Gambling and superstition go hand in hand as most casino games depend mainly or entirely on luck. Holding a lucky charm or crossing your fingers certainly can’t harm you while playing slot games or roulette, however, the situation is different with blackjack. 

Blackjack is a game that requires both skill and luck and your best chances are following a blackjack strategy chart. This way you can reduce the house edge to its minimum and with disciplined gameplay, you will have a very close to 50% chance of winning each game. However, some punters still have gambling superstitions and this can damage their game. 

In this article, we are going to list some of these blackjack superstitions that are best avoided. A Portuguese iGaming expert Victoria Oliveira whom you can read more about here helped us compile this list. 

Myth 1: By following a progression betting system a win is guaranteed

Blackjack is getting more and more popular in Portugal and novice punters are always on the lookout for a foolproof way of winning. Progression betting systems are widely applied in roulette but they can be used in blackjack just as well. The idea behind the most well-known one, the Martingale system, is that every time you lose a bet you double your stake for the next bet so that eventually you win back an amount equal to your first bet. What many don’t realize is that there are table limits in casinos and many brick-and-mortar casinos limit blackjack bets to put off card counters. But even if this wasn’t the case, starting with a 1 euro bet and losing 10 times in a row would mean having to wager over 1000 euros on one hand. Can you afford that?

Myth 2: Card counters always win

If you have seen the movie 21, you know what we are talking about. In the movie, MIT students who work in a team and count cards manage to win huge sums in Las Vegas casinos. Counting cards is not that hard to learn and you don’t have to be a genius to master it, however, you cannot make a lot of money with it. 

First off, there are table limits. Casinos are on the lookout to pick up on potential card counters and they apply measures against the practice - some casinos shuffle the decks of cards after every game. Card counting is outright impossible in online casino de Portugal since these games have random number generators in place so you cannot keep track of what cards have been drawn. 

Myth 3: It is smart to take the insurance bet

When the dealer’s up hand is an Ace, he/she will ask you if you want to take an insurance bet in case his/her down card is a ten-value card. Taking out life or home insurance is smart, of course, but the “insurance” bet in blackjack simply raises the house edge. You will pay half of your original bet as insurance but the dealer’s chance of getting a ten-value card is only 30.7%. Therefore, if you understand basic math, you’ll realize that the insurance bet is a sucker bet. 

Myth 4: When a new player sits down at the table he/she will disturb the flow

This blackjack myth is so common, even with experienced players, yet it has no base at all. Of course, when there is a new person at the table the cards in the shoe will be dealt in a different order but you don’t know if this will be beneficial for you or not. The chance is really 50-50. 

Myth 5: A certain dealer, table or casino will bring you good luck

When you win at a good luck casino you will certainly remember the time and you forget the times when you lost money there. Instead of believing in a certain table or dealer, check out the rules as some may pay out more or have more favourable rules than others. 

Conclusion

Blackjack myths are well and alive but this game should not be played according to these myths if you want to avoid losing money.