One of the oldest casino games at every one of the best online casino sites is blackjack. Fast-paced and simple to play, blackjack attracts punters from all over the globe. The rules are easy to grasp, and the fact that you have some input into how you play your hand gives you back a bit of control.

Blackjack is firmly lodged in our popular culture, a big part of the modern casino zeitgeist. The MIT blackjack team’s card-counting exploits, woven into books and even a feature film, put blackjack back in the national spotlight, a spot it originally earned because blackjack is just plain cool. The word blackjack calls to mind smoky casino floors, men in exquisitely tailored suits, stacks of chips, and intrigue.

This page looks at blackjack past, present, and future, why people love this simple European game, and how the game’s rules have changed over time. Our blackjack guide covers some of the most popular card counting systems including the KO and A-5 in addition to variations of the game, how to play online and blackjack strategy.

You will also find pages comparing the best sites to play blackjack online. This includes casinos with real money games, compatibility for Macs and mobile devices as well as bonus offers.

Last but not least, if you have any questions about online blackjack or blackjack in general, we offer an extensive FAQ guide with answers to over 100 blackjack questions.

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Online Blackjack Guide – Best Sites / Compatibility / Game Variants

The most significant difference between online blackjack and live blackjack are the options. By playing online you have more control over the kinds of games available to you, how you want to play them and even the payouts or betting limits.

Below is a sample list of the most popular pages on our site. This list includes real money sites, where to play for free, blackjack casinos for US players and even live dealer casinos. If you’ve never played a hand online, use the free game below to take it for a test drive.

Playing Blackjack on a Mobile Device & Apps

Our mobile section provides reviews and comparisons of online blackjack games compatible with a variety of devices. Use the links below to find casinos that offer blackjack games for your mobile device. Each review covers how to play for real money and free, bonuses for new players and game variations.

Part 1 - Blackjack Strategy, Odds & Terms

Part 1 of our blackjack FAQ answers strategy questions as well as terms, online play and odds.

Part 2 - Negative Variation, Insurance, & House Edge

Part 2 of our guide covers negative variation, insurance options, house edge, surrendering and more.

Part 3 - Card Counting, Deviation, Shills & Clumping

Part 3 answers questions for card counting, deviation, casino shills, decks and splitting.

Part 4 - Books, Systems, Online Play & Variations

Part 4 covers bankroll requirements, ebooks, blackjack systems, variations in the game and strategy.

How a Game of Blackjack Works

Players place a wager before any cards are dealt. Players who wager are then dealt two cards face up. The dealer is dealt one card face up and one card face down.

All players can choose to either stay at the point total they’re at, or they can press their luck and try to get their point total closer to 21 without going over. Once all the game’s players are done with their decisions, the blackjack dealer turns up the face-down card. In most modern blackjack games, the dealer must stand on any total of 17 or higher and must hit on totals of 16 or lower.

• • » Ace to Five Card Count
  • » KO Card Count
  • » High Low Card Count
  • » Card Counting Methods
  • » Blackjack Strategy Charts

• » Reducing the House Edge
• » Buying Insurance
• » What Are Negative Variations?
• » What Are Positive Variations?
• » The Odds in Blackjack?
• » Online vs. Live Blackjack
• » How Do I Play Perfect Blackjack?
• » Blackjack Tips
• » Dealer Probabilities
• » Blackjack charts
• » Single Deck Blackjack

Blackjack Strategy

Those are just the most basic rules for blackjack, but it’s easy to see where blackjack’s rules leave wiggle room for strategy. The most obvious advantage players have over the house is that they know exactly how the House is going to react to different point totals. If the House draws a total of 15, the House has to take another card. Players are the only ones at the blackjack table with true free will. This freedom to choose creates opportunities for strategic thinking and play.

Blackjack, because of the rules of the game, offers some of the best odds in the casino. Since the middle of the 20th century, blackjack strategy has been perfected by mathematicians and professional gamblers. Blackjack strategy cards lay out in plain English what moves are optimal for every possible blackjack hand. If you follow those basic blackjack strategy tips every hand, the House edge on an average blackjack game is approximately 0.5%. (Rules variants in some casinos can affect this house edge. For example, if a casino only pays out 6 to 5 on a blackjack instead of 3 to 2, the house edge goes up dramatically.)

Further attempts to apply strategy to blackjack led directly to the idea of keeping a mental count of which cards have been played. This is now called “card counting” or “counting cards.” Because card counting isn’t cheating, requiring only a great memory and a head for numbers, it’s a legitimate and legal strategy. But casinos retain the right to refuse service to suspected card counters, which makes it a risky strategy.

Blackjack has long occupied a starring role in casinos. Online casino gambling has brought the portside gamble once known as ventiuna into our living rooms. Card counters and professional gamblers, not to mention gambling cheats, have used the game’s rules to their advantage, winning millions of dollars and securing blackjack’s place in people’s minds as the go-to game for big bucks. As long as blackjack tables offer the most advantageous odds of any table game, expect to see crowds gathered around blackjack tables, pressing their luck for a piece of the casino’s coffers.

The History of Blackjack

The first known written reference to blackjack comes to us from a Spanish literary giant. Most famous for the farcical novel Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes was the first to describe the game ventiuna. All we know from Cervantes is that the object of the game was to score as close to 21 without going over, and that Ace cards could be worth either 1 or 11 points. Sound familiar?

Cervantes wrote the reference to blackjack in the early 17th century, meaning blackjack has been with us for at least 400 years. Since ventiuna was a game played among workers in port cities, it’s no surprise that the game, or versions of it, made its way around the world.

When ventiuna made its way to the UK, the British called it “pontoon,” a phonetic bastardization of the Spanish ventiuna. Pontoon and other versions of ventiuna around the world added a new wrinkle to the game, a reward for a hand made up of the Ace of Spades and the Jack of Clubs or Jack of Spades. Both of those Jacks are black, so it’s easy to see where the name blackjack comes from.

Like other casino and card games, blackjack became popular across America during the 1800s, as the frontier was settled and America’s borders spread to the west. Blackjack became a standard casino game; it would be difficult to find a casino in America or in most parts of the world that doesn’t offer at least one blackjack table.

Modern Blackjack Rules

The object of a game of blackjack today is the same as it was in the time of Cervantes: build a hand whose card point values are as close to 21 as possible without going over. In modern blackjack, face cards (Jacks, Queens and Kings) are worth 10 points, Aces are worth 1 or 11, and all other cards are worth their number.

There are three potential outcomes: the player wins, the House wins, or the player and the House tie, which is called a push. Any pair of cards made up of one Ace and one 10 is called a blackjack, and when it is dealt in the first two cards, the player automatically wins at 1.5 to 1 odds.

Winning blackjack just means beating the dealer’s point total without going over 21. The winner of a game of blackjack is a player closest to a total of 21 who hasn’t gone over.

Blackjack also has multiple variations to the game. Below is a list of links that will take you to our blackjack variations pages. Each game provides easy to understand instructions on how to play, tips for playing a particular game as well as strategies to try to counter the house edge. Most of the blackjack variations you see listed on this page are available at online blackjack casinos.

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Blackjack strategy, applied perfectly, makes blackjack one of the most potentially lucrative games in the casino. If you play blackjack by the numbers, the House only has an edge of half a percent. That means if you spend $100 at a blackjack table in an hour, and you play using perfect basic strategy, you only stand to lose about 50 cents. The low house edge makes blackjack a truly cheap form of entertainment.

Blackjack rules give the game a certain purity of probability, a statistical beauty that statisticians and math nerds have exploited over the years to come up with blackjack strategy. Odds and probabilities are a huge part of winning at blackjack, so if you want to win big money at the casino, you have to understand the game’s odds and probabilities.

Blackjack Math

Blackjack strategy cards are sold at every casino gift shop in Vegas. These cards range from simple “if ___ happens, do ___” suggestions all the way up to cards with multiple rule change options on strategy. Casinos sell these cards because most people are more interested in playing a game and making big gambles than methodically picking apart the House using blackjack math and a little plastic card.

Blackjack math gives players an informed opinion about what move to make next. Rather than taking a random gamble, blackjack strategy uses odds and probabilities to tell you the move most likely to end in you beating the House. Blackjack strategy tips are more than educated guesses, they have hard math to back them up.

Here are some blackjack math basics: any deck of 52 cards contains a certain number of cards worth 10 points and a certain number of cards worth their face value. The odds of pulling a single face value card, like a 7 or a 9, is 4 out of 52. or 7.69%.

There are 16 cards in a standard deck with a value of 10 points: four 10s, four Jacks, four Queens, and four Kings. That means the odds of drawing a 10-point card are 16 out of 52, or 30.8%.

Players are four times more likely to draw a card worth ten than any other card value. 10 point cards outnumber all others, so most blackjack strategy is built around figuring out the probability of the player or the dealer drawing those high point value cards.

Using Blackjack Odds & Probabilities

The math behind the game of blackjack has a direct effect on proper blackjack strategy. We just saw how much more likely a blackjack player is to draw a 10 point card than any other card, but how does that effect blackjack strategy? At the most basic level, knowing that you’re more likely to draw a card worth ten points makes a point total of 12 or more an anxious game decision.

Another example of how blackjack odds play a big part in player strategy is what blackjack experts call bust probability. Bust probability is a number that indicates how often a certain point total will lead to a bust. Since the blackjack dealer doesn’t have free will, and must stand at 17 in most casinos, his bust likelihood is higher when his point total is 16, because dealers have to hit at 16. This rule also affects early dealer point totals—imagine a dealer with an upcard of 6. He has to hit, and we already know how much more likely you are to draw a ten point card than any other, putting him in great danger of drawing a 16 and being forced to hit into a bust.

Other Blackjack Odds & Probabilities

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Blackjack math is straightforward, since each card in the deck has its own consistent point value and there’s a clear line drawn between winner and loser. Applying a little bit of math, blackjack experts have figured out the odds of being dealt different types of blackjack hands. Your chance of drawing a natural 21, and winning instantly, is 4.8%. Play 100 hands of blackjack and you’re likely to only be dealt a natural blackjack 5 times.

That makes blackjack sound like a hard game to beat, but the truth couldn’t be more different. Those same odds show that the most common hand dealt in blackjack is the decision hand, any point total between 1 and 16. These hands are dealt 38.7% of the time, meaning that out of every 100 hands you play, you’ll have to make a decision only about 40 times. In the other 60 hands, the decision will be made for you.

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If you play with basic strategy, and make the right play according to that strategy for each of those decision hands, you can minimize the house edge.

A final trick to using blackjack odds to beat the House is considering two crucial statistics at once. We’ve already talked about dealer bust probability and player edge against the House. Just combine the two statistics for an idea of when you have the best chance to beat the blackjack dealer.

For each dealer upcard, mathematicians have figured out their likelihood of drawing to a bust. For example, if a dealer’s upcard is a 2, his bust probability is 38%. Factor in the player’s advantage gained by using basic strategy against each upcard, and you get a good look at when you have your best shot at beating the House.

The House is in the most danger of busting or losing to basic strategy when the dealer’s upcard is a 5 or 6. When the dealer shows a 5 upcard, his bust probability is 42.89%. Since players have a 23.2% advantage against that upcard if they play with perfect strategy, it’s clear that when a dealer shows a 5, players are more likely to beat the dealer.

Using blackjack math and odds to your advantage against the casino is called basic blackjack strategy. Make sure and pick up a blackjack strategy chart next time you hit the casino, and work on memorizing the proper play for different game situations. Following the lead of smarter blackjack players who have gone before you is important if you like making money on the gambling floor.