Do Bad Blackjack Players Really Affect You?

It’s never easy to ignore the casino player that hits on 14 when the dealer has an upcard of 4. It’s especially not easy when the dealer goes on to hit 21 and bust everyone out of the hand! In fact, you’d almost have to place all of the blame on the bad player that hit on 14 despite every piece of blackjack strategy suggesting not to. 

Most experienced casino players will leave the table while grumbling curse words if something like this happens. But do you really have to go this far if bad players are at your table? Below you’ll find the answer as to whether or not bad blackjack players actually affect your play.

The truth is that bad blackjack players can hurt your chances of winning individual casino hands, which is why so many people are convinced that they can’t win at a table full of bad players. For instance, if a player to the right of the dealer holds 13 compared to the dealer’s upcard of 2, the correct play is to stand. But let’s say that the player hits and draws a 10 to bust out; if the dealer goes on to draw a jack and a nine to hit 21, this player took the 10 that would have busted the dealer (22 points).

Assuming you don’t have 21, you would lose and the bad player caused your loss. Obviously it’s easy to get angry at this casino player since you and everybody else at the table would’ve won. Plus the people who make these mistakes look foolish because they don’t know standard blackjack strategy. But instead of dwelling on the bad play of others, you need to realize that everything averages out in the end.

You see bad players can help out just as much as they can hurt. For example, let’s say that a bad player has 15 against the dealer’s upcard of 5; the correct move here is to stand. However, this person chooses to hit instead of stay and draws an 8 to bust out. The dealer goes on to draw an 8 and a king to bust out of the hand as well, thus giving you and everybody else a win.

And while drawing on 15 against the dealer’s 5 is a terrible play, it actually helped everybody at the table because the dealer would have hit 21 otherwise. As you can see, playing with bad casino players can both benefit and hurt your game.

Even knowing that bad casino players won’t truly affect your game from a mathematical standpoint, it’s still tempting to focus on how other people are playing. But in all reality, the best thing you can do is focus on your own play.

This means making the statistically correct play every time, and only worrying about what you can control. Be sure that you make double downs at the right time, and only split hands when you are supposed to. 

Even with this being said, you could be the type of person who still thinks that bad blackjack casino players are the root of all evil. So if worrying about other players is ruining your game, then perhaps you’re better off getting up and moving to a new table. Just keep in mind that it’s not really going to affect your long-term casino profits though.