Blackjack

Do you like blackjack? We hope so, because you’re kind of wasting your time if you’re reading this and you don’t. If you do, you’re not alone, Blackjack is the most popular casino card game in the world. You may have your theories as to why that is. We reckon is because it’s really easy to play, but repays closer study, can be played for low or high stakes, it is possible to bring an element of skill into the game, and you just might win big. Stay with us to learn more in this blackjack guide. Blackjack rules, variations, blackjack tips and strategies, and not lastly – how to choose the best blackjack sites and online blackjack bonuses.

5 tips to choose a blackjack online casino

Online blackjack remains the world’s most popular casino card game. It’s relatively simple to play, yet like most gambling games, has a rich heritage and a lot of depth to the gameplay. These days you can play a large variety of variants, and the value it offers to players in the shape of a generous theoretical return to player is the best in the online casino game world.

Here are five ways to play at the best blackjack online casinos:

1 – Safety first

You should never take your online security for granted. Play only at blackjack sites that are licensed in the country you are in. Look for a good quality blackjack casino site with good safety, privacy and security policies and membership of industry bodies.

This can feel boring when you want to get on and play, but mistakes in picking a site, or setting passwords can be supremely costly, so do your research and have a good online security protocol set up yourself.

A good reputation and a big name go a long way to seeing you to safe play.

2 – The game’s the thing!

Do you remember when everything used to be simple? Blackjack is no longer just a single game of 21.

There are a load of online blackjack variations. The blackjack site you play at should offer you a choice and should have your favourite.

Among the popular current variants are:

Spanish blackjack; blackjack switch; Superfun 21; Pontoon.

There are more, including branded games.

3 – Life is life!

The revolution in online casino gambling in the past couple of years has been the blossoming of live casino games.

Widespread access to super-high-speed internet and mobile internet devices together with huge leaps in streaming speed and tech means you can now play blackjack at online casinos that provide something very close to the experience of real casino blackjack.

High-quality images, skilled dealers, and the chance to add a bit of social interaction to your live blackjack experience all make the live-dealer blackjack experience exciting the must-have for a 2019 blackjack live casino.

4 – Value is Valuable

Online casino blackjack offers good value to players, but that’s no good if the site you’re playing at doesn’t offer the same.

Smart players shop around. Smart players know that the best time to play a game or at a blackjack site is when it’s newly launched, and there are deals, discounts and offers up for grabs.

Look for specific online blackjack offers. They’re relatively few and far between – most welcome offers are slots based – so when you see them sign up and cash in.

5 – Free is Even Better

A game you don’t know how to play is one that is going to cost you money quickly.

Most of us like to play for money – that’s the point of online casino sites – but if you don’t know the ropes you’re much better off playing for free first.

Online live blackjack games are unlikely to offer free games because a dealer must be paid for whether you’re gambling or not. But video versions of online blackjack should have a demo mode where you can hone your skills.

Particularly if you want to learn a new variant, try a few hands for free first.

Should you claim an online blackjack casino bonus?

Claiming bonuses is almost always the right thing to do. But notice that almost because it’s important.

Online blackjack games are super popular. If you spend any time in the online casino world you’ll know that popular games are a great way for online casino sites to tempt in players. Describing such bonuses is the bread and butter of sites like ours.

To be clear: we’re advising you to take those bonuses in anything other than exceptional circumstances.

Those circumstances are:

When you are not 100% sure that an online blackjack site is safe and secure.

A €10 bonus won’t count for much if handing over your credit card details in order to pick it up costs you a month’s wages. So don’t let a good looking bonus be the thing that makes you turn off your personal quality and safety filters.

Be especially wary of no deposit online blackjack casino bonuses. These are rare for a reason – it’s bad business to give away money for nothing.

Being aware of your financial and data security online also means reading the small print on a bonus. Most bonus deals are relatively similar, and you’ll soon feel you know the details before you’ve read them.

Still read them.

It’s unlikely that they’ll hide any details that will put you off but you should check.

One exception we would encourage you to be aware of is terms and conditions on an online blackjack bonus that tie you into a longer-term relationship with a casino site that you aren’t happy with.

Play-through or wagering requirements will demand that you spend a good deal of time and money at a site before you can withdraw money won with bonus funds. Occasionally you will see terms that also stop you from withdrawing ANY money before you’ve spent a large sum at a site. In this case, you may decide that – if a site is good – it’s better to just go through and play Blackjack without cashing a bonus.

Cashing a blackjack bonus is almost always a one-time deal too. You’ll get one shot at most of them, including blackjack welcome bonuses. If you’re unhappy with one, you may want to wait for a better one to come along.

Rules of Blackjack

The game of Blackjack is very simple.

The gamblers do not play against each other – however many of them there are at a table – they play against the dealer.

The aim of the game is to get closer to 21 than the dealer without going over and going bust.

Aces are worth either 1 or 11, depending on which is to the player’s example. Cards 2 to 9 are worth their face value. Court cards are worth 10.

A blackjack or “natural” of an Ace and a 10-point card is the most valuable hand and trumps a hand totalling 21 made up of more than two cards.

Playing Blackjack

This is how a standard game of American blackjack should go:

First, an initial stake is laid before the cards are dealt.

Then two cards are dealt face down to each player and to the dealer. The dealer’s second card is dealt face-up, on top of his “hole” card.

When that face-up card is an Ace, an “insurance” bet is offered to players. This is a side bet at a 2/1 pay-out that pays out if the hole card is a 10, completing a blackjack. This isn’t available in all games and is usually limited in size.

If a 10-point card or Ace is showing for the dealer then he can check his hold card – called a peek – and will reveal if he has a blackjack and the game is over. Insurance bets on an ace win.

Then players get to play.

The dealer offers cards to the players who may either “stand” and stick with what they have, or ask to be “hit” with another card.

A player may also “double” and increase his bet 100%, but must take another card and cannot take more than that.

Pairs can be “split” as can any hand totalling 10 (so 9 and Ace, or 6 and 4). The player must add a new stake for his new hand, which will be dealt a second card and handled the same as any other hand. The exception is with Aces, which can only be hit once after splitting. After splitting, no blackjack can be scored, and a natural is treated as a multi-card 21.

The limit on splitting is usually to a total of four hands.

Players can also surrender and throw in the towel to get half of their bet back.

Once all the players have ended their play the dealer reveals his hand.

He will then play out his hand according to a set of rules that mean he must add a card to totals of 16 or less.

In some blackjack games, a “soft 17” is hit. A soft 17 is one that totals 17 while including an Ace counted as 11.

The dealer finishes his hand and compares with each player, paying even money to any player who is closer to 21 than him without going bust. If the gambler goes bust, then everyone left in the game wins. Blackjacks often payout with odds.

Blackjack Payouts, Blackjack Odds & Blackjack Strategies

Blackjack Payouts

The blackjack payouts are simple: everything is paid at evens with the exception of blackjacks, which are normally paid at 3/2 or 6/5. However, there’s no reason why a blackjack site can’t offer better odds, or simply pay 1/1 on all pay-outs so make sure you check the site you’re playing at.

Blackjack Odds are extremely complicated. The game can be played with multiple packs of cards, meaning there can be hundreds of cards. The potential number of combinations is enormous. The whole point of card counting in blackjack is to work out which cards have gone to give you a slight edge on these probability sums. It is an extremely demanding art, and one should only attempt if you are very committed.

Some probabilities can be measured though. For example, the chances of going bust from 20 is 92%; 19 =  85%; 18 = 77%; 17 = 69%; 16 = 62%; 15 = 58%; 14 = 56%; 13 = 39%; 12 = 31%; and 11 and under is 0%.

Blackjack Strategies

Knowing these figures is useful, and if you have the time you should certainly read over the probabilities of various hands being dealt.

Each hand will remain random, and even counting cards can only improve your odds of picking the next card unless you’re good enough at it to know what the final card in a shoe is going to be.

Leaving card counting aside there is a lot to be said for some simple blackjack betting strategies.

Here’s a fairly standard list of good blackjack tips that might be useful for you when you step up to the table next:

• Always split 8s and Aces. This one that everyone always remembers. A 16 is the worse deal in the game so you want to get rid of it.
• Always take another card if you’re dealt 8 or less.
• Of course, stand if you have 17 (hard, so with an Ace worth 1) or more.
• Always hit soft (with an Ace worth 11) 15 or less.
• Always stand when you hit a soft 19.
• Double your bet on 10s or 11s, if your hand is worth more than the dealers.
• On 10s or 11s when the dealer’s hand is worth more than yours just hit.
• Surrender a 16 against a 10.

Outside of those situations, you can play these rules when the dealer has a card between a 2 and a 6 showing:

• Double when you have a 9.
• Stand when you have between a 12 and a 16.
• Double when you have between a soft 16 and a soft 18.
• Split 2s, 3s, 6s, 7s, and 9s.

As you can see that’s quite a lot to keep in your mind while playing a game, and if you seriously want to use a blackjack strategy in the heat of a game then you need to put in some time and study to get on top of it properly.

And this is just a very simple strategy. There are many many variants.

Online Blackjack

The game of blackjack could have been designed with online play in mind. It is very simple, both in the way it is played and in the way it is viewed.

All you need is the technology to show a couple of cards, generate some random numbers, and do some simple sums to collect the cash. Blackjack was a natural for online casinos and even now the technology of online gambling has moved on by leaps and bounds, players still click in their droves on the blackjack tables.

The game works particularly well on the portrait-format screens of most mobile devices. Even with live dealers, this is a game that can be played in a very compact frame.

You shouldn’t play online blackjack any less carefully than you would play the game in a casino. The key things to remember are to check the rules of the particular table you are playing at, and to remember that even in the virtual world losses can be very real, so gamble safely.

Online Blackjack for fun

The best way to play online blackjack safely and healthily is to play it for fun.

If you accept that this is an enjoyable pastime then you are likely to spend more sensibly and to cut any losses that you might incur. Blackjack is a fascinating and historic game and there’s never been a better time to play it.

The many names of Blackjack

Blackjack is a nice simple name for what is now a family of card games.

Almost all of them have very strong similarities and are based around the number 21.

In fact, the number predates the game blackjack. The game’s history is incredibly long: you’ll find some online guides linking it back to Ancient China (that said, you can find a site to say anything you want somewhere online).

The first reliable printed records are European though.

Twenty-one appears in the pages of a work by the author of one of history’s greatest works of literature – seriously, give it a read, it’s amazing – Don Quixote. Miguel de Cervantes used the Spanish, veintiuna to name the game. The characters, sadly, cheat!

There are still a number of variations of blackjack that use the Spanish deck, called a baraja deck, for the game. There are no 8s, 9s, or 10s.

French casino players were enjoying a quick game of vingt et un by the start of the 18^th century. Cards are very portable, and card games travel, so it wasn’t long before French travellers were whiling away long, boring journeys across the newly discovered American prairies with a game that they taught their new countrymen.

The game meandered through history until in 1931 the good legislators of Nevada decided to legalise gambling. Vingt-et-Un had its fans, but paying customers in legal casinos wanted more out of a game, and so was born blackjack.

That’s right, blackjack is a customer service and branding trick! The Nevadans added an extra pay-out and invented the idea of the uniquely good blackjack hand, originally made up of an Ace and a BlackJack. Sadly, the 10/1 pay-out they made on this hand hasn’t survived into many modern online tables.

Just as players try to work out games in order to win, so do casinos run simulations and endless sums in order to stop you winning too often. It is from those sums and the potential danger of card counting that the modern game – played with multiple packs of cards – has evolved.

Blackjack Card Counting

Most casino games are entirely random, or as close to random as makes no difference for the player. Blackjack is one of the very few games where human players can actually – sometimes with computer assistance – outthink the game.

Card counting is very difficult and requires a skill.

The legal status of card counting is somewhat up for discussion. Because a card counter is not interfering with the “equipment” of the game or cheating in any way – so long as no hidden devices are used – they are not breaking the law.

However, they are certainly breaking the hearts of casino bosses, who will ask that they leave if they are seen tallying up too obviously.

Card counting does not guarantee wins and the game remains random. It is simply a way of increasing your chances of winning by knowing what might come next and betting or splitting or doubling accordingly. The game remains one of the percentages, even with the best card counting, but percentages can make a big difference, particularly if you play with big money.

Blackjack already has the lowest house edge of any of the mainstream casino games. It’s said to be about 0.5% in standard games. Card counting can put the odds in the player’s favour, but you need a good card counting strategy.

High and Low Counting:

Basically, you count cards under 10, and cards worth 10 or more (including Aces). You add one when you see low numbers and take one off when you see high numbers, and when you have a positive number the odds are in your favour and you should risk more, going higher.

However, this only works in a straightforward way with single decks. Add more decks and you’ll need to factor in another set of sums.

The Ace/Five system asks players to add one to a total when they see a five and to take one off when they see an Ace. Bet more when the count is positive.

There is also a strategy called the KO strategy that is more complicated and said to be used in some of the famous big wins attributed to card counting. It is worth exploring if you have the time.

Card Counting as a blackjack strategy is actually one of the only gambling systems that do have a realistic chance of offering a better chance of winning. However, it is a long-term strategy, not something that will guarantee you a win, and it needs a large stake to really pay dividends.

Those casino sums we’ve mentioned work against you too, and some rule changes, like paying 6/5 on blackjacks, eliminate the slight edge that card counters have.

You also have to do it right!

And, in online blackjack, you are up against random number generators. Yes, the game simulates the experience of a genuine card game, but the cards are shuffled more regularly and in a way that gives no visual clues.

Blackjack Variations

Most of what we have covered so far has stuck to standard blackjack. This is the game you will see most often.

However, there are plenty of opportunities to switch things up if you fancy a change. Most of them keep most of the fundamentals in place.

Here are some of the most popular blackjack variants.

Spanish 21

This is a trademarked game, so check what version you’re playing.

The official version is played with the 48-card Spanish deck (the standard deck with the 10s removed) in sets of six or eight decks. The game usually features a late surrender that allows players to hand in their cards against a non-blackjack hand. All player blackjacks win.

There are a number of other variations, and if you are playing Spanish 21 online we urge you to check out the rules and the return to player thoroughly before you start. As ever, if there’s free blackjack or free Spanish 21 available then fill your boots as you learn to play.

Double Exposure Blackjack

The clue’s in the name for this game, which simply features no hole card for the dealer.

In addition, dealers win ties with the exception of blackjacks, which only pay even money, and splitting is limited to a single time.

There are lots of other twists that may or may not apply. Read the rules before you play.

Double Attack Blackjack

There are a lot of optional changes in this game, which is played with eight Spanish decks. The dealer will hold soft 17s in this game, and peek to see if he has a blackjack. Splitting is allowed up to four hands, and players can double after a split – only aces cannot be resplit, and split aces can only be hit once. Blackjacks pay just evens, but players may surrender at any time and can double only once.

Insurance bets are allowed, paying at 5/2, and there is a side bet called “bustit”, that pays out if the dealer busts on three cards.

The double attack is a second betting round that takes place after the dealer’s first card has been dealt face up.

Blackjack Switch

The main variation in this game is that the players are allowed to cheat. Well, not quite, they are allowed to play two hands, on which they make equal-sized bets, and they may switch the second cards dealt between these hands to get the best combinations.

The game also has a number of other standard variations from the blackjack rulebook, and uniquely, allows dealers to draw hands on 22, and pays only evens on blackjack. Look for blackjack switch online, because it’s a fun game that has deeper gameplay in a solo game than standard blackjack.

European Blackjack & American Blackjack

The biggest divide in gambling tends to be the big old Atlantic Ocean.

Blackjack is no exception. Although the difference is quite slight in appearance, the effect on the game is quite profound.

The difference is in the hole!

American blackjack dealers deal themselves two cards. The first is hidden, and the second is face up. This opens up the possibility of ending losing hands for players early via the peek that we’ve mentioned earlier in this guide.

European Blackjack is played with both cards face up. But crucially, the second card is dealt after the other players have completed their hands.

This makes no difference in the odds of the hand, or on the way the dealer plays the cards, he is dealt. The only change in play is in that peek, which gives players a vital clue to what hides in the hole, even if the dealer doesn’t declare a blackjack.

European blackjack is generally played with fewer decks – two, against six to eight.

European blackjack is generally played with limited doubling only on 9, 10s or 11s.

Splitting tends to be more limited in European blackjack, with only 10-cards splittable and only one split allowed. American players can split any pair and can usually do so up to four times.

The best online blackjack casinos

So what should you look for in the best online blackjack casino?

The short answer is that you should look for what you look for in any other casino: good strong licensing, so you know you have a fair game; good safe gambling advice and customer care and help options; and a great looking site with a big choice of games.

This still gives you a lot of choices, and when it comes to online video blackjack you have hundreds of blackjack sites to choose from.

Among the extras, you can look for free online blackjack, so you can check out the rules before you risk your own money.

Live dealer blackjack is another extra that you might enjoy.

Blackjack tournaments are another way to play with relatively lower risks. Tournament play in casinos pits you against other players for a single prize. It may be based on actual wins and losses on a game, or it may be based on points, so check that you know the rules before you pitch in.