When you play blackjack at home.
whether you call it pontoon, 21, or something else, the chances are you use one deck of cards. After all, most of us only have one 52-card pack of cards in the house.
When you play at a casino, you might wonder. How many decks are used in blackjack. Just like at home, you could find a table using one deck of cards. But it’s far more common for between six and eight cards to be in play at a live casino venue.
To most of us, that makes very little difference. We still get two cards, see what the dealer’s upcard is, and can then play out our hand in the usual way. There is strategically nothing you should do differently, except perhaps try and keep an eye on the number of tens and picture cards that have been in play.
Why Casinos Change How Many Decks Are Used in Blackjack
There are two good reasons. Why casinos tend to prefer using six to eight decks of cards at a blackjack table.
Firstly, with a single deck game, the dealer must shuffle the deck after every round, and that takes time. And as you will appreciate, that’s the time when the casino isn’t making any money. A casino not making cash is not a good proposition (for the casino owner, that is). However, if six to eight decks are in play, you can play many blackjack hands before the dealer must shuffle the decks once more.
When you play with multiple decks, you will note the dealer cuts the cards with a blank colored card before placing them all in the shoe. Therefore, not all the cards will be used in the game because once the dealer gets down to the cut card, the decks are reshuffled. So, not only do you have to keep track of more cards between shuffles, you don’t actually know how many tens or picture cards are in play.