3:2 vs 6:5 Blackjack Payouts
Only one hand in blackjack carries a payout of its own: the natural, a two-card hand made of an ace and a card worth ten. Every other winning hand is paid 1:1 at any table. The natural pays 3:2 on a standard table, 6:5 on many others, and 1:1 on a few games built around other rules. Read as ratios, 3:2 pays three units for every two staked, one and a half times the bet; 6:5 pays six for every five, one and a fifth times; 1:1 pays the bet itself.
This page compares the three by deck count and turns the difference into money over a session. The order of a round is laid out in how to play blackjack, while the rule tables on the blackjack odds page price everything else a table can change.
Why One Hand Moves the Whole Game
On a 10-unit bet, a natural wins 15 units at 3:2, 12 at 6:5 and 10 at 1:1. The gap on a single hand looks modest, but the hand is common: from six decks the player is dealt a natural on 4.75% of rounds, about once every 21. Each of those naturals is paid less, except the few the dealer matches with a blackjack of its own, which push whatever the payout.
Spread across every round, cutting the payout from 3:2 to 6:5 raises the house edge by 1.36 percentage points from six decks, and a cut to 1:1 raises it by 2.27. Played with basic strategy, the standard 3:2 game costs the player 0.41% of each bet; the same game at 6:5 costs 1.77%, and at 1:1 2.67%.
The key number: A 6:5 payout adds 1.36 points to a six-deck game whose entire house edge at 3:2 is 0.41%, so the one line in the rules outweighs everything else on the table several times over.
No decision at the table can win that back. The natural is settled the moment it is dealt, before any choice to hit, stand, double or split, so the payout is a fixed charge on the game rather than something better play can reduce.
House Edge at 3:2, 6:5 and 1:1 by Deck Count
Every row keeps the standard rules otherwise: the dealer peeks under an ace or ten and stays on all 17s, any two cards can be doubled, split hands included, and pairs split to four hands. Each figure assumes basic strategy for that rule set, with a new shuffle before every round. At one deck and 3:2 the player, not the house, holds the small edge.
What a Lower Payout Adds to the House Edge
A point here means one unit given up for every 100 units staked as initial bets. Naturals come slightly more often from fewer decks, because an ace dealt from a small deck leaves a larger share of tens behind it, so a cut in the payout bites a little harder at one deck than in a shoe.
The Cost Over 100 Rounds
Points are easier to judge as money. Take 100 rounds at a flat 10 units a round. From six decks a 6:5 payout takes 13.6 units more than 3:2 over those rounds, and a 1:1 payout takes 22.7 units more. From one deck the figures are 13.9 and 23.2 units, and from eight decks 13.6 and 22.6.
The cost grows in step with the stake and the number of rounds: double the bet and the shortfall doubles, and twice as many rounds double it again. These are long-run averages. Over any one sitting the ordinary swing of wins and losses is far larger than the payout difference, so a session at a 6:5 table can still finish ahead, and one at 3:2 can still finish behind. Play only with money you can afford to lose.
In short: At 10 units a round, a 6:5 table charges about 13.6 extra units every 100 rounds from six decks, on top of the house edge the game already carries.
How to Spot the Payout Before You Play
On a casino table the payout is printed on the felt, usually as "Blackjack pays 3 to 2" or "Blackjack pays 6 to 5" in an arc above the betting spots, next to the insurance line. Online, the figure appears on the help or rules page of the game, normally reached through an information or menu button, where the list of payouts names the blackjack figure on its own line.
Three things give the game away. A 6:5 line can look like the better deal at a glance because its numbers are larger, so it helps to read each ratio as a multiple of the bet. Some games put the payout in their name. And a help screen that quotes a return to player shows the cut indirectly: the 6:5 version of a game quotes a lower return than its 3:2 version by about the cost in the table on this page.
Every game in our free blackjack library opens its rules screen without an account, so the payout line can be read before any money is involved. After the payout, the next line worth finding is whether the dealer draws to soft 17 or stays on it, explained on the soft 17 rule page.
Where Lower Payouts Come From
The usual home of 6:5 is the single-deck table, where the one deck looks generous and is not. Under a dealer who hits soft 17, with no doubling after a split, the 6:5 game gives the house 1.58% of every bet, and a six-deck shoe paying 3:2 under the same soft 17 rule only 0.62%; the single deck blackjack page works through the trade.
Two games pay 1:1 by design rather than as a cut. Blackjack Switch pays a natural even money as part of the price of trading second cards between two hands. Double Exposure blackjack does the same, one of the two rules that pay for seeing both of the dealer's cards.
A 1:1 table is not the same thing as accepting even money on a standard table. Even money is the offer a natural receives when the dealer turns up an ace, and its price is set out on the blackjack insurance page.
Blackjack Payouts FAQ
No. The payout applies only to a natural, which is paid the moment it appears, so every decision on every other hand is made exactly as before. The same chart serves both tables; the 6:5 game simply returns less for the same play.
Not necessarily. A standard table that cuts its natural to 1:1 gives nothing back, but games designed around an even-money natural pair it with rules in the player's favor, such as trading cards between two hands or seeing both dealer cards. Judge those games by their overall house edge, not by the payout line alone.
No. Side bets carry their own pay tables, printed separately in the rules, and are settled on their own terms. A table can pay 6:5 on the main hand and still offer side bets with ordinary pay tables, or the other way round, so each line is worth reading on its own.
Yes. With every other rule held equal, the lower payout returns less on each natural and changes nothing else, so it can only cost the player. The size of that cost moves a little with the deck count, but it never turns into a gain.