It’s not often I find promotions out there just for blackjack players but today I have some good news.  Bodog casino is running a Casino Treasure Hunt and there are two portions to the promotion. You have to choose whether you want to hunt for treasure on the blackjack path or the slots path, and we know which path we’ll choose. Now, to qualify for the $5,000 grand prize you have to play all seven blackjack challenges at the online casino and the challenges began on October 14^th. But don’t worry if you didn’t jump in the action back then, there’s still plenty of time to play some blackjack and win entries into the 10 shots at a $500 prize.

Today, if you play 10 hands or more on the new Single Deck Blackjack game, you’ll be entered in the prize drawing and start the process to qualify for a bonus. October 22 and 23^rd play 25 hands or more of European Blackjack at a minimum $10 stake and get another entry into the prize drawing. October 24^th and 25^th, you play Hit minimum 1 blackjack on either single or double deck blackjack for another prize entry. And October 26^th and 27^th you can end the tournament with 50 hands or more on any blackjack game at a minimum $10 stake to grab your last entry chance.

Now, when you complete a challenge you qualify for a challenge bonus. Complete 2 challenges for a $5 bonus, 3 for $10, 4 for $15, 5 for $20, 6 for $25 and 7 for $50.  Just head over to Bodog Casino to check out the blackjack action! Looking for more blackjack information, check out our friends at http://www.blackjack-authority.com/

If you walk into a casino in Las Vegas and take a seat at the blackjack table, it’s easy to understand how a blackjack game works. I don’t mean the rules and strategy, but rather the simple “how” of the cards being dealt. There is a dealer and he draws cards from a shuffled stack of multiple decks and places those cards in front of players in a specific order. Players then decide if they want to stand or hit and the dealer draws more cards from the decks. You can see the dealer. You can see the collection of cards. Nothing is hidden. (Well, except the dealer’s face down card value.)  That’s gambling at a land based casino.

But if you’re playing blackjack at an online casino, you may wonder how the game works because you can’t see into the inner workings of the computer software. After all, the online casino doesn’t usually employee lots of dealers to sit around dealing cards and playing against you. A few are actually trying that, but for the most part online gambling software runs by using a random number generator. This is a program that randomly chooses numbers from a set value of numbers – say 1 through 52 for a deck of cards – and uses those numbers to determine what hand a player has and the dealer has.  The RNG means that the outcome of an online blackjack game is completely random and won’t favor either the casino or the player.

Reputable online casinos have their software and the function of their Random Number Generator program tested by independent firms who will then certify the casino for fair play. If you check the bottom of most online casino pages, you’ll see the logo for the company that has certified them. Checking for this can be one step in finding a reputable online casino to play at.

There’s one topic that always comes up in relation to blackjack  – card counting. It’s so prevalent that if you type card counting into Google the first page that comes back is the article on card counting at http://wikipedia.org/.  Everyone has heard about it. Many have seen movies on it.  But not everyone understands how it works or how it is different from basic blackjack strategy. In fact, to a novice they may sound the same.  So let’s see if I can make it simple.

In blackjack games, strategy is looking at your cards and the card the dealer has turned up and determining a number of factors based on those values: whether you should risk another card or stand firm, whether the dealer is more likely to go over 21. Then using a strategy chart based on statistics and mathematics to make your next move. All casinos allow blackjack strategy and many land based casinos actually sell strategy charts for players to use.

Card counting is slightly different because it involves making a decision not just based on your card and the dealer’s cards, but keeping track of what has already been dealt from the deck and the values of the cards likely left to be dealt. So, if there have been more high cards than low cards dealt, you’re more likely to get a low card. You then use that knowledge to decide to hit or stand.

Casinos don’t like card counting because it dramatically improves a player’s chances at winning. But this doesn’t make card counting illegal. Casinos have the right to refuse anyone service with no need to explain why so if they think someone is card counting, they can refuse to let the person play. They can also refuse to let anyone bring computers on to the casino floor. So card counters work to hide their activity.

But you can use a computer when playing online and the casino will never know. The problem is that it won’t do you any good. Card counting only works with physical decks where you can track how many of each type of card are available for play. Online casinos use RNGs so there are no cards to count.