Pros and Cons of Online Blackjack vs. Land-Based Casino Blackjack

It’s well-known that for the skilled player, blackjack offers the best odds at the casino. That’s a big reason why it’s one of the most popular games that gamblers play.

Naturally, you might find yourself comparing online blackjack vs. land-based blackjack. Both are great options, but you might prefer one over the other.

Online casinos have made blackjack available in a way that it never was before. You can now play from the comfort of your home. There are some major pros and cons to playing online blackjack vs. casino blackjack, but that is exactly why you are here.

Before we start, you should know where to play blackjack online, especially if that’s the route you think is best for your game.

Whether you prefer playing live dealer blackjack online or not, be sure to use the following casinos:

Our first pro in the online blackjack vs. land-based blackjack debate is all about the action.

And if you want to get a lot of action, online blackjack is the clear winner over land casino blackjack.

When you’re playing at the best blackjack online casinos, you don’t have to wait for the other players’ decisions.

You don’t have to wait for the dealer to shuffle the cards. You just get hand after hand, dealt by the computer’s random number generator (RNG).

This doesn’t hold entirely true when you’re playing at a live dealer casino via webcam, but most people playing online blackjack are playing the version of the game that more resembles a video game.

The odds are the same because the RNG duplicates the probabilities of a 52-card deck. The game just moves faster, even with the animated effects.

At a full table in a land casino, you’ll be lucky to see 50 or 60 hands per hour. But at an online casino, it’s easy to get in 200 hands of blackjack per hour if you want to.

Feel free to continue reading about online blackjack compared to blackjack at the casino. For those of you who are ready to play now, why wait?

Ignition Casino is often referred to as the best place to play blackjack online and for plenty of reasons.

New users are welcomed to their site with a 300% welcome bonus, which can be worth up to $3,000. Not only that, but they have an excellent live dealer platform.

You can also play one of their other blackjack games if you prefer offline. Either way, Ignition Casino is a great site to sign up at if you intend to play blackjack online.

Casinos estimate how much money they expect you to lose per hour by multiplying the amount of money you put into action by how high their house edge is.

The problem with playing more hands per hour is that you’re putting more money into action each hour.

Let’s say you’re playing for $5 per hand. At a busy casino, you might be putting $250 per hour into action. You’re probably putting closer to $1,000 per hour into action at an online casino.

If the rules are the same, we can assume you’re facing a house edge of 1%.

Of course, if you’re playing from home, you’re saving on transportation costs, which compensates for some of this. You also don’t always lose when playing blackjack.

If that were the case, blackjack would certainly not be on the list of the best casino games for beginners.

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When you sign up at an online casino, they give you free money when you make your first deposit. Sure, you get rewards and cashback in land casinos, but they don’t usually give you stacks of free chips.

These bonuses take the form of matching dollar amounts. For example, you might find a casino that will match your first deposit 100% up to $1,000.

This means that when you deposit $1,000, the casino will add $1,000 to your bankroll. You’ll get to play with a $2,000 bankroll, even though you only deposited $1,000.

Many online casinos offer ongoing promotions where you can get bonuses when you make additional deposits, too.

These work much the same way as your initial signup bonus, although the amounts are usually lower. Sometimes, you can still get a 100% matching bonus, but the maximum amount might be $500 instead of $1,000.

Sometimes, you can get a smaller percentage match on a redeposit bonus, but the dollar max remains the same. So, you might be able to get a 50% bonus on your deposit of $2,000, which would be a $1,000 bonus.

These offers vary by casino, so shopping around is a good idea. I recommend the best casino bonuses and rewards below.

The main thing to understand about these bonuses is that they come with strings attached.

You’re required to wager your deposit and your bonus a minimum number of times before you can cash out. Often, this wagering requirement is big enough that it’s mathematically impossible to get an edge just by taking advantage of a bonus.

The secondary thing to understand about wagering requirements is that wagers on blackjack usually don’t count toward fulfilling your bonus requirements. At the rare casinos that count blackjack bets, they discount those bets for the purpose of clearing the bonus.

You sign up at a casino and deposit $1,000. You get a $1,000 deposit bonus, so you have $2,000 to play with. The casino has a 35x wagering requirement, which means you must place $70,000 in wagers before cashing out.

Bets on blackjack count — but they only count at 10% of their actual amount. That $70,000 in required wagers becomes $700,000 in required wagers.

Assuming you’re really good at basic blackjack strategy and assuming the casino has really good blackjack rules, the house edge for blackjack might be as low as 0.5%.

0.5% of $700,000 in action amounts to $3,500 in expected losses.

Since your starting bankroll was $2,000, the mathematical expectation is that you’ll go broke before being able to cash out.

You could get lucky, but you’re placing enough bets that the long-term expectation is probably going to come pretty close to your actual results.

This isn’t true of every online casino, but if you shop around, you can find online casinos offering the best of all possible rules for the players.

You can find single-deck blackjack games galore on the internet. You never have to face a 6:5 payout on a blackjack at an internet casino, either.

If you can master basic strategy, finding a blackjack game online with a house edge of less than 1% is easy. Depending on where you live and where you visit, the casinos in that area might not offer comparable games.

I live near the Winstar Casino. They offer blackjack, but they charge an ante on every hand. This has a horrible effect on the size of the house edge. You might as well stick with the slot machines under those conditions.

The same holds true for casinos offering 6:5 payouts on blackjacks. Those games aren’t even worth playing.

There are two reasons online casinos offer such great rules: they can afford lower overhead, and the casino market is incredibly competitive.

If you’d like to take advantage, I recommend Bovada’s blackjack games.

The online blackjack vs. casino blackjack comparison is not an easy one. Both have their pros and cons, so it just depends on what you prefer.

For those who can count cards, you’ll probably prefer to play at an in-person casino.

A lot of people will tell you that in order to make money playing blackjack, you have to count cards. Although it can help you win, it’s not something you must do.

Blackjack is a good mix of luck and skill, which means you can rely on the latter and still come out on top.

Now, I wouldn’t declare the land-based blackjack game the clear winner for this reason only. To put things into perspective, counting cards is not as easy as it may seem.

Only a few blackjack players can do it at a high level, and in-person casinos will do everything they can to try and prevent you from doing it.

It’s not illegal, but it might make for an awkward time at your blackjack table.

It’s inevitable if you play blackjack in a live casino long enough that you’ll run into some well-meaning busybody who wants to tell you how to play your hand.

Some of them prefer to wait until you’ve finished your hand so that they can criticize your decisions.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t need free coaching from some stranger in a casino. And most of these people don’t know what they’re talking about.

A previous boss of mine was firmly convinced that if you made a mistake on your hand, it could affect everyone else’s odds at the table. This is a good example of why you shouldn’t listen to advice from just anybody.

If they tell you Bigfoot is back and we still don’t have any hard evidence of his existence, you certainly don’t have to believe it, right? 

That’s a popular myth, but I don’t need to hear it every time I sit down at the blackjack table in the casino. I don’t even want to see other players correcting someone else, much less hassling me about how I play.

This might be the biggest perk of all in favor of playing online, in fact.

Blackjack isn’t the only casino game you can play online. If you want to avoid annoying players who have the gift of gab, then consider the best Bovada games.

Despite blackjack being a game against the dealer, it can be rather social.

If you play at a table with a lot of friendly people who have had a few drinks, this will be obvious. Depending on your personality, this could be a very good thing.

What’s better than winning some money and having a good time with your fellow players? Extroverts might only play blackjack for the camaraderie, so removing that aspect could be seen as a major con rather than a pro.

In the end, playing online is perfect for introverts or extroverts who just want to focus on their game. For those of you who are more social, an in-person casino might be a better fit.

When you look at online blackjack compared to blackjack at the casino, you will find that they all have different blackjack variants.

The base game is still blackjack, but there are a few different twists to each of the variants that we must pay attention to.

You might really enjoy some of these changes. If you weren’t a huge fan of blackjack already, maybe a more specific version will help get you over the hump.

Some different features include more hands, higher or lower limits, various jackpots, and more. No matter what you are looking for in your blackjack game, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to find one that suits your needs best online.

Did that already settle the online blackjack vs. casino blackjack debate for you? If so, I recommend playing single hand blackjack or any other variant at BetOnline!

A lot of players worry that an online casino might cheat or adjust their odds based on your previous results. That happens sometimes, but it’s rare compared to another way online casinos take advantage of their customers.

The most common complaint you’ll see about disreputable online casinos is that they make it hard to cash out your winnings.

Any time you’re considering playing blackjack at an online casino, do some research before depositing some money there.

Google or Bing phrases like “name of casino + cashouts” or “name of casino + complaints.” You’ll often find forum threads discussing player experiences at these casinos.

Not all the people who complain about an online casino are in the right, but you should be able to discern between the legitimate complaints and the spurious ones.

Be sure to only use safe online casinos so you avoid these potential issues.

As you can see, there are many pros and cons when comparing online blackjack vs. casino blackjack. Is online blackjack better than in person blackjack?

Well, it might depend on your personality. If you are a social gambler, in-person is probably the best option.

Outside of that, I would say that online blackjack has the upper hand. Yes, there are certain downfalls that you probably aren’t excited about, but I think the positives outweigh the negatives.

If you play your cards right, covering the rollover requirement could be much easier than you think.

Also, you can use low minimum deposit casinos, so you don’t have to cover much at all.

In the end, I would say that it certainly doesn’t hurt to try out both methods of playing blackjack.

Not in the mood to go to the casino, but still want to get a few games in? I recommend playing blackjack at a great site like SlotsandCasino!

Footnote:

• Bigfoot story is courtesy of the New York Times.