cannot resplit aces or surrender anywhere that I’m aware of. Since the rules are pretty consistent, you will get the better odds going with a game that uses less decks. Single deck is best, followed by double deck, then 6-deck and 8-deck. This isn’t always the case in other parts of the country (especially Vegas), but it is clearly the case in Laughlin.

Card Counting in Laughlin

When it comes to counting cards in Laughlin, you have a couple of choices. You can go with the better odds on single deck and use a minimal betting spread, or you can go with a large betting spread on the 6-deck games that have good penetration. In order to fly under the radar I suggest using both strategies so you can move from casino to casino without overexposing yourself in any one place. You’ll find the greatest return on your investment using a good team card counting strategy with a friend or two. This will allow you to take advantage of a huge betting spread on the 6-deck tables. These 6-deck games have terrible initial odds, but you can often find great penetration to offset it. Pioneer would be the number one option for good 6-deck penetration followed by Tropicana Express, River Palms, Riverside and Harrah’s Del Rio.

Now go enjoy the river, the sun and the blackjack. Just be sure to use this guide to increase your chances of going home a winner!

Like any other career, playing blackjack for a living has its ups and downs. Many of the positives of being a Professional Blackjack Player are obvious, like getting paid in cash and enjoying free comps. There are also negatives such as not having company-paid healthcare coverage.

Speaking from experience, I’ve put together a list of the top 5 positive and negative aspects of playing blackjack for a living. My hope is to help people decide if this lifestyle seems right for them before they go out and experience everything first hand. I’ll go with the assumption that you enjoy playing cards and are interested in card counting, because I would never recommend anyone pursue a career that they won’t enjoy.

Positives of “Playing Blackjack for a Living”

1. Paid in Cash

The benefit of being handed cash on the same day you earn it is fairly self-explanatory. I don’t know anyone that would rather be written a check than given cash.

2. No Boss

Doing what you want, when you want, how you want, is a luxury very few people have. Being your own boss and having no one to answer to can be very satisfying and work well for a motivated person. If you’re an extremely lazy person and need someone to babysit you and tell you what to do, then playing blackjack as a job and card counting in general may not be for you. This is an entrepreneurial type of business that provides great financial reward for hard work.

3. Flexibility in Schedule

Having the ability to work when you want and start or stop on a moments notice is an immeasurable benefit of playing blackjack for a living. You can never be late for work or take too long of a lunch. For the night owls, you’ve got the luxury of playing blackjack any time of day or night any day of the week. Sometimes I like to play as much as possible for a straight week and then take the entire next week off. The point is, as a professional blackjack player, how you manage your time is completely up to you!

4. Environment

This might not be a positive for everyone, but it certainly is for me. I would much rather spend a Tuesday afternoon at a Las Vegas resort than in a cubicle at an office. When blackjack is your job, you get to enjoy casual conversation at the tables in a vacation setting rather than sitting in a meeting room at work talking about increasing production. What’s more appealing, having a diet coke in a break room at the office or drinking a cold beer out at a pool?

5. Free Comps

For me this is a huge perk of the job. I’m not the type of guy that goes out and spends $300 on dinner at an overpriced steakhouse. However, when those lobster tails are free, they seem to taste so much better. Playing blackjack for a living allows me to eat at some of the priciest restaurants in the world and stay in some of the most beautiful resorts ever built. While most people save up all year for a summer vacation, my family is able to go to just about any casino resort for free on a moments notice.

Negatives of “Playing Blackjack for a Living”

1. Healthcare

For those of you that depend on company paid healthcare, you’re simply not going to get that covered playing blackjack as a job. You will be left to buy your own healthcare out of pocket just like any other self-employed person.

2. Retirement

Along with no company healthcare, you also will not be getting an employer matched 401K. My suggestion is to set up a Roth IRA and make the maximum contribution every year. Your Roth IRA capital gains will be tax-free and can be cashed out upon retirement age. Although you may never want to retire from playing professional blackjack, you will hit what is considered the “retirement age” for a Roth IRA at 59 1/2. Roth IRAs are one of the best things going in the investment world, so take full advantage. Distributions really are 100% tax free!

3. Travel

This can be a good thing or a bad thing. I have a wife and kids, so I don’t like to travel away from them too much. We’ve chosen to live in a nice area with great weather rather than live where there are a lot of great casinos. This means I have to travel out to where I play. Sometimes that’s a lot of fun, but sometimes it’s just a hassle. You really have to give strong consideration to how you’re going to get to the casinos you plan to regularly play at.

4. No Exact Paycheck

Playing blackjack for a living doesn’t earn you a bi-weekly paycheck of a set amount. In card counting the money tends to come in waves that simply cannot be planned. Some days a Pro Blackjack Player might make more than he made the entire previous week. Then the next day he might make nothing. If you’ve ever worked a commission job, then you know how this is. If you’re accustomed to a predictable paycheck that you get every two weeks, then this lifestyle takes a little getting used to. Just don’t go spending all your money when you have your first big winning day.

5. Smokers

This is my own issue and I don’t expect everyone to agree. After all, some professional players are smokers themselves. I personally can’t stand having to sit at blackjack tables with people blowing smoke in my face. Unfortunately casinos are packed with smokers. These days more and more casinos are adding non-smoking tables and are improving their ventilation systems, so this is a continually improving negative aspect of the game. One of my top personal rules is to never sit directly next to someone that’s smoking. If they light one up, I’m getting up and switching tables.

Is Card Counting for a Living for You?

So there you have it, my own personal list of 5 positives to playing blackjack for a living and 5 negatives to consider as well. Only you can decide if this type of work is a good fit for you and your personality. I realize many of you just want to beat the game for when you’re on vacation or to supplement your income on weekends. For you, the issues listed above probably aren’t too significant. For those looking to get to a professional card counting level and have blackjack as their sole source of income, these are some things you really must consider before quitting your day job. Of course these issues only matter once you gain the necessary knowledge, skill and discipline to be a profitable blackjack player in the first place.

There are many conditions in blackjack that make a game more or less profitable for card counting. Two of the most important conditions are the blackjack rules of the table and what is referred to by card counters as the dealer penetration. When counting cards you’re looking for the best combination of the two in order to maximize the expected value of your play.

Let’s start by defining what we mean when we talk about “good blackjack rules” and “good dealer penetration”. I will then go through a quick analysis of which condition is more important in maximizing your profit potential. As always, my main focus in blackjack is increasing profits.

Good Blackjack Rules:

H17 or S17 – This refers to the dealer hitting or standing on Soft 17. We prefer the dealer to stand.

DAS – This refers to a player’s ability to double after splitting. If you split your 8’s and get a 3 to make 11, you want to be able to double down on the 11.

RSA – This refers to the player’s ability to resplit aces after an initial splitting of aces. If you split a pair of aces and get a third ace, you want to be able to split that into a third hand.

LS – This refers to a player’s ability to surrender. Surrendering allows you to forfeit your hand and get half of your bet back without playing out the hand. This is commonly used when on a player’s 16 versus a dealer showing a 10.

These are the main blackjack rule variations you will encounter, but it’s certainly not all of them. We’re going to assume you’re getting the full 3:2 payment on blackjack and you can double any two initial cards dealt.

Preferred Rules: To get the best of these rules, you want the dealer standing on Soft 17 and you want to have the DAS, RSA and LS options available to you.

Good Dealer Penetration:

“Dealer penetration” is blackjack terminology used for describing how deep a dealer will deal into a deck (or multiple decks) before reshuffling. This is a critical concept in card counting. Penetration is determined by where the dealer places the cut card and it varies from casino to casino. A deeply placed cut card will show you a higher percentage of the cards in a shoe, therefore giving you more information to work with when tracking the count. It also causes high counts to occur more frequently and last longer. For basic strategy players, penetration really doesn’t matter. For card counters, the deeper the penetration, the more profitable the game will be.

Preferred Penetration: Typically a 6-deck game that deals 4 out of 6 decks is considered to have “poor penetration”. Dealing 4.5 decks out of 6 before shuffling would be “average penetration”. A casino that shows 5 full decks out of 6 before hitting the shuffle card has “good penetration”.

Therefore if Casino A is dealing 4 out of 6 decks before shuffling and Casino B is dealing 5 out of 6 decks before shuffling, Casino B is going to be a much more profitable game for card counting assuming the rules of the tables are similar.

Greater Impact: Rules or Penetration?

Often the choice comes down to this… Do you go play at a casino that has all the best rules but poor penetration, or do you go for unfavorable rules with good penetration? Although you want the best of both, what if you have to decide between the two? Let’s take a closer look at the relative performance under different rules and penetration levels.

Here we see the relative profitability of three different sets of rules at four different depths of penetration. For this example I’ve kept the parameters simple and consistent. I’m using a 6-deck game with a Hi-Lo card counting system, 70 hands played per hour, 4 players at the table and an optimal betting ramp from 1-10 units with no back counting or backing out of negative counts. Manipulating any of these parameters will obviously change the chart somewhat. This chart would also look different if we analyzed a single deck, double deck or 8-deck game instead of this 6-deck game.

Conclusion: You can see that if you have terrible rules on a game, you better have good dealer penetration if you want to make money. If you have great rules you can be a little more forgiving when it comes to the shuffle point. Then there’s the middle ground of semi-decent rules and average penetration. The lesson to be learned here is that to be a successful card counter you really need to know how to analyze the quality of a game. There are also many other blackjack conditions to consider such as the level of casino heat you will get at different betting levels with different betting ramps. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to cover some of these other issues in a future post. For now I hope this helps to clarify the decision between good rules and good penetration. Now go hit the tables and make some money!