How to Play Blackjack
Blackjack is played against the dealer, not against the other people at the table. You and the dealer each receive two cards, you play your hand first, and the hand closer to 21 wins, as long as it does not go over. A total above 21 is a bust, and a bust loses the stake.
This page covers the mechanics: the round, the card values, each action and dealer rule, and how every result is paid. Which action is right for a given hand is the subject of the basic strategy guide. What each rule costs or saves in house edge is priced on the blackjack odds page, and the blackjack overview compares how the variants bend these rules.
A Round, Step by Step
- Place your bet: choose a chip value and put the stake in the betting circle before any card is dealt. Side bets, where the table offers them, are placed at the same moment in their own spots.
- The deal: you receive two cards face up. The dealer gets an upcard, dealt face up, and on most tables a hole card, dealt face down.
- The dealer checks: an ace showing brings an insurance offer first. A dealer holding a hole card then looks at it under an ace or ten-value upcard, and a dealer blackjack ends the round there.
- Your turn: act on your first two cards by hitting, standing, doubling, splitting or surrendering, as the table allows, and keep going until you stand or bust.
- The dealer's turn: the hole card is turned over and the dealer draws by a fixed rule, with no choices, until reaching 17 or more or going bust.
- Settlement: each hand still standing is compared with the dealer's total and paid, pushed or collected. The cards are cleared and a new round can begin.
A blackjack, also called a natural, means your opening two cards are an ace and any ten-value card. It beats every other total of 21 and is paid at a premium, unless the dealer holds one too, which makes the round a push.
What Each Card Counts
These values hold on every blackjack table, whatever the number of decks. The one game that alters the mix of cards is Spanish 21, which takes the ten-spot cards out of each deck while the jacks, queens and kings stay.
Your Options on a Hand
The game offers each option only while it applies, and some tables leave out surrender altogether or narrow the totals you can double on. The right choice for each hand and upcard is set out in the strategy charts, and each option whose name is a link has a page on what it is worth.
Splits and Doubles in Detail
A split turns one hand into two, each carrying its own stake. Each new hand keeps one of the original cards and draws a second, and from there each is played out and paid or collected independently, so one can win while the other loses. If the second card makes a pair again, most tables let you split once more, up to four hands in all.
Split aces follow a stricter rule than other pairs. Each split ace receives one card only, with no further hits, and on most tables a second ace cannot be split again. A split ace that draws a ten-value card makes an ordinary 21, not a blackjack, and is paid 1:1. Some tables allow resplitting or hitting split aces, and the pair splitting guide shows how much each of those rules gives back to the player.
The rule: Once a hand is split, a two-card 21 counts as plain 21, and split aces usually draw one card each, so the premium pay and the freedom to keep drawing are both gone.
Doubling down matches the original stake in exchange for exactly one card, after which the hand stands. A table that offers double after split, written DAS on rule cards, lets you double on a hand created by a split. Which totals are worth the extra stake against each upcard is the subject of the doubling guide. Where the dealer takes no hole card, a dealer blackjack can also collect what you added by doubling or splitting, a rule the European blackjack page examines.
How the Dealer Plays
The dealer makes no decisions at any point in the round. Each table prints its drawing rule, and the dealer follows it on every hand: draw on 16 or less, stand on 17 or more. A dealer who busts pays every hand still in play, while a player hand that busted earlier has already lost, even if the dealer busts afterward.
The point where tables differ is soft 17, any 17 that includes an ace still counted as 11, such as A,6. Under the rule printed S17, or dealer stands on all 17s, the dealer stands on it. Under H17, the dealer hits soft 17 and stops only at a hard 17 or a soft 18 or higher. Drawing gives the dealer a chance to improve a total that loses to any 18, so H17 is the costlier rule for the player, by an amount the soft 17 rule page measures at every deck count.
With a hole card, the dealer peeks at it whenever the upcard is an ace or a ten-value card, and a dealer blackjack is revealed before you act, so only the original stake is lost. That check is the defining rule of American classic blackjack. Without a hole card, the dealer's second card is dealt only after every player has finished.
How Each Result Is Paid
Pays are written as a ratio of winnings to stake, and the stake itself comes back on top: 3:2 means 3 units won for every 2 staked. A table that pays blackjack at 6:5 instead of 3:2 is making one of the costliest rule changes in the game, which the blackjack payouts page puts a number on.
Table Terms
Rule cards and game screens lean on a shorthand of their own, from upcard, shoe and stiff to S17, DAS and RSA, and every one of those terms is defined in plain words in the blackjack glossary.
How to Play Blackjack: FAQs
You lose. Your hand is settled the moment it goes over 21, before the dealer plays, so a later dealer bust cannot rescue it. Because the player always acts first and pays for a bust first, the house keeps an advantage in a game where both sides draw from the same cards.
On most tables, yes, since any two ten-value cards count as a pair. Some games insist on a true pair, such as two kings or two queens. Either way, splitting a total of 20 means breaking up one of the strongest hands you can hold.
No. Their choices change which cards reach you, but nobody can know what the next card is, so your chances on any hand stay the same whatever they do. On an online table the hand is usually yours alone anyway.
No. Surrender is only offered as your first decision on the opening two cards. Once you hit, double or split, the option is gone, and the hands created by a split cannot be surrendered either.