Perfect Pairs
Perfect Pairs is a side bet on the player's first two cards being a pair, two cards of the same rank. It pays three grades of pair: a mixed pair, one red card and one black, such as 8♥ 8♠; a colored pair, two different suits of one color, such as 8♥ 8♦; and a perfect pair, the identical card twice, such as 8♥ 8♥, which only a shoe of two decks or more can deal. The bet is settled the moment the two cards land.
Only rank makes a pair here, so a jack with a king does not count even though both are worth ten. The bet sits beside the main hand without changing it, and the other side bets are priced against it on the blackjack side bets page.
Play Perfect Pairs Blackjack Free
Every table here puts a pairs bet beside the main hand, though Royal Pairs, Jackpot Pairs and Power Pairs may pay lines the standard schedules lack. Read each game's pay screen against the four schedules above before turning the bet on.
How Often Each Pair Lands
The chance of each grade on the player's first two cards. Counting all three grades, the first two cards form a pair on 7.40% of deals from six decks and 7.47% from eight. Mixed pairs are the most common grade because a red card can meet a black one in more ways than two cards of one color can meet.
Four Pay Tables, One to Eight Decks
Pays are to one, listed for the perfect, colored and mixed pair in that order. Each figure is the house edge, the average part of a Perfect Pairs stake lost per bet. On one deck the perfect line can never pay, which is what drives the one-deck figures so high.
Cheap Tables and Dear Ones
On six or eight decks the cheapest of the four is 30/10/5, at 5.79% and 3.37% respectively. It moves value onto the perfect pair, which a big shoe deals often enough to carry the extra. On four decks or fewer the order flips: 30/10/5 costs 10.63% on four decks against 10.14% for 25/12/6, because a short shoe so rarely deals the same card twice.
The mixed pair is the line to check first. It is the most common grade, so each unit taken off its pay costs more than a unit taken off either of the other two lines. The 25/10/5 table, which also pays the colored pair 10 instead of 12, is the dearest of the four on two decks or more, at 13.83% on six decks.
The key number: Paying a mixed pair 5 to 1 instead of 6 to 1 lifts the six-deck cost of the bet from 6.11% to 9.97%.
Every one of these prices climbs as the shoe gets smaller, for the reason given under deck count in the side bets comparison.
Perfect Pairs in Our Library
Two games here carry the bet under its own name: Perfect Pairs Blackjack from Arrow's Edge and Blackjack Perfect Pairs Multihand from Gaming Corps.
Three more build a pairs bet into the table under a name of their own: Blackjack Royal Pairs from iSoftBet, Blackjack Jackpot Pairs from PlayJeux and Power Pairs Aces High Blackjack from HITSqwad. Their schedules can add lines or change them, so none of the prices above applies to one of them until its pay table on screen has been compared line by line.
Perfect Pairs FAQ
Yes. The bet is settled as soon as the first two cards are dealt, so a split, a double or a bust afterward cannot change what it paid. The pair is then played like any other, and whether to split it depends on its rank and the dealer's upcard alone.
No. This version looks only at the player's two cards. Some games offer a different bet that pays when either the player or the dealer is dealt a pair, and that bet has its own schedule and its own price, which the figures on this page do not cover.
Not on these schedules. The bet pays by grade, and the rank of the pair plays no part: two aces of different colors pay the same mixed-pair odds as two twos. Some games under other names add pays for particular ranks, so the pay table on screen is the only guide.
Yes. They read different cards, Perfect Pairs only the player's two and 21+3 those two with the dealer's upcard. Two eights of hearts dealt against an eight of hearts showing would pay a perfect pair and a suited three of a kind at once, though that deal is extremely rare.