How to Play Casino Blackjack: Card Values, Actions and Settlement

Casino blackjack is played against the dealer, not against the other players. You win if your hand finishes closer to 21 than the dealer’s without going over, and you lose at once if you go over. Number cards count at face value, jacks, queens and kings count 10, and an ace counts 1 or 11. After the first two cards you can hit, stand, double, split, and, when the dealer shows an ace, take insurance; some tables also offer surrender. A win pays 1:1, a blackjack pays 3:2 at every live table whose rules we read in Canada, a tie returns your bet, and insurance pays 2:1. The details move from table to table: Loto-Québec’s standard rules use 8 decks and have the dealer stand on soft 17, while BetMGM’s live American Blackjack in Ontario has the dealer hit soft 17.

What is each card worth?

• 2 to 10: face value.
• Jack, queen and king: 10 each.
• Ace: 1 or 11, whichever helps the hand.

A hand that counts an ace as 11 is “soft”. Ace and 6 is a soft 17, and it cannot go over 21 on the next card because the ace can drop back to 1. A hand without that flexibility is “hard”: 10 and 7 is a hard 17. An ace with any 10-value card as your first two cards is a blackjack, also called a natural, and it beats any other hand of 21.

The live tables we read all deal from a shoe of eight decks: Loto-Québec’s Blackjack, Infinite, Speed, Free Bet and Lightning Blackjack, PlayNow’s Live, Infinite and Speed Blackjack, and both BetMGM tables in Ontario. Loto-Québec’s Power Blackjack also uses eight decks but takes the 9s and 10s out of each one.

How does a round run?

1. You bet within the table’s limits before betting closes.
2. Each player gets two cards face up. The dealer gets one card face up and, depending on the table, a second card face down (the hole card) or no second card until the players have finished.
3. Players decide what to do with their hands.
4. The dealer completes the hand by a fixed rule: draw on 16 or less, stand on 17 or more, with one variation on soft 17 explained below.
5. Bets are settled.

Live tables change how step 3 happens. In Loto-Québec’s Speed Blackjack, the fastest decision gets the next card first. Infinite Blackjack has no seat limit: every player shares the same starting cards and makes their own decisions. BetMGM’s live American Blackjack has seven seats, so players act one after another.

What can you do with your hand?

• Hit: take another card. You can keep hitting until you stand or go over 21.
• Stand: keep your total and end your turn.
• Double: add a second bet equal to the first and take exactly one more card. Loto-Québec’s standard rules allow it on any two initial cards. BetMGM’s American Blackjack also allows it after a split; Loto-Québec’s and PlayNow’s standard rules do not.
• Split: when your first two cards are a pair, separate them into two hands and place a second bet of the same size on the new hand. Loto-Québec allows one split per hand and deals one card to each split ace; BetMGM’s American Blackjack does not let you hit split aces.
• Insurance: when the dealer shows an ace, a side bet that the dealer has blackjack, usually up to half your main bet. It pays 2:1.
• Surrender: at tables that offer it, give up half the bet and end the hand. Both BetMGM live tables state there is no late surrender.

Which of these you get, and when, is set by each table’s rules. That is why two tables with the same name at different casinos can play differently.

How are bets settled?

One row carries most of the house’s advantage. You act before the dealer, so a hand that goes over 21 loses on the spot, even if the dealer later goes over too. The dealer never faces that risk first.

A dealer blackjack is handled differently from table to table. Loto-Québec’s Lightning Blackjack rules have the dealer check for blackjack when showing an ace, so if the dealer has one, the round ends before anyone doubles or splits. Loto-Québec’s Infinite Blackjack rules say the dealer does not peek at the hole card for blackjack. BetMGM’s Unlimited Blackjack says the entire player bet is lost against a dealer blackjack, which means money added by doubling or splitting is lost too.

What does “dealer stands on soft 17” mean?

It tells you what the dealer does with ace and 6. Where the dealer stands on soft 17, the dealer keeps 17 and stops. Where the dealer hits soft 17, the dealer draws again and can improve to a total between 18 and 21, or turn the hand into a hard total and keep drawing. Hitting soft 17 gives the dealer extra chances to beat a 17 or 18, which is why it is the rule that favours the house. Every Loto-Québec and PlayNow table we read stands on soft 17, as does BetMGM’s Unlimited Blackjack. BetMGM’s American Blackjack hits soft 17. Our blackjack rules and table conditions page compares 19 live tables rule by rule.

How often do you get a blackjack, and what is it worth?

With eight decks, the chance of a natural is about 2 × (32/416) × (128/415), or roughly 4.7% of hands: 32 aces and 128 ten-value cards in a 416-card shoe. At 3:2, a $10 blackjack pays $15. At 6:5, the same hand pays $12. We found no 6:5 rule in any live rules document we read in Canada, but a table’s felt or rules panel is the place to confirm it.

Is insurance worth taking?

The arithmetic says no. With eight decks and the dealer showing an ace, 128 of the remaining 415 cards are 10-value, if you ignore the cards already dealt to players. The dealer then has blackjack about 30.8% of the time. A $5 insurance bet wins $10 with probability 0.308 and loses $5 with probability 0.692: 0.308 × 10 minus 0.692 × 5 is 3.08 minus 3.46, or minus 0.38. On average you give up about 38 cents for every $5 of insurance, roughly 7.5% of the side bet. A 2:1 payout breaks even only if the dealer has blackjack one time in three.

What we could not confirm

• Table limits at BetMGM’s live blackjack tables: the help pages give the rules but not the limits.
• Rules at tables whose rules panel opens only after login, at several casinos we checked. Surrender, doubling after a split and the dealer’s soft-17 rule cannot be confirmed for those tables from public pages.

Check the rules at your table

Before your first hand, open the table’s rules or help panel and find five lines: the blackjack payout (3 to 2 or 6 to 5), what the dealer does on soft 17, the number of decks, when you may double and split, and whether the dealer checks for blackjack. Those five lines tell you more about a table than its name does. Our guide to basic strategy and how table rules change the decision chart shows which rules move which decisions, and our page on how live dealer games work covers betting windows and voided rounds.