Online Blackjack: Rules, Basic Strategy and the Tables Worth a Seat

Online blackjack is the card game 21 played against a dealer: get closer to 21 than the dealer without going over, and a two-card 21, a blackjack, pays 3 to 2 at a decent table. Played with basic strategy under good rules, the house edge is about half a per cent, the lowest of any common casino game; played on hunches, it is several times that.

Below are the rules, the strategy in short form, the table conditions to check before sitting down, and the difference between a computer-dealt game and live blackjack. The game is 18+ only, online or off.

How a hand of online blackjack runs

Cards from 2 to 10 count at face value, jacks, queens and kings count 10, and an ace counts 1 or 11, whichever suits the hand. You and the dealer each get two cards; one of the dealer's is face up. You then act: hit for another card, stand, double your stake for exactly one more card, or split a pair into two separate hands with a second stake. Some tables offer surrender, giving up half the stake to fold a bad hand.

Once you stand, the dealer plays by fixed rules: draw to 16, stand on 17 or more. The dealer has no choices to make, which is why the game can be solved. Go over 21 and you lose, even if the dealer busts afterwards. That single rule, players act first, is where the house edge comes from.

Basic strategy in a few lines

Basic strategy is the mathematically best play for every combination of your hand and the dealer's up card. The full chart is a grid of a few hundred cells, but most of its value sits in a handful of rules for the usual multi-deck game where the dealer stands on soft 17:

• Always split aces and eights. Never split tens or fives.
• Double on 11 against any dealer card from 2 to 10, and on 10 against 2 to 9.
• Stand on hard 17 or more, every time.
• With 12 to 16, stand against a dealer 2 to 6 (but hit 12 against a 2 or 3) and hit against 7 or higher.
• Decline insurance and even money.

Learn those and you will play most hands correctly. The remaining cells, mostly soft hands and doubles on 9, are worth a printed chart beside the keyboard. Nothing in the rules of the game stops you keeping one open while you play.

Table rules to check before you play blackjack online

Two blackjack tables can look identical and cost very different amounts. Check the rules panel for these lines:

Rule	Better for you	Worse for you
Blackjack pays	3 to 2	6 to 5
Dealer on soft 17	Stands	Hits
Doubling	Any two cards, and after splitting	Only on 9, 10 or 11
Surrender	Offered	Not offered

The payout on a blackjack is the big one. At 3 to 2, a EUR 10 blackjack returns EUR 25: EUR 15 profit and the stake. At 6 to 5 the same hand returns EUR 22. That three-euro gap, on a hand you get roughly once in every 21, adds well over a percentage point to the house edge and turns the best game in the room into an average one.

Insurance and side bets

When the dealer shows an ace, you are offered insurance: a side bet at 2 to 1 that the dealer has blackjack. It sounds like protection and is nothing of the kind. The dealer's hidden card is a ten-value card less than a third of the time, so the price is too short. Decline it. The same goes for most side bets on pairs or poker hands: they are where the table recovers the margin basic strategy took away.

Live blackjack against the computer game

Computer blackjack reshuffles the virtual deck for every hand. Live blackjack deals from a shoe in a studio, with a real dealer and a timer for decisions. The rules sheet decides the edge in both; the live version is slower and usually has higher minimum stakes, which keeps the hourly cost down. Some live formats seat unlimited players on one dealer hand, each making their own decisions, which helps when tables are full. For the studios and sites that carry them, see our live dealer casinos.

No.	Runner	Form	Licence	Verdict	Links
1	KCKaramba CasinoAspire Global International Ltd	1-4-5-4-5	Foreign licence	Each-way	Visit
2	LPLucky Pants BingoRank Interactive (Gibraltar) Ltd	3-5-2-4-4	Foreign licence	Each-way	Visit
3	Midnite CasinoMidnite Europe Limited, Level 3 (Suite 2327) Tower Business Centre,...	2-4-5-5-5	Foreign licence	Watch	Visit
4	MegarushML Entertainment Casino Limited and ML Entertainment Gaming Limited	4-4-4-3-5	Foreign licence	Watch	Visit
5	BEBetnflixL.C.S Limited (C-64070)	4-4-6-4-5	Foreign licence	Watch	Visit

Form reads licence, markets, payments, safer-play tools, terms; 1 is best. How we rate. 18+ only.

The list matches our roulette selection because the same sites carry the live tables and hold up best on licence and terms. Not one of them deals blackjack under an Irish gaming licence, since none has been issued. The full rankings are in our online casinos section.

Free blackjack and card counting

Free blackjack is a sound way to drill basic strategy before real money is involved; the play-money tables use the same rules. Card counting is another matter. It works only when the remaining deck is tracked across hands, and a computer game that reshuffles every hand gives it nothing to work with. Live shoes are cut and reshuffled well before the end. Courses that promise a living from counting at online tables are selling something that does not exist.

Keeping the game cheap

Blackjack is only cheap if the stake stays the same size as the plan. Chasing losses by raising the bet undoes everything the strategy chart does. Set a deposit limit with the site, decide on a stopping point before the first hand, and use our responsible gambling page if the game starts setting the terms.