Blackjack

1. Betting opens. Everyone at the table puts up a bet. You have 45 seconds to do it.
2. Two cards to each player, two to the dealer, one of the dealer’s face down.
3. If the dealer is showing an ace, insurance is offered before anything else.
4. Each seat plays its hand in turn.
5. The dealer turns over the hole card and draws.
6. Every hand is settled against the dealer’s.

Your bet has to be an even number of chips. That is not fussiness: blackjack pays three chips for every two staked, and an odd bet cannot be paid exactly.

Hit

Take another card. You can keep hitting until you stand or go over 21.

Stand

Stop. Your hand is what it is.

Double

Double your bet, take exactly one more card, and stop. Only on the first two cards of a hand, and only if you can cover the extra bet.

Split

With two cards of the same value, pay a second bet and play them as two hands — a king and a queen are both worth ten, so they split. You can split up to four hands in total. Split aces get one card each and then stand, and a blackjack made from split cards does not count as blackjack.

Surrender

Give up the hand and keep half your bet. Only as your first decision, on a two-card hand you have not split.

Insurance

Offered only when the dealer shows an ace. It costs half your bet and is a separate wager on the dealer having blackjack.

Even money

Offered only when you have blackjack and the dealer shows an ace. It sells your hand at 1 to 1 immediately, instead of waiting to see whether the dealer also has blackjack and the hand pushes.

Blackjack means an ace and a ten-value card on your first two cards. A hand that reaches 21 in three or more cards is not blackjack, and loses to one that is.

• The dealer draws to 16 and stands on 17.
• A natural beats a drawn 21; only another natural ties it.
• A natural against an ace may take even money and be paid 1 to 1 at once.
• Insurance is offered against an ace, costs half your bet, and is settled on its own.
• You may double or split on the first two cards of a hand; a split needs two cards of the same value, so a king and a queen count as a pair.
• You may surrender your first two cards and keep half your stake.
• The dealer never looks at the hole card before you play, so a natural in the hole takes your original bet only: a double or a split comes back.
• This is the one table that withholds: 0.24% of what you win, never of the stake coming back, and the Withholding Tax upgrade takes it to nothing.

Those are the settings a fresh table opens with, and the shoe is reshuffled when it runs low. A server can change any of them — the table’s own Rules panel is the authority on the table in front of you.

Blackjack is the one game where the house keeps a small slice of a win, on top of the edge the game already has. It is a fraction of a percent, and one of the upgrades removes it — see Levels and upgrades.