Blackjack is a card game that pits players against the dealer. The object is to get a higher hand total than the dealer without going over twenty-one. The game is played with a conventional deck of 52 cards. Suits don’t matter, and 2 through 10 cards count as their face value. An Ace counts as 11 and picture cards (J, Q, K) count as 10.
The dealer participates in the game but doesn’t play their own hand. The dealer must follow strict guidelines when playing their hand. If the dealer has a hand value of 16 or less, they must hit. If the dealer has a soft 17 (Ace and a six), they must stand. They must also follow rules for drawing additional cards. If they have a hand value of 17 or over, they must not draw any more cards.
During the course of the game, players make decisions on whether to hit, stand, double down or split pairs of cards. They can also take insurance if they believe the dealer has a blackjack. This is a side bet that pays out one-half of the original wager if the dealer has a blackjack, but loses in all other instances.
Novices often play their hands too conservatively, missing many opportunities to win. They may hesitate to hit a 16 against a dealer’s 7, or they might fail to split a pair of 2s against a dealer’s 4. These mistakes give the house an edge over the player, because they reduce the number of “big” wins. Expert players, on the other hand, exploit every opportunity to maximize their wins. They will hit more often, and they will double down and split more frequently. They will also be more likely to bust, but they will also win more often than the novices.
In two studies, we manipulated participants’ confidence in their knowledge of blackjack strategy to test a number of hypotheses about how this unjustified confidence might affect psychological and behavioral outcomes. We found that higher levels of unjustified confidence increased positive outcome expectations, reduced state anxiety, and encouraged risk taking. The results of these two studies have important implications for the design of educational interventions to improve blackjack play. The studies were conducted at Wake Forest University, and all participants provided written informed consent. Raw data from these studies will be made available to researchers upon request. The research involving human subjects was approved by the Wake Forest Institutional Review Board. The author has received no financial support for the study or preparation of this manuscript.
