Microgaming offers about 40 blackjack games in its portfolio. Most of the games provide a number of statistics that are generated continuously during the session. Many players never access these statistics. However some of the statistics do provide helpful clues and enable players to plan their online gaming. This article discusses some of these statistics and how they can be used.

The statistics are accessed using the button provided in the bottom toolbar. In most Microgaming blackjack games the button displays the '%' sign. One of the problems associated with the statistics function is that the data is not saved. When the player opens a Microgaming blackjack game there are no statistics available. As the player wagers the statistics are generated and can be accessed. Therefore players who are intending to wager on blackjack as their staple game would need to save the statistics on their computers. Statistics become meaningful only if a large number of games are played and therefore it is advised that the players engage in a session of about 500 games and then save the statistics. The statistics can then be used as a reference data.

The statistics box has a number of tabs. It opens to the default setting of 'General'. This tab displays three values, which are hands played, session time and hands per hour. The 'hands per hour' value is obtained by dividing the hands played by the session time. This information is very useful in planning the bet amount. Players would work out their bankroll per session based on their overall funds availability. They would also work out the time they want to allot per session based on their overall time availability. The 'hands per hour' statistic tells the player how many hands he can play in the time he has allotted for the session. Then the player can divide his total bankroll for the session by the number of hands he expects to play in that session and arrive at the amount he must wager on each hand. Instead of following this systematic procedure if the player wagers an ad hoc amount on each hand he may exhaust his bankroll before the intended end of the session. This could tempt him to deploy more funds than he had originally planned to and this is the first step to get into the problem gambling trap.

A decision that players have to make in every blackjack hand is whether to hit or stand. This decision is to some extent dependent on the dealer's initial card and the expected final hand value. For example if the dealer is expected to go bust then the player would stand on his present hand. Or if the dealer is expected to reach a hand value of 17 then the player may hit in the hope of getting a higher valid hand value. In the game statistics box there is a tab 'Dealer's Final Hand'. For each value of the initial card the table gives the percentage distribution of the final hand value. This tells the player what is the most likely final hand value of the dealer for the dealt initial card. This information can be used to decide whether to hit or to stand.

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