How to play blackjack
Blackjack is the simplest casino card game to learn and one of the hardest to play perfectly. You are not trying to reach 21 — you are trying to beat the dealer's hand without going over it.
The goal
Finish with a hand total closer to 21 than the dealer's. Go over 21 and you bust and lose the bet immediately, no matter what the dealer does afterwards.
Card values
Number cards are worth their face value. Jacks, queens and kings are worth ten. An ace counts as eleven unless that would bust the hand, in which case it drops to one — a hand still holding an eleven-value ace is called soft.
How a round plays
You place a bet, then receive two face-up cards while the dealer takes one face-up card and one face-down hole card. You act first and can draw as many cards as you like. When you finish, the dealer reveals the hole card and plays out a fixed rule.
How the dealer plays
The dealer has no choices. They draw until reaching 17 or more and then stand — including on a soft 17 at this table. If the dealer busts, every hand still standing wins.
Your options
- Hit — take another card. You may keep hitting until you stand or bust.
- Stand — keep your total and pass the turn to the dealer.
- Double down — double your bet, take exactly one more card, and your turn ends. Best on totals of 9, 10 and 11.
- Split — with two cards of equal value, pay a second bet and play them as two separate hands. Split aces receive one card each.
- Surrender — give up the hand before drawing and get half your bet back. Only worth it on the worst hands, such as 16 against a ten.
Insurance
When the dealer's upcard is an ace, the table stops before anyone plays and offers insurance. It is a separate bet, costing half your stake, on one thing only: that the face-down card is worth ten. If it is, the dealer has blackjack, insurance pays 2:1 and the two bets cancel out to roughly nothing lost; if it is not, the insurance chips are gone and your hand carries on as normal. Either way it is settled immediately, before you act.
The arithmetic is why nobody should take it. In a six-deck shoe the hole card is worth ten a little under 31% of the time, and a bet paying 2:1 needs 33.3% to break even — so insurance quietly loses about 7% of every chip put on it. Being offered it while holding a blackjack is the same bet under a friendlier name, even money, and it costs the same. The hint button will never suggest it.
Payouts
- Blackjack (an ace with a ten-value card) pays 3:2.
- Any other winning hand pays 1:1.
- A tie is a push — your bet comes back untouched.
- Insurance is a side bet of half your stake, offered when the dealer shows an ace. It pays 2:1 if the dealer has blackjack.
This table's rules
Six decks, dealer stands on soft 17, blackjack pays 3:2, double on any two cards, double after split allowed, split up to four hands, late surrender allowed. Played perfectly, that combination leaves a house edge of about 0.3%.
The small print
- Reaching 21 ends your turn on the spot. There is nothing to gain by drawing to it, so the table moves on for you.
- A 21 made after a split is an ordinary 21, not a blackjack: it pays 1:1 and it loses to a dealer blackjack.
- Splitting goes by value, so a king and a ten are a pair. Split aces get exactly one card each and cannot be split again or doubled.
- Surrender is offered on your first two cards only, and never once a hand has been split.
- Payouts are rounded down to a whole chip: blackjack on a stake of 25 returns 37, not 37.50.
- Bets run from 5 to 500 a hand. The bankroll starts at 1,000, and when it runs out the table refills it for nothing.
- Six decks are shuffled together and dealt from a shoe with the cut card three quarters of the way down. The hand that reaches it finishes, then the next deal starts with a fresh shuffle — and the counter on the felt is the real number of cards left, so a running count works.
Common questions
- Is this real-money gambling?
- No. Every chip on this site is virtual, there is nothing to deposit and nothing to win. It is a practice table and a way to pass ten minutes.
- Should I ever take insurance?
- Not unless you are counting cards. Insurance loses money over time for every basic strategy player, even when you are holding a blackjack.
- Does the dealer peek for blackjack?
- Yes. When the upcard is an ace or a ten-value card, the dealer checks the hole card before you act, so you never double or split into a dealer blackjack.
- Do I need an account?
- No. Your balance and statistics are stored in your own browser and never leave your device.
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