How to play blackjack

The object of the game

The point of blackjack is to score points. 21 on two cards (a natural blackjack) is ideal, fewer is fine as long as you still beat the dealer’s total, but going over 21 is strictly off-limits¹. Plenty of people can play at one dealer’s table at once, yet each plays only against the dealer: the other players’ results have no bearing on yours.

If a bust (going over) means a loss, then a push (a tie) — the same total for player and dealer — almost always gets you your bet back. Keep in mind the edge a natural blackjack carries, though: 21 on two cards (an ace plus any 10-value card) counts as a stronger hand (combination) than 21 built from three or more cards.

Card values

Points come from cards: the dealer deals them, at least two apiece, and whether to take another or stand is your call, based on how many points you already have. The scoring is the same across every blackjack variant.

The ace stands apart for its flexibility: it can count as 11 or 1, depending on what’s best for the hand.

Where to begin

Even once you know the basic rules of blackjack, it pays to understand exactly what you’re doing at the table or on the screen. In short, the sequence goes like this:

1. at a land-based casino such as Marina Bay Sands or Resorts World Sentosa, exchange cash for chips (Singapore citizens and PRs pay the entry levy first — S$150 per 24 hours or S$3,000 a year — while foreigners enter free with a passport); online this happens automatically once you’ve launched a game;
2. launch the game, or at a land-based casino take a seat at a blackjack table;
3. familiarise yourself with the rules of that table — there are many variations, with meaningful differences in player actions and value;
4. note the table limits — this can affect how you manage your bankroll or nudge you towards a different table;
5. place your bets by putting chips in one or more of the dedicated betting circles;
6. at a land-based casino, learn the hand signals (tapping the table means hit, a wave of the hand means stand); online, study the interface closely to work out how to send the same signals to the live dealer or the random number generator.

Online, whatever money is still yours can be withdrawn at any time simply by stopping play. At a land-based casino, let the dealer know you’re leaving and cash in your winnings (or whatever chips you have left) before you head out.

How the cards are dealt

To start, the dealer deals two cards to each player and to themselves. Players’ cards are always face up (visible to everyone at the table), while the dealer has one card face up (the upcard) and one face down (the hole card). Dealing this way gives you no clear read on the strength of the dealer’s hand, but does allow educated guesses about its value. In some blackjack variants² a no-hole-card rule applies — the dealer doesn’t deal themselves a second card straight away, but takes it only after the players have made their decisions.

Player actions

If your first two cards give you a natural blackjack, the hand is over for you — you’ve already won; likewise, the dealer announces a 21 to the players, because the hand can’t continue after that. If no one has reached 21 after two cards, your options are as follows.

Hit (take another)

If your total is too low to win and you’re not worried about busting, the sensible move is to take another card. Say you’re holding a 4 and a 5 — 9 in total; standing on that is pointless, because you’re almost certain to lose and no additional card can hurt you³. If, on the other hand, you hold a hard⁴ 12 or more, the hand may look weak, but hitting calls for caution, since there’s a real chance of busting.

Stand (that’s enough)

Even without a natural blackjack, you can hold a strong two-card hand — say two 10-value cards, or a combination like 10+9. In that situation you can win with the cards you already have, and drawing another is an unjustified risk of busting. The smarter move is to stop taking cards and wait for the hand to play out.

Double Down

Sometimes your chances look very good while the dealer’s look poor. For example, you hold a 9–11 (any 10-value card makes it strong, and on an 11 a 21 is very likely), while the dealer shows a low upcard and so definitely can’t make a natural blackjack, plus runs a serious risk of busting. In that situation you may double down — and win twice as much if the move pays off. The catch: after a double, the dealer gives you only one card — if it’s low, you’re left with a weak hand and stand to lose twice as much money.

Split

If the first two cards from the dealer are a pair (say, two tens), you can split them into two hands, doubling your stake at the same time. From then on you’re effectively playing two hands at once — both may win, only one may win, or you may lose both. Splitting isn’t compulsory — sometimes it makes no sense at all and hitting is wiser — but two eights and two aces are recommended for a split in any situation⁵.

Surrender

Sometimes you can see that your hand is fairly weak and the odds of losing are high; that’s when surrender may be appropriate — you take back half the bet and forfeit the other half. This is worthwhile, for instance, when you hold 16 and the dealer’s upcard is a 9–11. Surrender isn’t always available, though — some blackjack variants simply don’t offer it; and different tables set different cut-off points after which you can no longer surrender and keep half your bet⁶.

Extra options and rules

Some blackjack variants use special rules that let you place an additional bet on top of the main one.

Insurance / Even Money

Insurance against a dealer blackjack (Insurance) is offered everywhere and comes into play when the dealer’s upcard is an ace; the hole card then has a good chance of being a 10-value card, making a natural blackjack, so players are given a way to protect themselves against that scenario. Insurance is a separate bet of half the main stake that, if it wins, pays 2:1, shielding you from the loss⁷. Don’t overrate it, though: taking insurance puts extra money at risk (more often than not the dealer won’t have a natural blackjack — and then you lose the insurance money for nothing), and the long-run RTP of the move is just 92.6%.

Important: experienced players advise against taking insurance — literally ever.

Even Money is insurance against a dealer blackjack without the extra bet, in the situation where you already hold a blackjack. In effect it insures you not against a loss but against a tie, since Even Money pays 1:1 straight away; on a push (if the dealer also has a natural blackjack) the bet would simply be returned, whereas here, on a main bet of S$100, you’re guaranteed to pocket S$100 on top whether or not the dealer has a blackjack. If players always turned down Even Money, they’d collect more over the long run⁸, but psychologically it’s easier to accept an immediate, guaranteed win, even a slightly smaller one. On the whole, Even Money isn’t recommended in most cases either.

An important caveat: experienced card counters can, when the remaining deck is heavily weighted towards high cards, take insurance and Even Money for sound reasons — but for a true beginner this is probably too much maths.

Side bets

Classic blackjack rules usually don’t offer side bets, and experienced players dislike them because of the high house edge, but beginners — especially those playing for fun — may enjoy the option. Here are a few popular examples:

• perfect pairs — pays 5:1 when your first two cards are the same rank in different colours, 10:1 for different suits of the same colour, 25:1 for two cards of the same suit (only in multi-deck blackjack, obviously);
• 21+3 — a bet that your two cards and the dealer’s upcard form a poker hand, such as a straight flush;
• lucky ladies — a bet that your two cards make a 20-point hand, with the top tiers being a pair of queens, a pair of queens of spades, and especially a pair of queens of spades when the dealer has a blackjack.

At some blackjack tables the range of side bets is much wider, but their RTP never tops 98% (and that’s a generous estimate), while the RTP of ‘ordinary’ blackjack played by basic strategy sits around 99.5%. So if you’re after value — or at least the slowest possible drain on your bankroll — remember: there’s no more correct way to play blackjack than to make 21 your one and only goal.

How the dealer plays

Whether you’re playing blackjack with a live dealer or a random number generator, keep in mind that the dealer follows a fixed set of instructions and never deviates from them. The dealer must hit until they reach more than 16, and on a hard 17 or higher must stand.

Rules differ from table to table on how the dealer should play 17. There are two options: stand on soft 17 (S17) and stand on hard 17 (H17). In the first case an ace in the hand counts as 11 — if it makes 17, the dealer stands, even though technically they could hit again without any immediate risk of busting; this rule favours the player, because the dealer doesn’t squeeze the most out of a hand with an ace. Under H17, the dealer stands only on a 17 that doesn’t include an ace, or where the ace counts as 1; so a dealer’s “ace and six” doesn’t stop them, and they keep trying to improve the hand.

Rule variations

Blackjack has plenty of optional rules that aren’t tied to any given variant — meaning they can turn up in any combination at one table or another. Before starting a session, read the detailed rules of the specific table and pick one whose conditions suit you. To make that choice objectively, you need to understand what these rules mean, so let’s run through the main ones briefly.

• Double After Split (DAS) — lets you double on any (or all) of the hands you hold after a split. This lets you double profitably on split hands — it’s been calculated to raise long-run RTP by 0.12–0.15%. Without DAS, doubling after a split isn’t allowed.
• Resplit Aces (RSA) — if you were dealt two aces and split them, and another ace lands on one of the hands, that hand can be split again. This is valuable, since splitting aces is always worthwhile, and resplitting them raises long-run RTP by 0.03–0.08%. Without this rule, aces can only be split once.
• 6:5 payout — an alternative to the standard natural-blackjack payout, which is usually 3:2. Always choose 3:2: on a S$100 bet with a natural blackjack you collect S$150 in winnings, whereas a 6:5 payout would bring only S$120. Over the long run, a 6:5 payout hits your bankroll very hard — it raises the house edge by a full 1.39%.

Important: always sit at a 3:2 table. A 6:5 table looks the same, but costs you noticeably more — all else being equal, choose 3:2.

• Number of decks — the fewer there are, the more predictable specific cards become and the more potentially favourable the game is for the player, especially a card counter.

• Deck penetration (penetration) — a measure of the point at which the discards are shuffled back into the shoe, expressed as a percentage (how much of the shoe is dealt before the cards are mixed back in). A higher figure benefits a card counter, but a noticeable advantage only appears at 70% penetration and above. In games with a random number generator (RNG) or a continuous shuffling machine (CSM) there’s effectively no discard pile — every hand starts from a full set of cards, so your chances are always the same.
• Surrender — one of the player actions, letting you take back half your bet when the odds of losing are high; we covered this option above.

Now you have a better grasp of a table’s possible features, and from its description you’ll be able to gauge how favourable it is to play there.

Basic strategy

Types of hands

Classifying hands by type is useful if you plan to use basic strategy later on. Broadly, there are three types of hand:

1. a hard hand — one that either has no ace at all, or has one that counts as 1;
2. a soft hand — one that contains an ace counted as 11; whatever happens, you can always take another card without busting — at worst the ace drops to 1 and the hand becomes hard;
3. a pair — a hand of two identical cards (suit and colour don’t matter), notable for the option to split, i.e. separate it into two hands.

With the terminology for hands sorted, we can move on to basic strategy.

How to play with the best odds

What sets blackjack apart is that you can work out mathematically the probability of a given card coming out, and from that calculate your next moves — which, while not guaranteeing a win, give you the best chance of success. This is blackjack basic strategy: by following it, you maximise your RTP at a table with a specific set of rules.

Important: every basic-strategy chart gives plays for a specific set of rules; if you play at a table with different rules using the ‘wrong’ chart, some plays will be suboptimal, and that lowers RTP by around 0.2%. Confident use of basic strategy, on the other hand, brings the RTP of classic blackjack to an average of 99.5%, and with the rare combination of every player-friendly rule, even up to 99.85%.

Here, for example, is a basic-strategy chart with the recommended plays for hard hands — assuming we’re playing multi-deck blackjack with the dealer standing on soft 17 (S17) and doubling after a split (DAS) allowed.

And here are the recommendations for soft hands under the same rules.

And here are the recommendations for pairs under these same rules.

Basic strategy helps you avoid illogical plays, but doesn’t guarantee success — that still depends on luck and comes down to the card that’s dealt.

Important: even with basic strategy, gambling can’t be treated as a source of guaranteed income: don’t stake money you’re not prepared to lose. For the same reason, casinos don’t let anyone under the legal gambling age play — in Singapore that’s 21, both at Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa and for a Singapore Pools account: younger players tend to be too impulsive and can’t take responsibility for decisions that lead to losses.

Etiquette

Land-based casinos have etiquette rules they strongly encourage you to follow, unless you want to get dirty looks or be shown the door altogether. Here’s what you should do:

• stick to the casino’s dress code if there is an official one;
• touch only the surface of the table in front of you, and avoid touching ‘other people’s’ boxes (table sections);
• be respectful towards the dealer and the other players at the table;
• if you’re winning big, tip the dealer a little — but only where the house rules allow it, so check first.

And here’s what you absolutely shouldn’t do:

• even if drinks are free for players, don’t overdo it — a drunk player loses more often, and it can be unpleasant for your neighbours at the table too;
• once a hand has started, don’t touch the table until every player has their two cards;
• don’t be overly chatty with your table neighbours — they may not want to talk;
• never touch any cards other than the ones the dealer gave you.

Individual casinos may have other house rules of their own — read them in advance to avoid misunderstandings. These days the best source of information on a casino’s rules is its official website.

Table layout

Let’s look at how a table is laid out. Click the numbered points on the diagram (or the ← → arrows) to step through the elements — the shoe, the chip tray, the betting boxes, the insurance line, the arcs with payouts and dealer rules. The labels on the felt are the ones printed on real tables: they’re part of the playing surface, and in a real game they look exactly like this.

A little table terminology won’t hurt a beginner either:

• betting circle (sometimes it’s actually a rectangle) — a small area of the table where you place your bets, including several if you’re playing more than one hand;
• box (box, spot) — a section set aside for a single player: it holds both their betting circle and their cards, and most tables have room for 5–7 boxes;
• shoe — the device that dispenses the cards, where the deck is ‘stored’, positioned to the dealer’s left;
• dealer’s card area — the box where the cards the dealer deals to themselves sit, opposite the other players;
• discard tray — a clear tray for discards, positioned to the dealer’s right, which lets card counters gauge the current penetration.

As a rule, the layout of blackjack tables is broadly the same across every version of the game.

Tips

Seasoned players will find these tips obvious, but they’ll genuinely come in handy for a beginner:

• never split pairs of tens, jacks, queens and kings;
• always split pairs of eights and aces, whatever the dealer’s upcard;
• never double a hand worth more than 11;
• use cheat sheets with basic strategy or card-counting prompts — especially playing online, where no one can see you.

Blackjack is a game in which knowledge and skill matter, so read up on the material and lock it in with the practice tools available — including right here on our site.