0.5% house edge doesn't mean 99.5% of your bets will be winning bets.
No, it means 49.75% of my bets will be winning bets.
It means the house averages a profit of 0.5% of each wager (assuming the player makes optimal strategy).
The house averages a profit of 0,5% of each wager is exactly the same like the house averages a profit of a half bet per 100 bets:
So if you bet 100 times 1 Euro, you will lose in average 100 x 0,5% of 1 Euro =
50 centsAnd after you made 100 bets, you will have lost in average a half 1 Euro bet =
50 centsEach blackjack hand has a ~42% chance of winning, ~8.5% chance of pushing and ~49.5% chance of losing. That means over 180,000 hands you should expect around 89,000 of them to be losing bets.
You mix hands with bets, but hands won and bets won is not the same!
When I get a Black Jack, I win 1 hand, but win 1,5 bets.
Also, in 1 hand I can win up to 4 bets, because I can split 1 time and double up to 2 times
Now you can say ok, when I can win 4 bets in a hand I can also lose 4 bets in a hand = balanced
But the difference is when I split or double a hand according to the perfect strategy I have a higher winning percentage, so long term splitting and doubling brings much more additional bets won than the number of hands won.
Hence, you can not use the hands 42% win / 8,5% push / 49,5% loss statistic to explain the 4,6% difference I experienced between
bets won and
bets lost.
If there is a 4,6% difference between
bets won and
bets lost, then the house edge is 4,6% and not 0,5% as advertised by Stake!
