Blackjack

Cards two to ten count at face value, picture cards count as ten and an ace counts as one or eleven, whichever helps the hand. Each player and the dealer receive two cards; the dealer's second card is dealt face down (the hole card). An ace with a ten-value card as the first two cards is a blackjack and normally pays 3:2.

Players act in turn:

1. Hit — take another card.
2. Stand — keep the current total.
3. Double down — double the bet and take exactly one more card.
4. Split — separate a pair into two hands, adding a second bet of the same size.

The dealer then reveals the hole card and draws to a fixed rule: hit on 16 or less and stand on 17 or more. Some tables make the dealer hit a "soft 17" (a 17 that counts an ace as eleven), which slightly favours the house. When the dealer shows an ace, players may be offered insurance, a side bet paying 2:1 if the dealer has blackjack.

A player following basic strategy (the mathematically best decision for every hand against every dealer upcard) faces a house edge of roughly 0.5% under common rules. Rule changes move that figure: paying blackjacks at 6:5 instead of 3:2 adds about 1.4 percentage points, and more decks or hitting soft 17 add a little more. Insurance is a poor bet for players who are not counting cards. Card counting (tracking the ratio of high to low cards left in the shoe) can shift the odds in land-based games, but online RNG games reshuffle every hand and live tables use deep shuffles, which removes most of the advantage.

Blackjack is a core product for live casino studios, which run everything from low-limit tables to VIP salons and "infinite" formats that let an unlimited number of players share one hand. Because the base game has a thin margin, the side bets (perfect pairs, 21+3 and similar) matter commercially: they carry much higher edges and lift the table's overall hold. Rule sets are a competitive lever: 6:5 payouts or dealer-hits-soft-17 improve margin but are noticed by experienced players.

A player bets 10 and is dealt an ace and a king. At a 3:2 table the blackjack pays 15; at a 6:5 table it pays 12. Over thousands of hands, that difference alone is worth around 1.4% of everything wagered to the operator.

• House edge — how rule variations change the operator's margin.
• Live dealer — the format through which most online blackjack is played.
• RTP (return to player) — the inverse of the house edge.
• Baccarat — the other major card game in live casino lobbies.

Compare the studios that stream blackjack in the live casino provider directory, or RNG versions from game developers.