Can You Count Cards at Online Blackjack Tables?

Card counting remains one of the more controversial things in gambling. There are ways it can be used, but casinos will devise their strategies to dissuade it. Many brick-and-mortar venues will ban you outright if they catch you doing it. The reason for this is obvious. With good rules and card counting, you could eliminate the house edge for games like blackjack!

The idea of card counting in online games is not new. Every now and then, someone will claim to have a way to do it. Are there really tricks you can employ to allow you to count cards at online blackjack tables? Alternatively, is it just another internet rumour with no basis in reality? The simple answer is that you cannot do it. For the long answer? Keep reading!

Online Blackjack and Card Counting

What is the major difference between online and real-life blackjack that blocks this technique from being useful? It is certainly not due to any rule changes. Online tables will often offer you better odds than actual casinos, due to having more competition. Instead, RNG-powered blackjack games have one advantage physical tables will never have. The ability to shuffle their decks after each round.

If you think about it, the answer becomes obvious. The only reason card counting works is because you can predict the remaining cards on the table. That requires the deck not to be reshuffled. If that happens, then you cannot keep track of the discarded cards. Since they are immediately placed back into the deck, counting cards does not work.

Even if this mechanic was not in place, card counting is severely limited by multiple decks. Most online blackjack tables play with six or eight decks, and all blackjack strategies are built around that. With so many decks, counting how many Aces disappeared does not give you a big advantage. Because there are so many Aces that could still be drawn!

For all of these reasons, counting cards in online blackjack tables is not feasible. Of course, that raises the question: what about live casino blackjack tables?

Live Casino Blackjack and Card Counting

Live casino blackjack may seem like it would be more lenient at first glance. You would be correct in that assumption. Here, shuffling the deck after every round would quickly drag the game down. It would lead to long waiting, which would not be very enjoyable. To make up for this, software providers use different methods.

Much like online casino tables, live casino ones also use multiple decks. The effect is the same here; more decks makes counting cards less of an advantage. By the time card counting would become useful, the dealer will probably pause to reshuffle the deck. Alternatively, they will use shuffling machines that make the process much faster, and reshuffles more common.

Is It Worth the Hassle?

There is no denying that the option exists. However, we do not think that it is worth all the trouble. Card counting is an advantage if you play blackjack with a single deck, and do not reshuffle cards. No online or live dealer blackjack table will give you those rules. If they did, they would have to severely limit your wins or find another way to raise the house edge.

Indian Casino Club staff has a fair amount of dedicated blackjack fans. We never managed to get it to work to any acceptable level. We tried to do it with many blackjack variants over the years. If you want to improve your blackjack game, we advise focusing on mastering the basic strategy instead. It is a lot of stress for a miniscule gain. While it is possible, we advise not counting cards at online blackjack tables.