Blackjack Money Management

Managing your money properly in blackjack means betting in a way that maximizes your winnings and minimizes your losses. Good money management is as essential as good playing strategy for making your time at the blackjack table as profitable as possible.

The best betting strategy in blackjack is to wager a consistent portion of your bankroll on each hand. That doesn’t mean you should wager the exact same amount on each hand. Instead, you should bet a constant percentage, which means that the amount you bet per hand rises as your bankroll increases and fall as your bankroll decreases.

Betting in this way minimizes the chance that you’ll lose all or most of your money, while giving you a reasonable chance of walking away with a significant win.

In general, it’s best to use the following rule of thumb when playing blackjack: Bet 1/100 of your bankroll on each hand. Let’s say you start a game of blackjack with a bankroll of $1,000. 1/100 of this amount is $10, so that’s how much you should bet per hand. If you go on a winning streak and increase your bankroll to $1,500, you should increase your bet correspondingly, to $15 per hand. If you get unlucky and your bankroll dwindles to $500, you should decrease your bet to $5 per hand. Betting in this way gives you the greatest likelihood of winning.

The above recommendation may seem overly conservative to you. After all, betting only $10 when you have $1,000 doesn’t seem like much. If the excitement of large bets outweighs the decreased likelihood of financial success, then by all means bet more than what’s recommended.

If making money is your main goal, though, then you should not overbet. Even if you have the advantage, betting too much is a recipe for ruin. In the case of the diehard gambler who wagers everything on each hand, all it takes is one bad hand for him or her to lose it all. Though less drastic overbetting is not quite as risky, it’s still not as effective as the conservative strategy recommended in this chart.

Many gamblers believe that they are due for a win after a streak of losses. When such players lose a few hands in a row, they often increase their bet dramatically, expecting a win. This expectation is called the gambler’s fallacy.

Unfortunately, losing a few hands or even many hands in a row does not affect the odds of winning the next hand. So regardless of whether you’ve lost a few hands running, you should continue betting 1/100 of your total bankroll. You’ll find that once you start winning consistently, deviating from the optimal betting strategy will be far less tempting.