El Cortez is located just east of the Fremont Street District in downtown Las Vegas. The area around El Cortez was considered unsafe for many years. That has completely changed. The Fremont East District has been completely revitalized. It is now full of life with niche bars and restaurants.
El Cortez is vintage. The El Cortez still has the best low roller blackjack game in Las Vegas. The $5 minimum single deck game pays 3/2 when you’re dealt blackjack has a house edge of 0.30. There’s also a $25 table with the same rules if you’d rather play higher limits. I dropped by El Cortez today. They are keeping the single deck BJ and dealing the cards face up. No more pitching and no touching the cards. What they will do is keep the deck to 2 hands and then shuffle again. Is this better or worse than the pitch game? Seats are limited to 3 players.
El Cortez was built in 1941 and is one of the oldest Las Vegas casinos. El Cortez has a reputation as a locals’ casino. It offers good gambling, great comps, and affordable dining prices.
Casino at El Cortez
- Single-Deck Blackjack Strategy Introduction. Common questions for novice players: What is single deck blackjack? Is it better to play single deck blackjack versus multi-deck variations? To use the basic strategy, look up your hand along the left vertical edge and the dealer's up card along the top. In both cases, an A stands for ace.
- The minimum bets and rules listed are based on my observations when visiting Las Vegas casinos in December 2019. Minimum bets may increase during peak hours or due to a policy change. The list assumes that the game is a six or eight-deck shoe with double down before and after splitting and the dealer hitting soft 17.
The casino at El Cortez is best known for its Single Deck Blackjack. This game allows players to double down on any two cards, but not after splitting. The dealer hits a soft 17 and a natural blackjack pays 3-2, not 6-5 like most Las Vegas single deck games do. This makes it the best blackjack game in Las Vegas. There are 11 tables and the bet limits are $5 to $500.
There are three $3-$1,000 Double Deck Blackjack tables. Players may double any two cards and after splitting.
El Cortez has been known to back off card counters. Simply varying bet sizes may draw suspicion from the pit bosses. Unlike other casinos that ask card counters to leave, El Cortez generally allows these players to return to the blackjack tables on future trips.
There are two $1 minimum roulette tables with two zeros. These games have quarter chips. There is a $10-$1,000 baccarat table and two craps tables with $5-$1,000 limits. Craps allows up to 10 times odds.
There are two table games in video form with $1 minimum bets. There is a Shoot to Win video craps game and a Dealers Angel blackjack game that allows double down, doubling after the split, and surrender. The dealer stays on all 17’s.
The El Cortez casino floor is split into three sections. The south section includes a variety of old coin video poker machines, a keno room, and a video poker bar. The central area is mostly table games and the sports book. The north casino floor is home to a wide selection of nickel and quarter coin operated video poker machines. Full pay Jacks or Better and good Deuces Wild and Joker Poker games are available in this section.
The sports book is operated by Station Casinos. Players may deposit for Sports Connection there. That is Station Casinos’ online and mobile sports betting service.
There is no poker room at El Cortez. It closed in December 2013.
Hotel at El Cortez
There are 364 hotel rooms at El Cortez. The Cabana Suites are the newest. The others are older rooms that are not as modern as the Cabana Suites. These rooms may be reserved for about $30 during the week and $60 on weekends. Remodeled rooms go for about double that amount.
Dining at El Cortez
There are three dining options at El Cortez. Subway is the casual option. There is also the 24-hour Café Cortez. It serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The prices reflect a locals’ café, not one located in a casino. The menu is limited on weekdays after 10:30pm. The Flame Steakhouse is the high end, but affordable, dining option available at El Cortez.
El Cortez is one of the few Las Vegas casinos that will deliver food directly to slot machines. Many items from the café will be delivered by the staff. Players do not need to be high rollers to qualify for this service.
Bars at El Cortez
There are three bars at El Cortez. There are two video poker bars at either end of the casino. Each offers 8/5 Bonus Poker as the best game. The Parlor Bar and Lounge is the high end bar at El Cortez. There are many lounge chairs in the seating area, as well as a long bar for patrons. There is also an appetizer menu served at the Parlor Bar.
Location
El Cortez is located on Fremont Street one black east of the Fremont Street Experience. Its crossroad is Sixth Street.
Features at El Cortez
The second level of El Cortez offers a hair salon for men that will take guests back a generation. Services include a straight razor shave.
The Parlor Bar offers two lounge acts. There is a Frank Sinatra impersonator on Wednesday and Thursday nights. Other nights offer John Brooks doing his tribute to Elvis. Weekends offer guests a chance to take over the microphone for karaoke.
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Most blackjack players who’ve played for any length of time understand that rules for the game vary from casino to casino. In fact, they vary from one table to another.
The obvious example is the size of the payout for a blackjack (a 2-card total of 21).
The standard for decades is for a blackjack to pay off at 3 to 2 odds.
But recently, many casinos started offering blackjack games that pay off at 6 to 5 odds.
What does this do to the house edge?
It increases the house’s advantage by 1.5%.
That might not sound like much, but a basic strategy player at a standard blackjack player faces a house edge of only 0.5%.
This means that the house’s mathematical edge quadruples because of what seems like one small rules change.
In this post, I look at some of the rules changes and what stakes they happen at.
6/5 Blackjack Versus 3/2 Blackjack
Some casinos offer 6/5 blackjack at their lower stakes tables while offering the standard 3/2 payouts at their higher stakes tables.
Let’s take a hypothetical Las Vegas casino and look at what happens to their profits when they implement this rules change at lower stakes.
They might offer the standard 3/2 payout on their $25 minimum tables. An average blackjack player might play 80 hands per hour at such a table, putting $2000 per hour into action.
Assuming perfect strategy on the part of that player, you’re looking at a house edge of only 0.5%, which means that a player at this table will lose an average of $10 per hour at this table. A table full of these players might generate $60 per hour for the casino.
The players at the $5 table are only putting $400 per hour into action.
But with the 6/5 payout in effect, the house edge increases from 0.5% to 2%.
This means that the players at this table are losing $8 per hour – almost as much as the players gambling 5 times as much per hand at the other table.
Casinos want to encourage action at the higher stakes tables because they make more money from gamblers who are betting more per hand.
But the payout for a blackjack isn’t the only rule a casino might change.
Hitting and Standing on a Soft 17
Everyone knows that the dealer has to hit any total of 16 or less.
It’s better for the player if the dealer has to stand on all totals of 17 – even soft totals of 17.
But in lower stakes games, the dealer hits a soft 17.
What does this do to the house edge?
It increases it by 0.2% — which sounds like a minor increase, but it’s a bigger increase than you might think.
Suppose a casino has a game where the minimum bet is $50, and the dealer has to stand on all 17s. The house edge for such a game might be 0.5%.
At 80 hands per hour, the gambler is putting $4000 per hour into action. The expected loss per hour for that player is $20.
That same casino might have a game with a minimum bet of $25, but the dealer hits a soft 17. This increases the house edge from 0.5% to 0.7%.
The gamblers at this table are putting $2000 per hour into action, but now they’re losing $14 per hour instead of the $10 per hour you’d expect.
The casino STILL makes more money from the higher limit table, but by just changing one small rule, they come closer to getting the same kind of hourly win rate.
The Worst Blackjack Rules in Las Vegas Are at the Strip Casinos
80% of the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip are owned by the same 4 companies. They all have similar blackjack rules – and those rules aren’t as favorable to the players as you’d hope.
Your best bet as a blackjack player is to just avoid the blackjack games on the Strip altogether. You can find better games elsewhere in the city.
For one thing, it’s almost impossible to find blackjack for less than $10 per hand on the Strip.
You’d think that such casinos would offer terrible rules for players, but you’d be surprised.
For example, I’ve read reports about the $3 games at Arizona Charlies. You can double down on any total there, and you can even double down after splitting. Good luck finding those generous rules at one of the Strip casinos.
You can also play $5 blackjack at Arizona Charlies from a 2-deck shoe, which is practically unheard of elsewhere in Vegas. And, if you didn’t already know it, the more decks you have in use, the higher the house edge becomes.
Single deck blackjack has the lowest house edge, everything else being equal.
You can find $5 blackjack at a host of locals casinos, especially in Downtown. Some of the casinos offering $5 blackjack include Boulder Station, El Cortez, and the Orleans.
In fact, any of the Stations casinos offer good rules for low stakes blackjack players.
If You ARE Going to Play Blackjack on the Strip
Treasure Island is your best bet for $10 blackjack on the Strip, but those tables are usually crowded, and there aren’t many of them. The game does have good rules, though – you can even find a game there sometimes that’s dealt from just 2 decks.
But, if you’re going to play blackjack on the Strip, you’re probably going to need to wager $25 prer hand or more. Any of the MGM properties are good for this level of play.
These include Circus Circus, Excalibur, Luxor, Mirage, Monte Carlo, and New York New York,
El Cortez Single Deck Blackjack Rules Free
Comparing Rules Variations in Blackjack
For the most part, the rules variations in blackjack involve giving the player more options or fewer options. In any given blackjack situation, having more options is better than having fewer options.
For example, in some casinos, you can only double down on a 9, 10, or 11.
In other casinos, you’re allowed to double down on any total.
In some casinos, you’re allowed to double down after splitting.
In others, you can’t double down after splitting.
These are all examples of how having more flexibility in your choices increases or decreases the house edge.
You always want to decrease the house edge when you can.
And don’t make the mistake of thinking the 0.1% or 0.2% doesn’t matter.
When you’re dealing with something like the house edge, every tenth of a percent matters.
What if You Want to Count Cards?
If you want to count cards, one of the first things you want to do is find a casino that isn’t using a continuous shuffling machine. You can’t get an edge counting cards if the discards get shuffled back into the deck immediately.
Card counting works because some higher value cards are no longer in the deck, or some lower value cards are no longer in the deck. When the composition of the deck becomes favorable to the player instead of to the house, the card counter raises the size of his bets.
You can’t do that if you’re getting cards from a freshly shuffled deck every hand.
El Cortez Single Deck Blackjack Rules Explained
Also, the fewer decks being used, the better it is for the card counter. Every card dealt from a single deck affects the house edge.
But the value of each card is diluted in a pack of cards made up of multiple decks.
Here’s an example:
If 4 aces have been dealt out of a single deck blackjack game, it’s now impossible to get dealt a blackjack before the cards are shuffled again. This is advantageous for the casino, and the card counter knows it and lowers his bet accordingly.
El Cortez Single Deck Blackjack Rules For Real
But if you’re playing in an 8-deck game, you have 32 aces in the deck total. The elimination of 4 of those aces doesn’t make nearly as much of a difference.
Conclusion
El Cortez Single Deck Blackjack Rules Card Game
Tiny differences in the rules have a major effect on the math involved when playing real money blackjack. Generally, you’ll find more flexibility in the games with lower stakes.
El Cortez Single Deck Blackjack Rules For Sale
You’ll have a hard time finding a combination of low stakes and good rules variations on the Strip in Las Vegas, especially. Try to stick with the casinos Downtown or on Boulder Highway if you’re a low roller looking for a game with good odds.