---
title: 'Blackjack Bet Spreads: Complete Guide for Every Bankroll Size'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=oqYT8MRU8Ho'
video_id: 'oqYT8MRU8Ho'
date: 2026-08-13
duration_sec: 811
---

# Blackjack Bet Spreads: Complete Guide for Every Bankroll Size

> Source: [Blackjack Bet Spreads: Complete Guide for Every Bankroll Size](https://youtube.com/watch?v=oqYT8MRU8Ho)

## Summary

This video provides a comprehensive guide to blackjack bet spreads, tailored to different bankroll sizes. The presenter explains how to structure bets based on the true count, using examples for large, medium, and small bankrolls, and demonstrates the expected value and risk of ruin for each scenario using Blackjack Apprenticeship software.

### Key Points

- **What is a Bet Spread?** [00:31] — A bet spread defines how much to bet at various true counts. The example shows a large bankroll spread: $50 at true count 0 or lower, increasing to $100 in two spots at +1, up to $500 in two spots at +5 or higher.
- **Calculating the Spread Ratio** [02:39] — The spread ratio is calculated by dividing the maximum bet by the minimum bet. For the large bankroll example, $1000 / $50 = 20, so it's a 1 to 20 spread.
- **Small Bankroll Spread Example** [02:54] — For a smaller bankroll, a $10 minimum table is used. Bets start at $10 at true count 0 or lower, increasing to $50 at +1, $100 at +2, $150 at +3, $200 at +4, and $300 at +6. This is a 1 to 30 spread.
- **Trade-offs of Lower Limit Tables** [03:37] — Lower limit tables are slower because other players are present, reducing rounds per hour. However, they are more affordable for smaller bankrolls, allowing gradual growth from $10,000 to $25,000.
- **Using Blackjack Apprenticeship Software** [04:17] — The presenter uses Blackjack Apprenticeship software to optimize bets and calculate risk of ruin and expected value. He emphasizes that rules vary by casino, and his examples use H17, double after split allowed, resplitting aces allowed, and no surrender.
- **Large Bankroll ($50,000) – Double Deck** [05:10] — For a $50,000 bankroll playing double deck, the best game has 1.3 decks penetration. The optimized spread starts at $25 in one spot, then two spots of $75 at +1, up to two spots of $500 at +6. Risk of ruin is under 1%, with an expected value of just under $250 per hour.
- **Large Bankroll ($50,000) – Six Deck** [06:36] — For six deck, a $25 minimum table is used. The spread goes from $25 in one spot to two spots of $350 at true count +7 or higher. Expected value is about $125 per hour with risk of ruin under 1%.
- **Medium Bankroll ($20,000) – Double Deck** [08:17] — For a $20,000 bankroll playing double deck, the expected value is about $80 per hour with a risk of ruin of 0.62%. The player must Wong out (stop playing) if the true count drops below -2.
- **Medium Bankroll ($20,000) – Six Deck** [09:04] — For six deck, a $5 minimum table is used. The spread starts at $5 at true count 0 or lower, then two spots of $25 at +1, up to two spots of $150 at +6. Risk of ruin is just under 1%, with an expected value of about $70 per hour.
- **Small Bankroll ($10,000) – Double Deck Not Recommended** [09:46] — With a $10,000 bankroll, playing double deck is not recommended because the best game has a $25 minimum, resulting in a 7.5% risk of ruin even with Wonging out at -3. The swings may be too large for many players.
- **Small Bankroll ($10,000) – Six Deck** [10:27] — For six deck, a $5 minimum table is used. The spread starts at $5 in one spot, $10 at +1, and maxes out at $125 in two spots at +7. Risk of ruin is about 1.5%, with an expected value of about $42 per hour.
- **When to Consider a Job Instead** [11:24] — If the expected value is below $40 per hour, the presenter suggests considering a regular job, like a Costco checker ($30/hour) or overnight Walmart stocker, because blackjack carries the risk of losing money due to variance.

### Conclusion

The video provides a practical framework for selecting bet spreads based on bankroll size, emphasizing the importance of managing risk of ruin and expected value. It also highlights the need to use software like Blackjack Apprenticeship to tailor strategies to individual circumstances.

## Transcript

tips as to some bet spreads you can use when you play blackjack in the casino. I've used in previous [music] videos. We have spreads that are for maybe smaller bank rolls as well as some that are for some bigger bank rolls. And like I said
into what you might need if you have a really big kind of a medium [music] or be best for you so that when you get to the casino, you're not going to be you're going to be generating some really good positive expected value
using these bet spreads. All right, that said, let's talk about what a bet spread is for a second. Let's use maybe this one for example. And here you can say categories. We have the true count that we're going to be using at those
particular spreads. All right, the bet itself at those true counts. And then number of betting circles that we're going to be betting that amount in. All right, so here you can see that the lowest is at a true count of anything
that's zero or lower. That's what the negative means. At zero minus, we're going to be betting $50. So now this is an example of a of a bet spread you want to use if you have a really big bank roll. All right. So at $50 here, that's
going to be like the table minimum. So, a lot of times maybe you've seen a table a lot of times maybe you've seen a table that's a $10 or $15 or $25 minimum. This would be an example of a $50 minimum. And so, people that can afford to play
as there's probably not going to be other people playing at this table or not very many you might say. And so, you can get a lot more rounds per hour in and that's going to be a good tradeoff compared to some of those lower limit
tables. Now, if we go up a true count at a true count of plus one or higher, this calls for us to bet $100, you can see instead of just in one spot like the previous one, this is going to be $100 in two spots. And so, I'm going to be
betting like this. These are now both of my betting circles. And at a true one, my betting circles. And at a true one, betting $100 in two spots. A true two is $200 in two spots. All the way up to a true count of plus five or higher.
be a true count of or it's going to be a bet I should say of $500 in two spots here. Now, if you think about how much money that is, that of course is $1,000, right? 500* 2. Whereas our lowest amount was $50. Just kind of one single bet of
was $50. Just kind of one single bet of 50. So to go from 50 to $1,000, that is 50. So to go from 50 to $1,000, that is a bet spread of 1 to 20. If I were to take the biggest amount, $1,000, and divide by 50, the smallest amount, well,
$1,000 divided by 50 gives us 20. So, you can say that this is a 1 to 20 bet looks more like this where there's other people at the table. You only have one spot available to you. The minimum, the table minimum is $10. And so, you might
like this, especially if you have a smaller bankroll. And that's going to be at zero or lower. We are also betting a table minimum of $10. However, if the
true count goes to a true one, then all of a sudden, we're going to bet $50. All little bit. Now, notice this is still in one spot. A true two, we're going to bet one spot. A true two, we're going to bet $100 in one spot. A true three is 150. A
true four is 200. All the way up to a true six, which is 300. So again, this time our bet spread. Well, if you think of the minimum, which is 10, and the maximum, which is 300. What is 300 divided by 10? Well, it's 30. So, this
there's a couple trade-offs with this type of table. Everyone else has to play as well, and so this is going to go a lot slower. You're not going to get as many rounds per hour in. However, you are playing at a lower table minimum,
which means this is $40 less than that other table that I showed you. And so people with smaller bankrolls might be able to afford this. And this is kind of at those tables where you slowly grow your bankroll from maybe 10,000 or so up
your bankroll from maybe 10,000 or so up to 20,000 25,000 and so on and slowly grind your way up and then maybe you can start to afford some of those higher limit tables after that. Now with all these bet spreads, I use Blackjack
apprenticeship to help me kind of iron out the details. So, I'm going to jump over to the computer and we're going to show you what someone with a big bet spread can maybe afford to bet at both six deck and double deck. What someone
with a medium bet spread might want to do as well as someone with a small bet spread. So, let's jump over there and take a look at what you might be able to before I kind of get into the different bet spreads is that my rules at my local
casinos might be different than your rules. Uh, for example, all the bet spreads I'm going to show you in this video, I have the rules set to H17, where the dealer hits their soft 17s, um, double after split is allowed. Um,
so is res-splitting aces. However, we can only split to four hands max if we something. We can only split those to four hands. And then surrender is not available. So, with that said, let's look at our biggest bankroll size in
this video. And that's going to be a $50,000 bankroll. And let's say we're playing some double deck. Like you can see here, the best double deck game that I've seen so far this year in 2026 has had a penetration of about 1.3 decks.
Meaning that there's about 36 cards behind the cut card. Remember, half a behind the cut card. Remember, half a deck is about 26 cards. And so this is uh kind of the best that I've seen. And anyway, what we're looking to do here is
anyway, what we're looking to do here is sort of optimize um the bets in such a way where our risk of ruin is nice and low. I like to keep it under about 1%. low. I like to keep it under about 1%. Here it's at 93 and our expected value
is as high as possible. In this case, it's just under $250 per hour, which I that, myself included. I do not have a $50,000 bankroll. Um, another reason why you can hit that like button for me. Maybe we'll get there eventually. Uh but
otherwise, you can see here that this uh particular bet spread, we start at $25 in one spot and then once it bumps up to a true one, then we go to two spots of 75, two spots of 150, two spots of 200, all the way up to a true six where we're
maxing out our bets at two spots of $500. So again, you can probably afford to do that if you have a $50,000 bankroll. Now, if you're playing six deck, uh you also probably want to spread to two spots if possible. And in
this case, let's say we're playing we're playing a $25 table where the five and $10 tables, we're going to let the lower bet spread people or lower bankroll probably going to be fewer people at this table. We can get more rounds per
hour in. Now, I did not change the rounds per hour in any of these be slightly different whether you're at a really full table, if your uh dealer reason why you want to have blackjack apprentichip probetting software so you
can change these to whatever your particular needs are. Uh, this one though, this is a minimum of $25 and we're going to spread all the way up to we're going to spread all the way up to two spots of 350 at a true 7 or higher.
And this is going to yield about $125 per hour. And our risk of ruin is still under 1% at8. All right. Next, we're going to have our medium-sized bankroll. you this really quick. As an advantage blackjack player, I drink a lot of
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session. All right, like I said, our mediumsiz bank roll is going to be deck, you can see we're going to be expected to get about $80 per hour with a risk of ruin at only 62%. Um, but one thing you want to notice on
this is as we're playing, we do have to Wong out, meaning that we're not going to play if the true count drops below a true -2. So, we're playing down to a true negative -3, we're going to pull our bets back and not play at this
particular table. All right. If you're playing six deck, the best six deck game I've seen so far this year in 2026 is a $5 table. It was a $5 minimum to about a $500 maximum. And so, the bets that we're using here are well within that
range. If you have a $20,000 bankroll, you can bet the table minimum at a true count of zero and lower. And then once it gets to a true one, you can spread to two spots betting $25 all the way up to two spots of 150 at a true count of plus
six or higher. That's going to be just under 1% risk of ruin and still getting right around $70 an hour. Now, before I show you my small bankroll we're using hitting the thumbs up button if you're finding this video valuable, I'd really
bankroll we're going to be using is $10,000. Now, before you turn this off, if you don't have a $10,000 bankroll, I do want to show you one other thing at money from the casino and build that bankroll up. You just might not be able
to play these particular tables yet. But stay tuned to the end of the video for that. That said, if you do have a $10,000 bankroll, I would not play double deck. Again, the best double deck game that I have seen this year in 2026
is a $25 minimum table. And you'll notice here, even if we won out, don't notice here, even if we won out, don't play at a -3 or lower, we have a 7.5% risk of ruin. Now, it would be a decent expected value, but again, the higher
the risk of ruin, the bigger the swings that you're going to see as you are playing. And I know some of you just cannot stomach those swings. And so, if that's you, I definitely would not play double deck blackjack with a $10,000
bankroll. Otherwise, if you have a $10,000 bankroll and you can play six $10,000 bankroll and you can play six deck, again, if you see a $5 table, this live. Now, one thing that might jump out to you right away is the risk of ruin is
about 1.5%, which is a little bit higher than I would suggest, as you might have remembered from earlier in this video. However, in order to get a expected However, in order to get a expected value of about $42 an hour here, we did
have to bump up that risk as we do have to put some big bets on the line there in those bigger counts. This is going to be a minimum of $5 in one spot. Even at a true one, we're still just doing $10 in one spot. However, at a true 7 is
going to be where we max out at $125 in two spots. And so if you're able to find a table like this and you have a $10,000 bankroll, um you could potentially get about $42 per hour in that case. Now, I will say that anything lower than this,
about 40 bucks an hour or so, if it were me, I would probably just go find a good paying job. Um in fact, I heard recently that a Costco checker makes about 30 bucks an hour. I've also heard really good things about working overnight, um
stocking shelves at Walmart. It's also really good. Um, I say that because blackjack is a job where you can potentially lose money if you have several uh bad days in a row with bad variance. It is well within the realm of
possibility to take those $10,000 down to four or $5,000 with just a few bad days. Whereas a job, if you, you know, are a checker at Costco or something,
um, you do not have the possibility to lose money. Um, now you might be tempted to spend more, but that's going to be a whole different animal. So, anyway, if you want um a little bit of a risky type job like this and you have a decent
bankroll, then Blackjack might be for you. Now, one thing I will say is I ran Apprenticeship. Again, you really want your own membership to Blackjack Betting software because there is a huge difference between a $10,000 bankroll, a
$20,000 bankroll, and a $50,000 bankroll. If you're somewhere at like $16,000, you're going to want to run your own numbers so you know exactly what to bet when and maybe kind of tweak those different rules. Maybe you have
S17 games available to you or maybe you do have Surrender available, in which aggressive with those bets. And so if you're interested in purchasing to their member site down below in the pinned comment of this video where you
only the probetting software, but other features they have available to their members as well. Now, like I mentioned earlier, if you don't have $10,000, you might not be ready to start playing Advantage Blackjack, but you can still
In this video right here, I go over how to beat slot machines. Yes, that is very real. Check it out. I show you with math in that video. Otherwise, until next in that video. Otherwise, until next time, remember this is A1 blackjack.