Hello and welcome to the LyonsGaming Blackjack assistance project.
My aim is to show you how, I personally have made a living playing Blackjack over many years.
This site has been set up by me, Mel Lyons to help other interested players to improve their chance of winning at this popular casino card game.
First some facts to show that I do have the necessary experience of this great game and am fully qualified to teach others.
My formative years were spent in the East End of London among crooks, villains and card sharps who frequented the many illegal gambling establishments of the area in the 1950s.
I left school at 15 years old and immediately went to work in a bookmakers office.
I was a wiz at math and fractions in particular as that is what all bets are settled by.
There were no odds calculating machines in those early days before the 1961 Gaming Act.
All calculations were made mentally and bets settled accordingly at great speed.
I could and did get work as a manager in many different betting shops around the London area when they were legalized.
In the 70s and 80s I worked as a croupier in several well known casinos culminating in my being an Inspector/Dealer at the famed Playboy Casino in London's exclusive Park Lane, overlooking Hyde Park.
It is the casinos that I learned about the various odds of different games.
In Blackjack the odds are not that favorable to the casino, around just over 2 to 1.
The "house" wins because, even if the Dealer loses by going over 21, s/he also collects the losses of players who have also "bust" by going over 21. This is the casino edge or "House Advantage".
Unlike all other casino card games, Blackjack is not totally reliant on luck. There is a little bit of skill that can reduce the house advantage to less than the usual 2% or so.
This skill is known as 'Strategy". The following pages will teach you this strategy for playing Blackjack and give YOU that little edge over the casino.
