Lots of players falsely assume that you need a large bankroll to win big money playing blackjack online. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s possible to start betting with a small bankroll, even as small as £10, and walk away with hundreds or even thousands of pounds. And no, you won’t need to go on a 15-hand lucky streak, although that is always a possibility.
We’re going to show you how to win blackjack with a small bankroll here. We’ve broken this down into five sections, so you can skip ahead to the one that appeals to you most.
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Start With Penny Blackjack
There are blackjack casinos that require bets of at least £10 per hand. Likewise, there are blackjack games for high rollers in which you’ll need to bet hundreds or even thousands per hand. You’ll want to avoid these if you have a small bankroll. Instead, focus on penny blackjack games. There are digital 21 games with minimum bets of just £0.05. We’ve also reviewed some live blackjack variants with minimum bets of £0.50.
Since live games will always cost more to play for the simple reason that they cost more to run, it might be better to start with a digital game and graduate to the live dealer tables once you’ve doubled or tripled your bankroll.
Whatever you decide to do, the point is that playing blackjack online doesn’t have to cost a fortune. You can play for pennies per hand at plenty of top online casinos.
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Try Live Blackjack with Multipliers
One of the things we do on this site is review new blackjack variants. As live dealer games take over the world, lots of new live blackjack games come online. These are powered by innovative companies like Evolution Gaming and Playtech.
And some of them have huge multipliers or other features which allow you to capitalize on favourable hands and win big. Two games come to mind right away.
First, you could play Quantum Blackjack by Playtech. In this game, lucky cards are selected randomly, and multipliers apply to them. If you get them in your deck and win, you’ll win that multiplier. If you get multiple lucky cards, the multipliers can multiply each other for wins of up to 1,000x.
Second, you could try Power Blackjack by Evolution Gaming. This variant allows you to double, triple, or even quadruple down on your initial hand. So, if you get a hand you think you’re likely to win, you can take advantage and increase your wager for maximum returns.
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Compete in Blackjack Tournaments
Some casinos also offer blackjack tournaments with guaranteed prize pools. Some of our top-rated blackjack sites have these on a weekly basis.
In these tournaments, you score points for winning hands. To make it fair, you’ll often find that the points are not linked to the size of your bets. This would allow high rollers to bully players with smaller bankrolls, so the casinos frequently issue one point per winning hand regardless of the size of your wager.
In these blackjack tournaments, you’ll typically pay an entry fee, and then your aim is to score as many points as possible within the timeframe that the tournament lasts. We’ve seen casinos that offer £1,000 or more for finishing at the top of the leaderboard, and it’s likely that you’ll win something for finishing in the top 50.
To win the maximum number of points in these tournaments, play with the minimum bet per hand. This allows you to play as many hands as possible with your bankroll. For example, you can play 100 hands at £0.10 per hand with a £10 bankroll, but you can only play 10 hands if you bet £1 per hand.
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Play Progressive Blackjack Games
Some online blackjack games are now linked to progressive jackpots. For example, at BetOnline, there’s a Triple Diamonds promotion in which you can win hundreds of thousands on one lucky hand.
To win this progressive jackpot, you need to make a $1 side bet (this is a US-friendly casino, so we’ll use dollars in this instance). If you get three 7s of Diamonds in a winning hand, you will win the progressive jackpot instantly. It’s also possible to win smaller fixed payouts for triple 7s of mixed suits.
This is just one example of a progressive jackpot blackjack game. We expect more casinos to introduce these games as they’re wildly popular with players.
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Grow Your Bankroll First
There is another way to win blackjack with a small bankroll; try to increase your bankroll by playing another casino game first. For example, a lucky £1 spin on a slot machine could win you hundreds of pounds. You can use a progressive betting system on a live roulette game to grow your bankroll by multiples. You could buy a £1 keno ticket and walk away with thousands.
It might be worth trying this. While these games depend on dumb luck to a larger extent than a skill-based card game like blackjack, you might consider setting aside 10% or even 20% of your bankroll to try your luck. If you don’t win, oh well, you still have 80% to play blackjack with. But if you do win, you might have a much larger bankroll, leading to hundreds of extra hands at the live blackjack tables.