How to play blackjack

Card values, and hard and soft hands

Number cards count as their number. Jacks, queens and kings count as 10. An ace counts as 1 or 11, whichever is better for the hand.

A hand with an ace counted as 11 is called soft, because it can't bust on the next card: ace and 6 is soft 17. Any other hand is hard: 10 and 7 is hard 17. The difference matters, because you can safely draw to a soft 17 and you can't to a hard one.

An ace and any 10-value card as your first 2 cards is a blackjack, the best hand in the game. It's dealt about 4.7% of the time, or roughly once every 21 hands.

How a round works

1. Bet. You place your stake before any cards come out.
2. Deal. You get 2 cards face up. The dealer gets 1 face up (the upcard) and usually 1 face down (the hole card).
3. Dealer checks. If the upcard is an ace or a 10-value card, the dealer checks for blackjack. If they have it, the round ends and you lose, unless you also have blackjack, which is a tie.
4. You play. You hit, stand, double, split or surrender until you stand or bust.
5. Dealer plays. The dealer turns the hole card and must draw until reaching 17 or more. They have no choices to make.
6. Settle. Higher total wins. Equal totals are a tie (a push), and your stake comes back.

Many UK and European tables deal the dealer no hole card until you've finished. If the dealer then makes blackjack, you can lose the extra money you put in to double or split. The game's rules screen will say which version you're playing.

Your options: hit, stand, double, split, surrender

What each result pays

How the dealer plays, and how often they bust

The dealer must draw to 16 and stand on 17. On most tables that includes soft 17; some make the dealer draw to soft 17, which is slightly worse for you. Because the dealer has no choices, the chance of them busting depends almost entirely on the upcard.

These are for a dealer standing on soft 17, after they've checked for blackjack. You'll sometimes see about 12% quoted for an ace: that figure counts dealer blackjacks as hands that didn't bust. Our methodology explains how the figures are worked out.

The pattern drives most of basic strategy. Against a 4, 5 or 6 the dealer busts around 4 times in 10, so you can stand on a weak total and let them take the risk. Against a 7 or higher they bust far less, so a weak total needs improving.

Why insurance is a bad bet

When the dealer shows an ace, you're offered insurance: a side bet of half your stake that the hole card is a 10-value card. It pays 2 to 1.

Sixteen of the 52 cards in a deck are worth 10, so the hole card is a 10 about 4 times in 13. Insurance wins 2 units 4 times and loses 1 unit 9 times: a net loss of 1 unit every 13 bets, a house edge of 7.7%. That's around 15 times the edge on the main game played well. "Even money", offered when you hold a blackjack, is the same bet under another name.

Basic strategy: the rules that do most of the work

Basic strategy is the mathematically best play for every combination of your hand and the dealer's upcard, worked out by computer simulation. It doesn't remove the house edge. On standard rules it brings it down to around half a percent; playing on hunches typically costs several times that.

The chart and the rules under it are for a 4 to 8-deck game where the dealer stands on soft 17 and you can double after splitting, a common setup online. Find your hand down the side and the dealer's upcard along the top.

Hard hands

• 17 or more: always stand.
• 13 to 16: stand against a dealer 2 to 6, hit against 7 to ace. The exceptions: surrender 15 against a 10, and 16 against 9, 10 or ace, if the table lets you.
• 12: stand against 4 to 6, hit against everything else.
• 11: double against 2 to 10, hit against an ace.
• 10: double against 2 to 9, hit against a 10 or an ace.
• 9: double against 3 to 6, otherwise hit.
• 8 or less: always hit.

Soft hands

• Soft 19 or more: stand.
• Soft 18: double against 3 to 6, stand against 2, 7 or 8, hit against 9, 10 or an ace.
• Soft 17: double against 3 to 6, otherwise hit.
• Soft 15 or 16: double against 4 to 6, otherwise hit.
• Soft 13 or 14: double against 5 or 6, otherwise hit.

Pairs

• Aces and 8s: always split.
• 10s and 5s: never split. Play 5s as a hard 10.
• 9s: split against 2 to 6, 8 or 9. Stand against 7, 10 or an ace.
• 7s, 3s and 2s: split against 2 to 7, otherwise hit.
• 6s: split against 2 to 6, otherwise hit.
• 4s: split against 5 or 6, otherwise hit.

Surrender, where it's offered

• Surrender hard 16 against 9, 10 or an ace, and hard 15 against a 10.

Take the hardest hand in the game, 16 against a 10. Standing wins only if the dealer busts, which happens 23.0% of the time. Hitting busts you more often than not. Both lose most of the time; basic strategy picks the one that loses least, which is to hit (or surrender, if you can).

Practise it

Deal yourself a hand and choose your move. The trainer checks it against the chart, shows the dealer's bust chance for that upcard, and marks the cell on the chart. It plays no money: it's for learning the decisions.

Table rules that change the house edge

Small print on the table changes the maths more than any decision you make. These figures are Wizard of Odds simulation results, compared with an 8-deck game where the dealer stands on soft 17 and you can double after splitting. A minus sign means the rule costs you.

Source: Wizard of Odds, blackjack rule variations, checked 7 October 2026.

The 6 to 5 payout is the one to watch. You can check it from first principles: a blackjack comes up 4.73% of the time, the dealer fails to match it almost every time, and each one pays 0.3 of a stake less. That works out at 1.35% of every stake, close to the simulated figure and more than double the whole house edge of a good table.

Card counting online

Card counting tracks which cards have left a shoe. In a land-based game it can shift the odds slightly, and casinos can refuse to deal to players they think are counting. It doesn't work on standard online blackjack, where a random number generator deals from a fresh shuffle every hand. Live dealer games use large shoes and shuffle well before the end, which leaves a counter very little to work with. Basic strategy is the useful skill.

Online and live dealer blackjack

Online blackjack comes as a computer game, where a random number generator deals the cards, or as live dealer blackjack, streamed from a studio with real cards. The maths in this guide applies to both. What changes from table to table is the rules: number of decks, soft 17, the blackjack payout, doubling, surrender and the hole card.

Side bets such as Perfect Pairs and 21+3 carry a much higher house edge than the main game played well. Before you sit down, open the game's rules or help screen: it lists the payouts and the return to player for the main game and every side bet.

Blackjack questions